From the article, they want to adopt https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/ -- which seems reasonable to me. Some of the other stuff does sound unnecessary.

Although, I will say, when our public schools here allowed walkouts to protest ICE (high schools), I thought it was shameful. Who at the school gets to decide what causes are worthy of allowing the walkouts that people don't get punished for missing school? Which causes are OK for the teachers to push upon students, who decides that?

If I were a parent, I'd be upset that they put my kid in a position to either participate in the walkout or face pressure from other students for "disagreeing" with them or supporting ICE. That's an unfair position for a student to be in because the school is trying to push a particular agenda.

School walkouts typically have nothing to do with the school itself, and certainly do not ask for it to be allowed. It is the kids who walk out. The schools typically treat it like any other unexcused absence.

The Chicago Statement reads: "Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak [and] write… The University may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University. In addition, the University may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University…

[T]he University's fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, [or] immoral… As a corollary to the University's commitment to protect and promote free expression, members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe."

It's interesting which institutions or faculty groups have endorsed this or statements said to be substantially similar: https://fire.org/research-learn/chicago-statement-university...

Related debates here include the contrast between American support of more absolute freedom of speech and European support for broader limitations on speech (wehrhafte Demokratie, streitbare Demokratie), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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