Such a fundamental right, it is argued, should not be limited except to prevent serious harm to others. The fundamental right to free speech should not be restricted merely to prevent hate speech. Additionally, critics assert that the costs of hate speech codes far outweigh their benefits. As a social institution, a university should be open to all opinions, popular and unpopular. Hate speech codes thus inflict a major harm on our social institutions.
Censorship is only one example of how hate speech codes undercut the benefits of higher education.
Hate speech codes encourage an artificial reality on campus that prevents students from learning effectively to tolerate diversity. Hate speech codes may obstruct the kind of education that promotes tolerance of diversity in other ways. Over time, the same fervor that brought hate speech codes will bring further restrictions by administrators eager to create egalitarian institutions in a nonegalitarian world. The law school at the State University of New York, Buffalo, for example, seeks out and ask state bars to deny admission to former students who violate its hate speech code. And following the 1988 passage of the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which denies federal aid to students of private colleges and universities that violate federal anti-discrimination rules, legislators are considering a law that would force private institutions to require courses on, racial sensitivity and ethnic history.