In an op-ed essay in the San Francisco Chronicle, a student at Acalanes High School in Lafayette asserts that the promotion of diversity must be accompanied by tolerance for free speech, controversial or otherwise.
Torching free speech in the name of tolerance
David McDiarmid
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
“Degrading, racial, ethnic, homophobic, sexist or other hateful remarks ARE NOT acceptable here”
– from a sign posted in every Acalanes High School classroom. Acalanes High School administration has declared the creation of a climate of tolerance to be one of its top priorities, and this sign is only one of its many tools.
To a large extent, the school seems to be achieving its goals. Although Acalanes certainly is not perfectly tolerant, the slew of tolerance workshops, diversity weeks and anti-hate regulations have gone a long way toward establishing a safe, pleasant and discrimination-free learning environment. Sadly, this has come at a high cost.
In attempts to create a climate of tolerance at Acalanes, we have promoted certain types of diversity at the expense of others, and in doing so, we have given up an essential component of education.
This commentary is not an attack on the promoters of tolerance. Their motives are noble, and the problems they address are real. Even at a liberal and accepting school such as Acalanes, intolerance deeply hurts many people. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination represent dangerous and highly undesirable tears in the moral fabric of any society (or any microcosm of society such as our high school).
Unfortunately, in the pursuit of a commendable goal, promoters have attempted to silence opposing viewpoints and done much to stifle reasonable debate. Too many students at Acalanes have made it clear that they will respect all forms of diversity – except diversity of belief. They will tolerate all people – except those who disagree with them.
The controversy surrounding Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage on the November ballot, illustrates this perfectly. The results of the Acalanes High School Votes project revealed that 20 percent of Acalanes students and faculty – roughly 280 individuals – supported Prop. 8. Only a few of these people, however, publicly expressed their views.
Although certainly not all of these individuals shared the activist zeal of the Gay Straight Alliance members, who plastered the school with No on 8 signs, there is no doubt that some refrained from stating their beliefs for the same reason that several school newspaper reporters agreed to write a Yes on 8 article only on condition of anonymity, lest they be branded as homophobes.
The writers were deterred not so much by the student planner’s threat that any language construed as hateful would be “disciplined to the fullest extent of school policy ” but by fear of social lynching by a rabidly “tolerant” faction of the student body.
Those who believe these fears are baseless should consider this anecdote: Before the election, a group of demonstrators held a Yes on Prop. 8 rally on a Highway 24 overpass. The fact that this group contained small children did not prevent a number of Acalanes students from screaming obscenities at them as the students traveled down the freeway. Some teenagers even drove onto the overpass to further verbally abuse the Prop. 8 supporters. It did not matter that these demonstrators had not said or displayed anything homophobic.
In our attempts to create a pleasant learning environment, we have veered from our drive for an educational environment in which beliefs are debated, assumptions questioned and original thoughts developed.
Dealing with challenges to one’s belief system is undeniably stimulating and educational. For instance, I personally am offended by the assertion that same-sex marriage is the first step on a road that leads to people marrying animals. But it is in arguing against that view I am forced to actually consider and articulate the difference. It forces me to defend and re-evaluate my beliefs, and leaves me a better informed person.
Those who claim to champion tolerance and diversity need to hold themselves to a higher standard. They need to remember they hold no monopoly on the truth, and that indoctrination is never better than the free flow of ideas. Ultimately, those who preach tolerance need to lead by example.
David McDiarmid is a student at Acalanes High School.