Civility, I know it when I see it

This might be right up there with The New York Times chastising the Supreme Court for embracing the fundamental precepts of the First Amendment in the Citizens United case.

In the same edition in which UNLV’s campus newspaper, The Rebel Yell, reports on the Faculty Senate adopting a statement encouraging civil discourse, the newspaper carries an editorial bemoaning at some length the fact there is no enforcement mechanism.

The news story quotes UNLV Vice President and General Counsel Richard Linstrom explaining why there is no means even attempted at enforcement.

“There’s no way you could be disciplined for being uncivil because I don’t even know what civility is,” Linstrom said, noting the statement doesn’t even try to define what civility is, but merely calls on those on campus to value civility, whatever it is.

“It’s really not policy,” Linstrom is quoted as saying. “It’s a statement.”

I guess you know it when you see it or don’t see it, sort of like Justice Potter Stewart on “movie day” at the court in the early 1960s when they were asked to determine obscenity. "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced … [b]ut I know it when I see it …"

Not good enough for the editorialists at the Yell.

“We are thrilled that UNLV’s faculty senate would endeavor to foster a community of genuine respect and mutually beneficial dialogue, but the unenforceable nature of the policy makes it rather limited in scope,” the editorial complained.

“Any sign that the commitment made in the statement is something more than an easily disregarded promise would be beneficial,” the paper suggested.

Its call for action was, “We do hope the university makes more concrete progress toward a written policy with repercussions.”

Maybe they should have looked up the American Association of University Professors’ so-called Redbook, which was mentioned in the news story as a resource for those who wrote the UNLV “statement.”

In 1994 the AAUP adopted a “statement” on campus speech codes that includes this language:

“In response to verbal assaults and use of hateful language, some campuses have felt it necessary to forbid the expression of racist, sexist, homophobic, or ethnically demeaning speech, along with conduct or behavior that harasses. Several reasons are offered in support of banning such expression. Individuals and groups that have been victims of such expression feel an understandable outrage. They claim that the academic progress of minority and majority alike may suffer if fears, tensions, and conflicts spawned by slurs and insults create an environment inimical to learning.

“These arguments, grounded in the need to foster an atmosphere respectful of and welcoming to all persons, strike a deeply responsive chord in the academy. But, while we can acknowledge both the weight of these concerns and the thoughtfulness of those persuaded of the need for regulation, rules that ban or punish speech based upon its content cannot be justified. An institution of higher learning fails to fulfill its mission if it asserts the power to proscribe ideas—and racial or ethnic slurs, sexist epithets, or homophobic insults almost always express ideas, however repugnant. Indeed, by proscribing any ideas, a university sets an example that profoundly disserves its academic mission.”

I’m sure there are those on campus who do not agree that bellicose language should be allowed to uttered.

Surely Tom Jefferson would’ve been run off campus for saying, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Here is the UNLV statement as reported in the Yell:

UNLV Statement of Civility
“UNLV is dedicated to intellectual inquiry in its full depth, breadth, abundance, and diversity. Integral to this overarching duty is the essential commitment to academic freedom and personal expression in their fullest manifestations. We embrace the articulation of unpopular and unsettling ideas as an integral part of intellectual inquiry. To the extent it is consistent with the full pursuit of intellectual inquiry, UNLV fosters a civil, respectful, and inclusive academic community defined by a concern for the common good, by developing relationships and a culture that promotes the rights, safety, dignity, and value of every individual. A civil university community, consisting of faculty, staff, students, and external constituents, is vital to the pursuit of excellence in research, scholarship, and creative activity — appreciating what distinguishes us from one another while celebrating that which binds us together.”

Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it … as the recipient.