The workgroup tasked with looking at Syracuse University’s free speech policies has started meeting, and its members are hoping to look at ways the policy can be improved moving forward.

The Student Association and Graduate Student Organization have raised concerns that the current Computer and Electronic Communications Policy is too “vague” and “broad” when it comes to free speech. Last month, Chancellor Kent Syverud created a workgroup to address these concerns.

The workgroup includes four students, two undergraduate and two graduate, one faculty member and one staff member. David Rubin, a professor and dean emeritus of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, will act as the leader of the workgroup.

The group met for the first time last week. Only four members of the group were able to attend the meeting, but Rubin said they have planned a number of other meetings and hope to get most of the work done before the student members of the group leave SU for the summer.

At the first meeting, Rubin said they started defining the goals and main questions that the group hopes to address, including whether the group should look at free speech only as it applies to electronic communication or if it should broaden its focus to include other forms of speech. He said it’s difficult to write one policy that applies to everything.

“So, for me, the goal is to try to establish the basic principles that we agree on, to look at some of the most common kinds of issues, offer our view on those common issues that are likely to come up often and then hope that the basic principles that we offer will help guide people on the campus as they confront other issues,” he said.

Although Rubin said there is a need for versatility in the policy, one of the reasons the workgroup was formed was because of complaints that is was too broad and all-encompassing.

“The students want to make sure that their speech rights are protected,” said Janine Bogris, a freshman member of the workgroup. “It’s very important. I know a lot of people have felt like they can’t express themselves and we talked about featuring the students and featuring some others on our campus.”

She added that the group wants to gather different opinions on the issue to see how students and faculty members feel about free speech rights. Then, she said, the group can incorporate those ideas into improving the university as a whole.

“Although none of us condone offensive speech, we were talking about how you can’t really create laws against it because it is still our freedom of speech,” Bogris said. “It is still our right to speak our mind.”

Bogris said although most of the members of the group lean more toward the side of allowing more free speech, they are still able to understand and consider both sides of the argument.

“We are going to discuss all the different viewpoints,” Bogris said. “Although we all are for free speech, we do still see things differently and it is good we did get into some conversation where there were slight disagreements on certain policy, but it was all constructive and we all were taking that into account.”

Published on March 30, 2015 at 11:18 pm

Contact: clmoran@syr.edu