Fischer: Free speech zone ethically viable

Dan O'Day
The Advocate

Last week, as bands played in front of the bookstore and new students at Mt. Hood Community College got acquainted with their new campus, student activists and non-student vendors lined the courtyard with folding tables and freely exercised their first amendment rights.

As long as they were careful not to stray from the school’s designated “free speech zone”, that is.

The “free speech zone” spans from the western wall of the main mall, covering the entire courtyard down to the student theatre and the college center. The area specifically designated for speech (walking around instead of sitting behind a table) is the raised square in the middle of the courtyard at the foot of the large stairway.

Is it constitutional to relegate student expression to a single part of the campus? Associate Vice President of Student Development and Services Joe Fischer says yes, but cynics speak of an “intellectual quarantine” that they say can be read as censorship.

Proximity is only one of the operational procedures regarding free speech activities covered in MHCC Board Policy.

Before setting up either a folding table or a soapbox, all individuals and groups must fill out an “exhibitor/vendor agreement”, and pay a $30 registration fee.
Fischer says the fee is there to discourage scam artists such as the group of people who went around campus selling fake magazine subscriptions last year (Advocate vol. 39, issue 2,”Magazine sellers escorted off campus”).

He also spoke of times before the school legislated a “free speech zone”, when solicitors and preachers alike roamed the halls, stood outside classroom doors and harassed students as they left, and in some cases physically deterred students who tried to hurry past.

“People said they don’t want to be interrupted [when they are at school trying to learn],” said Fischer.

He pointed out that college campuses all over America have similar “free speech zone” policies, and many of them don’t place the area in such an optimal location, or will severely limit behavior if the “free speech zone” is in a central hub of the school that is difficult for students to circumvent on their way from one class to the next.

At MHCC, registered exhibitors “will not be censored”, said Fischer. “Atheist or Christian, yes on 36 or no on 36… ethically we can’t censor [students] and protect the mission of the college, which is pursuing education first and foremost.”

Fischer spoke of “speech codes” that some other schools still utilize, even though the Supreme Court has ruled against them consistently.

While he maintains that, unlike such “speech codes”, “free speech zones” are perfectly constitutional, though the ACLU has repeatedly criticized both “free speech zones” and “protest zones”.

Gary Young of The National Law Journal has warned that, “Such zones are vulnerable to challenge if used as a kind of banishment that isolates speakers from their intended audience.”

Fischer seemed to acknowledge that point as he defended the school’s decision to place the “free speech zone” in the main mall.

“There are issues that need to be debated,” said Fischer, “[some people’s messages] may cause discomfort, but sometimes that’s when beliefs are challenged. To me what’s most important is that people can educate themselves.”