The Importance Of Hate Speech In College

In order to regulate hate speech you first have to decide what qualifies as hate speech. If colleges were to have speech codes then it would be them choosing what does or does not fall under the term hate speech. One philosopher who would disagree with programs such as these is Donald Allen. Allen warned about what happens when a state, or in this case colleges, try to decide what is moral. He said that an overbearing state would lead to a state of paternalism, taking away people's ability to decide for themselves what is right or wrong. If colleges regulate hate speech then when students ultimately graduate and go out into the world they will be less able to make their own decisions on moral issues.
Immanuel Kant is another philosopher that would most likely disagree with colleges regulating hate speech. Kant believed in that people, as adults, have the ability to reason. As Kant states "The only thing needed for such enlightenment is freedom, and particularly…the …show more content…
First, it can take away form the students ability to make moral decisions. Also regulating hate speech can take away learning opportunities from the students. Being exposed to views that are out in the world, no matter if they may be wrong or just something you disagree with, is important. College can serve as a good place for these conversations about these controversial topics to happen.
I think that my debate team did well in creating thorough arguments against the regulation of hate speech on college campuses. I think our opening statement was very well. We worked up to starting our position on the debate as well giving some idea about what the rest of our team was going to say. Such as when Trevor said what philosophers supported our arguments and Abby briefly mentioning the case in Michigan that I then went into further detail about in the second