{"title":"Color-evasive free speech ideology: a conceptual analysis of free speech as racial oppression in U.S. higher education","authors":"Ashley N. Robinson","doi":"10.1080/17508487.2021.1955718","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this essay, I draw on the socio-historical context of free speech and hate speech in U.S. public higher education and the concepts of color-evasiveness and free speech ideology to conceptualize a color-evasive free speech ideology. The ideology I conceptualize is characterized by a prevailing belief that protecting and defending free speech rights is the only way to ensure democracy and equality, regardless of the racial harm and violence enacted by speech, and to the degree that those who challenge racist hate speech should be punished as a threat to free speech. I then explore three recent events to contextualize color-evasive free speech ideology: higher education professional organizations’ responses to the release of Executive Order 13864 (Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities) in March 2019 and two institutional-level examples of controlling student behavior through selective and racialized protection of free speech. I discuss the examples to illustrate how color-evasive free speech ideology upholds white supremacy and conclude with implications for scholars and practitioners, urging a critical troubling of color-evasive free speech ideology in future research and practice.","PeriodicalId":47434,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Education","volume":"64 1","pages":"51 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Studies in Education","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2021.1955718","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT In this essay, I draw on the socio-historical context of free speech and hate speech in U.S. public higher education and the concepts of color-evasiveness and free speech ideology to conceptualize a color-evasive free speech ideology. The ideology I conceptualize is characterized by a prevailing belief that protecting and defending free speech rights is the only way to ensure democracy and equality, regardless of the racial harm and violence enacted by speech, and to the degree that those who challenge racist hate speech should be punished as a threat to free speech. I then explore three recent events to contextualize color-evasive free speech ideology: higher education professional organizations’ responses to the release of Executive Order 13864 (Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities) in March 2019 and two institutional-level examples of controlling student behavior through selective and racialized protection of free speech. I discuss the examples to illustrate how color-evasive free speech ideology upholds white supremacy and conclude with implications for scholars and practitioners, urging a critical troubling of color-evasive free speech ideology in future research and practice.
期刊介绍:
Critical Studies in Education is one of the few international journals devoted to a critical sociology of education, although it welcomes submissions with a critical stance that draw on other disciplines (e.g. philosophy, social geography, history) in order to understand ''the social''. Two interests frame the journal’s critical approach to research: (1) who benefits (and who does not) from current and historical social arrangements in education and, (2) from the standpoint of the least advantaged, what can be done about inequitable arrangements. Informed by this approach, articles published in the journal draw on post-structural, feminist, postcolonial and other critical orientations to critique education systems and to identify alternatives for education policy, practice and research.