Confederate Symbols, Swastikas and Student Sensibilities; New York Times, 7/31/15

Joseph Berger, New York Times; Confederate Symbols, Swastikas and Student Sensibilities:

"PROTECTING STUDENTS FROM OFFENSE

Colleges must acknowledge that memorials to slavery advocates “might be hurtful to their students and should take proactive measures to remove them or address these sentiments,” says Mitchell J. Chang, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose research focuses on campus diversity programs. “For African-American students, these are reminders that they are second-class citizens, that there’s a certain racial order in the country’s history and that it’s still playing out on campus.”

Students who display imagery that offends, he says, would benefit from the “teachable moments” that can ensue if they are challenged, he says. Last fall, two women at Bryn Mawr mounted a Confederate flag in their dormitory as an expression of Southern pride and declined to take it down until angry demonstrations erupted.

“Students are often naïve about what that flag means to other people, that others may view it as very aggressive behavior,” Dr. Chang says. “This is why students come to college, to learn that their interpretation of a symbol may not be universally shared by everyone. By the time they leave college, they should understand what the repercussions may be.”

Echoing that view, Benjamin D. Reese Jr., a vice president and chief diversity officer at Duke, emphasizes that in a multicultural world, students need to understand the nuanced “difference between intention and impact.”...

SAFEGUARDING FREE SPEECH

Those who take a more expansive view of free speech insist that officials often overreact in their eagerness not to offend. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education was quick to remind the George Washington University that even Nazi-style swastikas are protected by the First Amendment.

State schools cannot ban them under constitutional free-speech protections unless displayed in the course of an illegality, like vandalism or “a threat of imminent violence,” says John F. Banzhaf III, a professor of law at G.W. While the courts have given private organizations more leeway, he says, as a practical matter private colleges would also be subject to the constitutional law because their handbooks boast of respecting free speech."