Harvard's Policies Toward GLOs and social clubs

[33girl]

Unless they are meeting illegally or being violent, I'm not sure what code of conduct they would be disobeying. Free speech is free speech, no matter how repugnant. Unfortunately, students (and parents) seem to accept the erosion of that right with nary a peep. If you're talking about Cville specifically, where apparently the proper permits and such were not obtained and violence egged on, that's a different matter.

If off campus GLOs are prohibited, what's next? Political organizations? Activities espousing a goal someone in the college administration might not like, no matter how benign it is?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Unless they are meeting illegally or being violent, I'm not sure what code of conduct they would be disobeying. Free speech is free speech, no matter how repugnant. Unfortunately, students (and parents) seem to accept the erosion of that right with nary a peep.

As Kevin has noted, free speech as a "right"—in the sense of the First Amendment—is pretty much irrelevant at a private school like Harvard. It's the government that can't infringe on a person's free speech rights. Students at a public university can potentially claim that the university, as an arm of the government, has violated their free speech rights. Students at a private university don't have much in the way of free speech rights that the university is legally required to recognize, so private universities can, through their codes of conduct, prohibit speech deemed hateful, disrespectful or repugnant.