The Code is Law...Follow the Code

PrawfsBlawg links to an interesting article reviewing "Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus". It presents an interesting perspective on the academic freedom wars. While scathingly (and justifiably) critical of campus speech codes, he is also firmly committed to a multicultural education, one

that reflect[s] the simple and straightforward educational imperative out of which multiculturalism’s legitimate demands flow: We must study other peoples and places because we cannot understand humanity - our own included - without acquainting ourselves with the variety of ways of being human.

Although I have some sympathies to the goal, speech and conduct codes are suspect for several reasons. For one, there is no institutional competence or neutrality in resolving claims. Campuses adopt speech codes because they are committed to a particular political agenda. This very same committment, however, taints the very people (likely faculty members or administrations) who would be conducting the hearings. This can explain why many colleges have abhorrently low levels of procedural protection for the accused. Second, prevailing social environments on campus are very different than social realities in general. In normal society, prejudice and discrimination is pretty much limited to the traditional racist/sexist/heterosexist/anti-Semetic(/other minority religion) lines. In colleges, by contrast, this is supplemented (though by no means replaced) by feelings of hostility towards conservatives and religious persons (especially Christians). Most colleges have not acknowledged this fact, since it is their very core structures that help reify and enable this prejudice. However, given the reality of much "hate speech" cases (conservative student A expressing a "traditionalist" view of a certain group, to which B belongs), this critically wounds any hope of neutrality amongst the college. Finally, colleges have no institutional traditions suitable to resolving this dispute. Being a Professor is a polemical position. It is based off forwarding and defending particular positions. Unlike legal system, which has historically rooted practices which help guard against biased results (stare decisis, incrementalism, presumption of impartiality), colleges have no similar constraining traditions, making them even more vulnerable to the types of political bias I described above. Of course, panel members may feel a compulsion toward impartiality for other reasons--for example, a feeling of duty--but this is a far weaker foundation (for example, a professor could as easily feel a compulsion to see that the guilty are punished, or to assure that "justice is done").