To Commemorate Constitution Day, Princeton Professor Says ‘F%*# Free Speech’: New at Reason

The academy, the director of the African Studies program at Princeton contends, has never considered speech a central value.

Lindsay Marchello writes:

Every year, Princeton University holds a Constitution Day to honor one of the most important documents in human history. This year’s was was a little different, with lectures on search and seizure policies in the Snowden era, and another on slavery and the Constitution. And then there was a lecture called “F%*# Free Speech: An Anthropologist’s Take on Campus Speech Debate.”

Professor Carolyn Rouse, the chair of the Department of Anthropology and director of the program in African Studies asserted, “the way which free speech is being celebrated in the media makes little to no sense anthropologically,” according to Campus Reform.

Free speech absolutism doesn’t exist because people self-censor themselves in ways society deems appropriate, Rouse told her audience. Culture is the prime determiner of what speech is permissible and what speech is rejected, she said.

“Language is partial,” Rouse argued. “It relies on context for comprehensibility, and can have implications that go far beyond simply hurting somebody’s feelings. Put simply, speech is costly. So, contrary to the ACLU’s statement on their website regarding the role of free speech on college campuses, the academy has never promoted free speech as its central value.”

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