Can we talk about that free speech wall at UW Madison?

I was walking through Library Mall last Tuesday and saw that big chalkboard the College Republicans set up for people to write whatever they want. Normally I just walk past, but this time I stopped to watch for about 15 minutes. Some guy wrote a pretty harsh take on affirmative action, and a student next to me started filming him while muttering about reporting him to the dean. Nobody actually confronted him, just the filming. It got me thinking about how even when a space is specifically set up for open expression, there's this unspoken social cost to using it. I used to think free speech on campus was just about official policies, but that day I saw how peer pressure and phone cameras can chill speech way more than any rule. Has anyone else noticed this informal censorship happening at your school, where people self-censor because of what friends or classmates might think?

2 comments

2 Comments

charles_chen9317d ago

Hmm, I kinda think people care less about this than you're assuming, but fair point.

thompson.robin17d ago

Been there too man. I started carrying a pocket notebook and just writing my own stuff down instead of using the public boards. Saves the headache of someone recording me for a dumb tweet. At my school I saw a girl get a pic snapped of her at one of those boards and it got posted on a campus meme page with everyone ripping on her take. The trick is to either use a fake name or find the quieter spots where those boards get set up like near the far end of the mall where less foot traffic is. People act like the phone cameras are just documenting but they're really policing what you can say.