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I AFFIRM THE RESOLUTION RESOLVED: PUBLIC COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES IN THE UNITED
STATES OUGHT NOT RESTRICT ANY CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED SPEECH.

Definitions:

Public colleges and Universities (Free Legal Dictionary) are

Public institutions are established either by state constitution or by statute, and they
receive funding from state appropriations as well as tuition and endowments.

Any (American Heritage Dictionary of English) No matter how many

or how few; an undefined amount.

Constitutionally Protected speech is as defined by Random House

Dictionary:
the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governm
ental
interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or
rebellion.

Value Moral Progress

a. Defined by Dale Jamison, Professor of Human Dimensions of

Global Change, Carlton College. Is There Progress in Morality?
2002. Moral progress occurs when a subsequent state of affairs is better than a
preceding one, or when right acts become increasingly prevalent.

b. Governments must allow individuals to pursue their own ends to

achieve moral progress. Irene M. Ten Cate 2013, Associate of
Law at Colombia University, Speech, Truth, and Freedom: An Examination
of John Stuart Mill's and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's Free Speech Defense.
Yale University Press: To Mill, the ability of individuals to live their lives in
accordance with the possibilities and needs of their own natures, at least in areas
where others are not directly concerned, is a key to human happiness and to
individual and societal progress.'38 In this area, he believes that plurality should
be embraced.

Prefer this value because -

I. Moral Progress continually strives for a better society unlike other
values which remain stagnant.
II. Moral Progress is a pluralistic value that allows us to examine how
rights function and ought to be prioritized.
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Criterion- Truth-Seeking through Mills Harm Principle

A. Link to Resolution (MICHAEL LACEWING, N.D., DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH &

SENIOR LECTURER AT UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. A LEVEL PHILOSOPHY.
ROUTLEDGE.COM) IN On Liberty, the first liberties that Mill identifies
the Harm Principle protecting is freedom of thought and freedom of
expression. These freedoms are distinct, because while thought is without exception self-
regarding, expression of ones thoughts clearly has consequences for other people. It is
possible, therefore, that expression could cause harm to others, and in such cases, could
legitimately be regulated by society. However, freedom of expression being almost of as much
importance as the liberty of thought itself and resting in great part on the same reasons (On
Liberty, 71), it is practically inseparable from freedom of thought. And so, in his discussion, Mill
argues for both together. The state may only interfere with people holding
and expressing their views if those views cause harm to others (and
even then, it should only interfere if doing so would be more beneficial
than not doing so). So, there should be absolute freedom of opinion
and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or
theological, however immoral the opinion or sentiment may seem.

B. Truth-Seeking is essential to achieve Moral Progress (Cate 2):

The comparison shows the extent to which Mill's free speech theory is based on
the idea that societal progress (indispensably fueled by a collective
truth-seeking endeavor) is inextricably connected to individual
development. In Mill's utilitarian framework, the discovery of truth is an
important presumed societal goal. Independently-thinking individuals advance the search for
truth by following their thoughts as far as they can even if doing so yields conclusions that make them, and their fellow
citizens, uncomfortable. The expression of controversial opinions plays a critical role in this process. A second, and
related, argument for free speech in On Liberty is its effect on individual character. Mill claims that a culture
in which opinions are subject to challenge promotes the development
of character traits in individuals that are particularly valuable to a society,
including the ability to engage in critical inquiry, a willingness to
challenge beliefs held firmly by oneself and others, and the courage to
stand up for convictions that are not widely held. According to Mill, these
traits will result in the selection of more and more truthful beliefs. Although
Mill ultimately justifies a commitment to free speech on the basis of the perceived role of speech in collective truth-seeking, it is the more
individual-centered aspects of his defense that have continued to inspire recent scholarship, including the development of free speech
justifications based on conceptions of autonomy.
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Contention 1: Moral Progress Requires Open Discussion

A. Suppression of Speech robs the Human Race (Mills, On

Liberty, 1859)
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is
robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who
dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they
are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong,
they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and
livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

Impact
As Mills explains, without open discussion we can never discover the nuances of
our beliefs. Challenging our viewpoints is necessary for truth discovery because
we must analyze and discover flaws in our thinking. Stifling speech robs all
individuals of this ability and impedes moral progress.

