Color-evasive free speech ideology: a conceptual analysis of free speech as racial oppression in U.S. higher education

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Free speech
• higher education
• student affairs
• color-evasiveness
• hate speech
• critical whiteness studies

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Ashley N. Robinson

Ashley N. Robinson is a Ph.D. candidate in Leadership and Education Policy at the University of Connecticut. Ashley’s scholarship focuses on equity and justice in student affairs and higher education policy and practice. As a former residential education practitioner and a current organized labor activist, Ashley incorporates a scholar-practitioner-activist perspective into her work. Her research interests include institutional responses to incidents of racial harm, how student affairs policies and practices uphold and perpetuate oppressive systems, the experiences of frontline higher education workers, and critical and feminist qualitative methodologies.