MADISON, WI — State lawmakers weigh in on a new survey on freedom of expression on U-W System campuses. The poll found that a third of students believed administrators should ban speakers with whom they disagree–and more than half said they would support banishment based on the circumstances. State Senator Kelda Roys of Madison doesn’t support administrators getting involved.
“I think in a lot of the cases that have sort of been elevated,” she said. “What you have is it’s not the college that’s invited these speakers. You have student groups that are inviting these provocateurs with the idea of getting some press, creating some controversy which they have every right to do. And so I don’t think it’s the administration’s job to be inviting or disinviting fringe groups on campus to do things.”
Roys adds that students opposed to speakers should also be allowed to protest and disrupt such events on campus.
Representative Dave Murphy of Greenville, however, is concerned by how many students believe administrators should ban speakers with whom they do not agree.
“It’s scary to me,” Murphy said, “That almost a third, very strongly, want the administration to disinvited people. And over half believe it’s somewhat important for them to do that.”
Murphy also wants to address a finding in the poll that 57-percent of students said they had wanted to express an opinion in class but did not out of fear of retribution.
When the survey results were released Wednesday, U-W System President Jay Rothman expressed the importance of exchanging diverse viewpoints and dialogue.
“We can’t be afraid of the truth,” he said during a news conference at U-W Oshkosh. “And what the survey shows us, we want to make sure we get ourselves better. It is important that our universities continue to be marketplaces for ideas where divergent opinions can be shared, debated and discussed. And I think that at the end of the day is a bipartisan issue.”
