Bucknell University has a speech code. The Bucknell University Conservatives Club thinks the student body should know about it. So they sent a letter to all incoming freshmen alerting them to the existence of the code, describing what kinds of expression are not acceptable at Bucknell, and explaining how it is that Bucknell students effectively relinquish their First Amendment rights when they enroll. You can read the whole letter at bucknellconservatives.org, but here are some choice excerpts:

Dear Fellow Bucknellian,

On behalf of the Conservatives Club, I'd like to welcome you to campus. I hope that you've been enjoying your Bucknell experience so far. Bucknell is a wonderful institution-- one I'm proud to attend.

However, there is one thing Bucknell doesn't advertise that I think you should know about: our speech code. Our administration has decided that while you're here, you cannot exercise your free speech rights.

Of course, Bucknell can take away your rights if it wants to, since it's not a public university. But let me ask you this: did you come to Bucknell knowing that you would be less free than your friends at, say, Penn State? Somehow, I don't think so. And I doubt that the folks in Admissions told you that being a Bucknellian involves checking your First Amendment rights at the door. Rather, they probably said that Bucknell values free inquiry and free speech, blah, blah, blah.

There's a name for that: false advertising.

One of the many problems with our speech code is that the administration refuses to call its restrictions on speech what they are. Instead, they are placed in policies we must have--those banning harassment. The most egregious example is the "Student Handbook Documents" booklet that was mailed to you a few weeks ago. Check out page 12, at the very top, where it says that "engaging in conduct which alarms or seriously annoys such other persons" is harassment, for which you may be punished.

Think about that. Do you think you should be punished if you inadvertently "seriously annoy" someone? How many times a day are you "seriously annoyed?" Don't 8 AM classes "seriously annoy" you?

Or, take the "Bucknell Guide About Bias-Related Harassment and Violence." Some aspects of the policy are very reasonable--such as "bias-related graffiti." Graffiti is bad, whether "bias related" or not. But look what the policy lumps in with graffiti as "examples of bias-related action as understood by the university":

--"disparaging or condescending remarks about a person's nationality, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation"
--"verbal abuse, including anti-gay jokes and disparaging remarks about one's race or language"

That might sound okay in principle, but it's not. It's vague, overbroad, and a violation of your rights. What's "disparaging" or "condescending" to one person is not so to another. And since when do people need to be protected from the punchline of a joke? Ask a lawyer--that's not what "harassment" really means.

You can check out this policy online at www.bucknell.edu/deanofstudents/Bias RelatedHarassment.shtm. You might also like to peruse Bucknell's "Guide About Sexual Harassment." That policy takes the extraordinary step of lumping the following in with real sexual harassment:

--"disparaging or condescending remarks about a person's gender or sexual orientation"
--"verbal abuse including sexist jokes, and inappropriate remarks about one's body or clothing"
--"sexual innuendoes made at inappropriate times"
--"subtle pressure for unwanted sexual activity"

The Guide About Sexual Harassment is also available online--at www.bucknell.edu/deanofstudents/SexualHarrassment.shtm. It includes lots of great examples, too.

Of course, you need to judge for yourself whether or not you think the Bucknell administration has any business banning all the kinds of speech that it does. I, as you might guess, think those people ought to have better things to do than figuring out and outlawing what's "condescending" or "disparaging" to each of us.

But it appears they don't. They wrote these policies, and they have enforced them.

Doesn't it bother you that our deans evidently think it's their job to tell us what we can and cannot, should and should not, say on campus? Do you think you need your hand held every time you feel "offended"?

Last I checked, we're adults. We can be forced to fight and die for our country in foreign lands. Yet, on the campus of our own university, we're not allowed to say anything that someone might feel offended by.

Don't get me wrong: harassment should definitely be illegal on campus, as it is in all 50 states. But "annoyance" or "offense" is not the same as harassment. Saying it is trivializes the real thing.

What's great about the letter: the Bucknell Conservatives are taking on a cause that affects all students at the school, and are handling that cause in a non-partisan, even-handed way. Fighting for free speech on campus has become, unfortunately, identified with conservatism, and has thus become something too many people feel they can dismiss as self-serving conservative agenda-driving. It's no surprise that this is the case, as the people who tend to find themselves on the wrong side of campus speech codes tend to be those whose outlook differs from the liberal orthodoxy that is entrenched at many schools (see the FIRE case archive for endless examples). Naturally, they will become the poster people for campus speech. But even if the issue has largely been taken up by conservatives, and even if taking up the issue gets you labelled a conservative (as has often been the case with Critical Mass), the issue is not itself a conservative one, but one that affects us all.

Here's hoping more student groups at more schools follow the lead of groups like the Bucknell Conservatives and the University of Virginia's Individual Rights Coalition. And here's hoping a growing number of those groups are made up of students from a range of political orientations. Groups like FIRE are invaluable (and it's no accident that the president of BUCC has interned at FIRE). But the campus climate isn't going to change until students themselves organize, educate one another, and insist that their school adopt policies that are consistent with the First Amendment and with the school's ostensible commitment to the free and unfettered exchange of ideas.