Public colleges and universities shouldn't be able to restrict free speech on campus.

First I shall cover why showing people why hate speech is stupid and how exposing them to it can be better for their future. The banning of hate speech on campuses is one of the few ways schools have tried to eliminate hate speech, however, this way of limiting hate speech can only go so far. People can still post hat speech online and say it if, as my opponent stated previously, "hate speech effectively silences the voices of minorities" so it may never be reported. By showing people how ludicrous hate speech is, it can prevent people from using it the future, and prepare minorities for comments they might get outside if campus. The world is not a nice place all the time, and if you don't know what to expect, you are going fail. We can't shield them forever. Another point on hate speech is that recently, hate speech for many has become a phrase for anything that offends them. A problem with speech codes is that there are no codes for them. If someone considers it hate speech, it can be banned. Colleges and Universities throughout the states are talking advantage of the loose rules around speech codes and making their schools a 'trigger free' zone. One of my opponents quotes, "Hate speech codes do not seek to limit constructive dialogue..." brings this to attention even more. speech codes do not seek to limit conversations, but many debates are getting caught in the web of speech codes. Now I am going to go away from hate speech and talk about some of the things colleges and universities have and are getting away with. Hating pumpkin-spice lattes was declared sexist and the normal punishment for sexism was handed out, despite girls never having been mentioned. In October, Kansas University"s student senate voted to totally ban gender-specific pronouns such as "his/her" from its Rules and Regulations document because they"re "microaggressions" against the students who don"t use them. In September, North Carolina State University defended a lecturer"s right to dock students" grades for using "he" or "him" to refer to both men and women " as well as for using the word "mankind" instead of "humankind." The same month, Scripps College declared that using the wrong pronoun to refer to someone was "institutionalized violence," and even gave students the option to request that teachers use no pronouns at all to refer to them " because apparently that part of speech in general can be a microaggression. Oh, and the University of Pittsburgh made sure to warn its faculty and professors to be super extra careful about which pronouns they use even after a student has already told them which ones he or she prefers . . . because some students might change genders over time. By the way " as that "mankind" ban might suggest, this was a bad year not only for pronouns but also for gender-specific language in general. For example: A University of Washington professor tried to create a policy that would punish her students for using the words "male" and "female.(http://www.nationalreview.com...). In December 2014, the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, sent an email to the student body in the wake of the outcry over two different grand juries failing to indict police officers who killed African-American men. The subject heading read "All Lives Matter" and the email opened with, "As members of the Smith community we are struggling, and we are hurting." She wrote, "We raise our voices in protest." She outlined campus actions that would be taken to "heal those in pain" and to "teach, learn and share what we know" and to "work for equity and justice." Shortly thereafter, McCartney sent another email. This one was to apologize for the first. What had she done? She explained she had been informed by students "the phrase/hashtag "all lives matter" has been used by some to draw attention away from the focus on institutional violence against black people." She quoted two students, one of whom said, "The black students at this school deserve to have their specific struggles and pain recognized, not dissolved into the larger student body." The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that a Smith sophomore complained that by writing "All Lives Matter," "It felt like [McCartney] was invalidating the experience of black lives." Another Smith sophomore told the Gazette, "A lot of my news feed was negative remarks about her as a person." In her apology email McCartney closed by affirming her commitment to "working as a white ally."(Kristen Powers 2015). These are just few of the examples why we can no longer trust our schools to place speech codes only on things that harm everybody and cater to to populous, not just minorities. Our rights as the people of the United States, not just the whites, not just the minorities, but everyone, is being threatened by over sensitive people who need to learn to deal with their problems because the real life is completely, uncensored. The Court case Tinker vs Des Moines case, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision in favor of the students. The high court agreed that students' free rights should be protected and said, "Students don't shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates." And from earlier examples, students are now having to shed their right of free speech. This along with the wording of the First amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging[to reduce the effect of a law, privilege or power.] the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." shows that both the Courts and the Constitution of The United States are on my side when I support the resolution of public Colleges and universities should not be able to limit free speech. My opponent claims that minorities will gain a voice from banning hate speech... but I'd say that communities such as blacks and LBGT have had a voice and are plenty clear. Look at the news, the Internet, you can't go anywhere without seeing a black lives matter post or something along those lines. And the pronouns piece shows that the LBGT community has more than a voice but a hand and foot in the workings of our schools. And to explain the slippery slope argument, it works a little bit like this. Groups 1,2,3,4 and 5 all go to a school. 3 is often hated on by 4 and 5 because they are bigger groups, so the school makes some rules that ban this. 3, now invulnerable start abusing their power and make fun of 4 and 5 as well as 2. 1 being the smallest sees that 3 got all this special treatment for being a minority so 1 wants some as well and complains that the school is "racist" for only giving 3 special rules. So then the school, not wanting to be socially labeled as racists, gives 1 some special privileges as well. 2 then does the some thing and 4, still being smaller than 5 gets some as well. In the end, you have the largest group being shamed on and picked on for no other reason than being big. And now we are back where we started. One group getting picked on for one uncontrollable reason. That is a rough explanation of what will happen if we cater to strongly to all the minorities. As a quick summery, public colleges and universities should not be able to ban any free speech because despite hate speech being a problem, the schools are taking away peoples right to voice opinions like, "I don't like this latte". Schools are not focusing on their classes anymore but instead intent on keeping all their students their by catering to their picky little needs. Also with the Constitution and the Supreme Court saying the same thing about free speech everywhere. Side note: Yeah, my friend told me about this and it's been a while since I debated do I picked of the interesting LD topics and went with that. And yeah, we will just go with free speech and not the NSDA topic since that's what we've already been doing.