In response to my ongoing discussion with Swarthmore history professor Tim Burke about speech codes at Swarthmore, Prue Schran, a Swarthmore physics and astronomy lecturer, writes:

I have been reading your thread on Swarthmore with great interest. I am one of a very few conservative-minded people on this campus. (In fact, I've started calling myself the "Token Conservative" on campus.)

Do I believe that there is a movement on this campus to restrict free speech on this campus? Absolutely. Do I think those who support this movement consider themselves infringing on a basic right of their fellow citizens? Absolutely not.

However, even though I think there is a drive to restrict free speech, I also think the statement that there "is no free speech at Swarthmore" is extreme.

Since I began working here, I have discovered a culture that considers these restrictive policies to be on the order of a moral imperative - not as an infringement of rights. They have internalized this moral code to the degree that it doesn't even occur to them that anyone should find them oppressive or disturbing. It's not so much that they want to restrict speech - they just assume that decent and intelligent people will for the most part, agree with their viewpoint. It's not meanness or vindictiveness, it's certainly not a lack of intelligence - it's a cultural divide so deep it simply doesn't occur to them that a colleague would think otherwise.

When I first came to work here, I never expressed my political views - I knew I was working in an extremely liberal institution, and I wanted to keep my job. (No, no one has ever even implied that I would lose my job - but I thought, why take the chance?) After a while, I started to express some opinions, but nothing too controversial. But one day I was with a group of my colleagues and someone expressed some political viewpoint (frankly, I've even forgotten exactly what it was), and everyone just stood around and nodded in agreement, as if the viewpoint was a fundamental truth. It struck me that no one in that group expected any other opinion on the subject - after all, we were all good and intelligent people, weren't we? It was that moment that I decided I couldn't remain silent any longer, that my colleagues needed to understand that there were good and intelligent people - even their co-workers! - who held very different viewpoints.

So I try to offer my own two cents when the moments come around. I don't try to evangelize - I don't think I'll change their political cultural views any more than I expect them to change mine. But I think it's healthy for them to understand that not everyone is in agreement.

My ultimate point is, I don't think I've suffered recriminations for expressing my viewpoints. ... Then again, I haven't been open about my political views for a very long time. So, while I do sometimes get those "distasteful" looks from my colleagues when I speak frankly, I CAN still speak frankly - at least so far.