Weaponizing free speech protections in U.S. higher education: the ugly impact of assaultive speech on Black women students

Abstract

First Amendment protections for blackface in U.S. higher education have for too long fostered hostile educational environments for Black women and other racially minoritized and marginalized communities. Institutions dedicated to inclusive learning environments can no longer ignore these abuses and have an opportunity and obligation to challenge and disrupt the protections long afforded to assaultive speech. However, overturning these problematic gendered-anti-Black racist narratives of interpreting caricatures of Black women's bodies with blackface and exaggerated body parts as harmless entertainment of means centering the voices, perspectives and lived truths of Black women. I use what I call an Intersectionality Discourse Analysis to analyze two subsequent federal court cases involving a white fraternity's ugly woman contest at a public U.S. university and free speech theory. In my recommendations I urge institutional leaders to take an unapologetic stance in sanctioning assaultive speech and to petition the courts to support their decision-making.

Keywords:

• Collegiate Black women
• blackface
• free speech theory
• critical discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

LaWanda W. M. Ward

LaWanda W. M. Ward is professor at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.