B. B. Unchallenged beliefs lose the value of truth (Cate 2)

Challenges to beliefs also keep them "alive" because they force a
person to learn the grounds of his or her opinions. Although Mill believes
reason should have the last word in the selection of beliefs, he recognizes that
holding a conviction is not just a rational affair; deeply held beliefs are
felt, as well as known, and come to be part of one's identity, especially
when those beliefs are under attack. In On Liberty, Mill appreciatively notes that those
who adhere to a creed that has come under fire, "have realized its fundamental principles in all the forms
of thought, have weighed and considered them in all their important bearings, and have 16. Mill, supra
note 9, at 10. 17. In the section, "Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being," Mill envisions a
similar role for conscience, which is to serve as a check on natural desires and impulses in individuals'
decision-making concerning their living modes and actions. Mill, experienced the full effect on the
character, which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind thoroughly imbued by it." 'By
contrast, opinions that are never contested "will be held as a dead
dogma, not a living truth. 'In the absence of confrontation-when a
belief becomes commonplace and ceases to be the subject of heated
debate-the meaning of a creed will eventually be lost. This is because
"the mind is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to
exercise its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to
it."' Ultimately, the belief itself is forgotten "except the formularies," or
it is given "a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed with the
necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience; until
it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human
being.
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Impact Without their challenging beliefs, students cannot deeply connect to or

understand their beliefs. In turn, when these beliefs are challenged, they lose
the ability to defend those beliefs with full force.

Contention 2: Universities are morally obligated to

encourage open discourse

A. Censorship of Speech denies access to truth (BENJAMIN

WELCH, UNL, M.S., AN EXAMINATION OF UNIVERSITY SPEECH CODE
CONSTIUTIONALITY & 2014)
THEIR IMPACT ON HIGH LEVEL DISCOURCE,
Mindless partisanship, uncritical thinking, and glorified echo
chambers are the antithesis of what universities should be.
As FIRE cofounder Alan Charles Kors says, A nation that does not educate in
liberty will not long preserve it and will not even know when it is lost. 154 In order for
the best ideas to prevail, all thoughts and opinions should be allowed
and encouraged in our quest to better find truth. Elitist definitional
establishment of allowed viewpoints does nothing but create
a culture of assimilation, parroting of beliefs and belief in the
authority to challenge and punish people who are different.
By rewarding groupthink, punishing devils advocates and shutting
down discussion of important and relevant social and political topics,
universities are doing exactly what theyre supposed to prevent.

Impact Universities & Colleges should not promote the mindset that
suppression is preferable to discussion; this accomplishes nothing but deny
access to moral progress for all by closing off the possibility of truth
discovery.

B. Students Must Exercise Tolerance to create Progress

(Bloomberg 2016)
We fear that such dialogue is now disappearing on college campuses. As it
fades, it will make material and social progress that much harder to achieve.
It will also create graduates who are unwilling to tolerate differing opinions
a crisis for a free society. An unwillingness to listen to those with differing opinions is already a
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serious problem in Americas civic discourse. Unless colleges reverse course, that problem will worsen in the
years ahead, with profoundly negative consequences.

Impact
College speech codes encourage the idea of silencing opinions instead of engaging in
discussion, doing so makes social progress nearly impossible because students become
intolerant of opinions that hold truth simply because those opinions contradict the
popular sentiment.

C. Tolerance must be educated not coerced (Smolla, 1992, Academic

Freedom, Hate Speech, and the Idea of a University. Professor of
Law at College of William and Mary)
But outside those narrowly defined first amendment categories, the battle against hate speech
will be fought most effectively through persuasive and creative educational
leadership rather than through punishment and coercion. The conflict felt by
most administrators, faculty, and students of good will on most American campuses is that we hate
hate speech as much as we love free speech. The conflict, however, is not
irreconcilable. It is most constructively resolved by a staunch commitment
to free expression principles, supplemented with an equally vigorous attack
on hate speech in all its forms, emphasizing energetic leadership and
education on the academic values of tolerance, civility, and respect for
human dignity, rather than punitive and coercive measures.' In this respect both of
the grand ideas of a university are vindicated. The sense of a community of scholars, an island of reason and
tolerance, is the pervasive ethos. But that ethos should be advanced with education, not coercion. It should be the
dominant voice of the university within the marketplace of ideas; but it should not
preempt that marketplace.

Impact
Moral Progress will only occur when tolerance is taught not coerced. Coercion
takes away responsibility, creating only a faade of progress.