Grassley: The First Amendment Matters

Prepared Floor Remarks by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa

The First Amendment Matters

Monday, March 7, 2022

 

In recent years, I’ve tried to highlight some of the most ridiculous impositions on freedom of speech in college.

 

But so many of these cases get swept under the rug.

 

It can be hard to get an idea of whether typical students feel free to speak their minds.

 

Last spring, Iowa’s legislature passed a bill strengthening free speech across our state’s education system.

 

In part, this bill was meant to find out how big a problem restraint of free expression is at our state’s public universities.

 

Last month, that lead to the results of a survey of 17,000 students in those colleges.

 

The results raise serious concerns. 

 

Less than half of employees thought their university allows them to say what they believe.

 

A third of students thought that their institution “hinders free speech.” 

 

A quarter didn’t even think their campus provided an “environment for free and open expression of ideas.”

 

A university that can’t meet that basic bar is missing the whole purpose of college.

 

Thankfully, that same bill from the Iowa legislature takes action to solve the issue.

 

This semester, students across the state have begun taking a course to instill in them the value of free speech.

 

The goal is to ensure that students and faculty understand the values in the First Amendment.

 

The course emphasizes respect for other’s speech and its impacts both in and out of the classroom.

 

I am hopeful that this will start to steer us in the right direction.

 

Letting students speak their minds is central to the idea of a liberal arts education.

 

But, the default has increasingly become to censor at the drop of a hat, only allowing free speech if administrators find blowback.

 

Just look to a case last month here in D.C.

 

At George Washington University, a student put up posters criticizing having the Olympics in China given the repressive regime there.

 

These posters were well done and well within mainstream discussion. 

 

They speak to concerns I had myself.

 

But the university immediately responded by tearing them down and saying the posters were racist.

 

They only reversed themselves when it came out that the artist was Chinese and that the concerns were far from unique.

 

I find it hard to believe the university’s namesake would approve of that approach.

 

Examples like this are why we need Iowa’s new free speech course.

 

Students and administrators alike have forgotten why the First Amendment matters.