By Aneurin Bosley
School administrators who have gutted the concept of freedom of expression are robbing their students of some valuable lessons. The primary forms of student media — newspapers, Web sites and year books — are all subject to censorship by teachers and principals. And as Paul Northcott learned (see School shut down student’s Web site, above), some schools won’t hesitate to shut down a Web site if the content is not to their liking.
Schools are justifiably concerned about student safety and maintaining order, but they should be equally concerned about giving their students a good civics lesson. Many students are 18 by the time they have finished their OACs and are eligible to vote. But their primary experience of expressing their ideas and beliefs would have been developed under the magnifying glass of school regulations, which dictate what is and is not acceptable.
This hardly sounds like John Milton’s free marketplace of ideas. But it may help explain a disturbing voting trend, namely that only a small percentage of 18-year-olds turned out to vote in the last federal election, despite Election Canada’s attempt to attract them to the polling booths. Students must be encouraged to participate in the free exchange of ideas and this will sometimes mean hearing things that are unpopular or critical of school policy. But this should be the start of a debate.
In his famous essay, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that one of the important reasons to protect free speech is that, without public scrutiny of ideas, the views expressed are more likely to be held as prejudices, which lack the rational grounds supporting them. In other words, if somebody tells me I can’t say something, simply because it’s against the rules, I will never understand what greater good is served by restricting me. Sometimes there are good reasons to restrict speech. Promoting hatred or threatening to kill somebody, for example.
They’re not protected because they unnecessarily infringe on the rights of others.
In addition to being able to express their views, students also need to understand the rational grounds of the freedom of expression and the limits to that expression. An understanding of these grounds is necessary to distinguish mere opinion mongering from an exchange of informed beliefs and views.
Students must be encouraged to question rules and policies at all levels, because sooner or later they will be expected to make decisions at the polls, where they will help determine the future of our country. Policies that dogmatically restrict speech will rob students of this opportunity.
Freedom of expression is valued in our society because it is the only means to ensure that ideas — both good and bad — are not stifled. This is a lesson you can never be too young to learn.