If you know me, then you know I hate Ohio State. But…I have to give props to the Board of Trustees. It’s a shame we have to even give props for this!The Big Ten university’s trustees passed an interim resolution on speech at its August 18 meeting. The resolution stems from a lawby Republican Governor Mike DeWine in 2020 that requires public universities in the state to protect free speech.
“Students have a fundamental constitutional right to free speech,” the resolution states.
It is for the university’s individual students and faculty to make judgments about ideas for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress free speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose. “It is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from free speech, including ideas and opinions they find offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical, or wrong-headed,” the trustees wrote in the resolution.
It also creates a “process under which a student, student group, or faculty member may submit a complaint about an alleged violation by an employee of the university for violations,” of the speech resolution.