During Thursday and Friday this week, I attended a retreat of UCC faculty as part of our beginning-of-the-school-year inservice activities. The event was held at the Big K Guest Ranch in Elkton, Oregon (about 30 miles from here). The place is truly in the middle of nowhere. After driving about 18 miles north of (I-5 Exit 136) Sutherlin on Highway 138W, you take a right-hand turn onto a gravel road and proceed onward for another four miles…an experience bound to rattle your bones and car frame, even at 15 mph. However, the setting is quite idyllic, and a great spot for a group our size to get away and do some retreat-type work. The organizers constructed a very worthwhile agenda, and I was amazed at the effort and energy expended to make this a wonderfully-successful experience for everybody.

A lot of the time together was spent in small groups, examining topics relevant to both new and returning instructors. Even though I am not an instructor anymore [I was one of two administrators present (the other being the college president)], I found I was able to participate fully. And, the greatest benefit to me was getting to know faculty from my new, large division (as well as the entire campus).

On the final day, yesterday, we held discussions (during both the morning and afternoon sessions) on a variety of hypothetical ethical-dilemma situations. The final scenario involved a student who wore a t-shirt to class that had a (unidentified) racially-offensive message on it. The questions: what to do? How to handle this?

A variety of perspectives were offered. One person offered thoughts about a dress-code. Others provided suggestions aimed at trying to control student behavior and, hence, suppression of the t-shirt’s message.

I could not hold my tongue. At the end of the discussion (and our time together), I raised my hand. I offered the thought that a t-shirt was not offensive in and of itself, and that this was neither a dress code nor a student-conduct issue, but rather a free-speech one. Freedom of expression is one of our most cherished and important constitutional rights, I said, and that, especially in a college environment (where we are presumably devoted to a free exchange of ideas), we cannot stomp on such a fundamental American freedom. I observed that quite a number of campuses over the last couple of decades have attempted to restrict student behavior with speech codes, virtually all of which had been struck down by the courts on constitutional grounds. I tried to convey the message, and personal (legal?) opinion, that we cannot attempt to silence a student merely because his or her message might be offensive to some.

Of course, I likely sounded like an over-the-top civil libertarian. And, I know, I delivered this message with some degree of passion, but hopefully not so extreme as to offend my new colleagues. The ACLU has an excellent summary of this issue on their website, as well as descriptions of many specific cases involving freedom of expression (including t-shirts).