Syracuse University is most closely associated with the color orange, but when one organization thinks SU, it sees red.

When Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, came to SU Tuesday afternoon, he was stepping onto a campus that FIRE gives a “red light” rating, meaning SU has multiple policies that both clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech.

Lukianoff presented in Dineen Hall on behalf of the SU College of Law’s Federalist Society as 24 students listened to his 11:30 a.m. lecture. He gave an oral overview of freedom of speech issues across the country. Lukianoff spent just a few minutes of his 90-minute presentation devoted to SU, but covered what he feels the university does to warrant a “red light” rating.

SU has been embattled in a struggle for free speech in recent years. In 2010, law student Len Audaer received harassment charges and was issued a gag order for his role in a satirical website. In 2012, Lukianoff himself wrote an article for The Huffington Post, which called SU the worst free speech university in the country. In December 2013, a student vandalized Newhouse III with orange spray paint, reading, “#1 in communications, last in free speech.”

Lukianoff displayed SU’s Computing and Electronic Communications Policy, using the pull quote, “Harassment: Harassing others by sending annoying, abusive, profane, threatening, defamatory or offensive messages is prohibited.”

The words “annoying” and “offensive” were bolded.

“Everyone is offensive to someone else,” Lukianoff said. “I’m an atheist who defends Evangelicals, Jews and Muslims. Everyone is offensive to someone else.”

Lukianoff — the author of two free speech books and a regular commenter on CBS Evening News — poked fun at his heritage to signify why he loves this debate so much.

“I had a Russian immigrant father and a British immigrant mother,” he said. “No two cultures in Europe are more different on what you should be allowed to say. My mother would say, ‘whatever you say, just please be polite.’ My father would say, ‘politeness is a form of deception.’”

Lukianoff did criticize the university, but he also applauded SU for its responsiveness.

On Sept. 7, 2011 SU expelled Matthew Werenczak, a graduate student in the School of Education, for racially-charged comments he posted on Facebook after a Concerned Citizens Action Program representative approached him in Danforth Middle School where has was tutoring and commented on the fact that Werenczak was white.

FIRE sent a letter to then-Chancellor Nancy Cantor, which received no reply. Instead, FIRE took its case public and Werenczak was reinstated within hours.

Lukianoff also praised SU for its Tully Center for Free Speech, which was established in 2006.

Roy Gutterman, the director of the Tully Center, attended Lukianoff’s talk.

“It’s been no secret we’ve had some challenges on campus in the last 10 years or so,” Gutterman said. “It’s a ripe topic. Our campus handbook, our student code… there are clauses that are potential challenges to free speech issues and it’s still in the university rules.”

Lukianoff also warned that there are some “yellow light” policies — ones which may restrict freedom of speech rights — in effect on the SU campus with its Stop Bias policy.

The last slide in Lukianoff’s presentation both issued a challenge and gave advice to the collective audience.

“Make it a lifelong habit to seek out smart people with whom you disagree,” it said. “Remember that arguments that make us the most uncomfortable are often the ones we most badly need to have.”

Published on March 24, 2015 at 9:06 pm

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR