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Last week, a Minneapolis Star Tribune report on the University of Minnesota’s “Bias Response and Referral Network” highlighted the debate over whether — or to what extent — bias reporting systems may chill free speech on college campuses. The Star Tribune’s report follows FIRE’s own report on bias reporting systems and, just as we did at dozens of universities across the country, utilizes public records laws to get a closer look at what gets reported and how the university responds.
The log of bias incidents provided to the Star Tribune in response to a public records request, embedded below, reveals that many of the reported incidents involve some form of political speech.
And while many incidents involve speech that does not raise First Amendment concerns — graffiti, or speech by university administrators, for example — a significant portion of the incidents involve core political speech. This is consistent with bias-reporting trends FIRE has seen across the country. Reported incidents at UMN include:
So, with a system that encourages students to report incidents of protected speech, how does the university proceed?
The university’s Bias Response and Referral Network website indicates that the team, to its credit, considers “whether the [reported] incident has potential free speech or academic freedom implications” — a question explicitly included in the protocol for evaluating reported incidents. And, in responding, the team may “provide educational information to parties involved in the bias incident report about the University’s commitment to equity, inclusion, academic freedom, and freedom of expression.”
These are welcome acknowledgements by the university that it is cognizant of the possibility that a reporting system can have a chilling effect on free speech. Indeed, in at least some instances, like when a student reported political bumper stickers, the records indicate that the team responded by discussing the importance of freedom of speech and the ability to espouse differing views, including those that offend. The University of Minnesota’s team deserves credit for encouraging offended listeners to respond with more speech.
Other instances, however, suggest that the team sometimes refers complaints about protected speech to other administrators. It’s unclear whether those administrators are similarly cognizant of the free speech issues that may be implicated in any response. And, importantly, the records provided here do not indicate one way or the other how other administrators at the university responded to referred reports. But forwarding reports of protected speech to other administrators to handle may end up causing more problems than it solves if that referral is not accompanied by information concerning the inherent First Amendment issues, or those administrators are not aware of them.
The Star Tribune’s report is worth reading. We’ll continue to explore bias reporting systems in the coming weeks.
If you’re a journalist using public records laws to examine your local bias reporting system, we’d be thrilled to take a look at what you uncover. Contact us at [email protected].
The post At the University of Minnesota, reports of ‘bias’ often include political speech appeared first on FIRE.