“If Georgetown wants to be a Catholic University it has the freedom to identify as such,” she said. “If the school wants to abide by Catholic doctrine it should do so consistently and prevent all activities the Church disagrees with. This includes prosecutors’ offices that impose the death penalty, gay rights organizations, political candidates and judges that hold positions that disagree with the Catholic church, military law organizations and human rights organizations (the majority of which support reproductive rights, as well).“When we apply to Georgetown Law, the most you hear about the Jesuit tradition is that [the school] supports students doing work in the public interest,” she added. “If I ever knew that taking part in women’s rights issues would lead to a chilling effect, I don’t know if I would have ever considered coming here"
This really got me thinking about the public/private divide we have been discussing this semester. I guess if you pay to go to a private school you need to accept some "chilling" of speech. Does that mean you have to agree with everything the institution holds dear? Where is the room for dissent and development of new ideas? Now I attended a Catholic law school as well and I remember two things about that experience related to this student's experience. There were crosses in some of the classrooms and I had one law professor who was a priest. He did not wear clerical garb to teach, but I often wondered whether he did elsewhere. I don't recall feeling like I could not speak about certain issues because it was a Catholic school but I do recall how some Jewish colleagues did notice things more than I did at the time.
Even though the Georgetown example is about a private school--and there have been private schools around a long time, I come back to the idea of whether illustrates what can happen when speech becomes more "privatized." If you control (or own) the space where speech/expression can occur, you have much more power to control what expression happens there (or is promoted off campus!) Yet, there are limits. While we all make choices where to go to school or where to work, isn't there some danger here that the fewer public spaces we have the less speech we may see? What do others think about this?
4 comments:
This is a very interesting question in an era where more and more of our world is being privatized. I searched the internet for additional information and I came across an interesting case, Marsh v Alabama. I thought that you might be interested in taking a look. In this case a corporation owns the entire town. The free speech issues here are very complex and the justices opinions were interesting to read. Thank you for posing the question.
It always amazes me that private institutions are held to a different standard of rules and curriculum than public ones. I would think that the private institutions would be more open and controversial in the topics and discussion held within its walls due to the fact that not just anyone can get into the that private community of education.
It is a slippery slope of what rules these institutions can impose on their students and employees. Just because a school is private does that make it justifiable for them to take away the students right to work for a cause that the student believes in?
I agree with student when she said, “If the school wants to abide by Catholic doctrine it should do so consistently and prevent all activities the Church disagrees with." Consistency is key because then the students know what they are getting themselves into when they pay thousands and thousands of dollars to such private institutions of learning.
now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their party...
Well said.
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