From left are Dave Kleis ’89, St. Cloud mayor; King Banaian, dean, School of Public Affairs; Clyde Pickett, chief diversity officer, Minnesota State system; Jack O’Neil-Como, president, Student Government; Eddah Mutua, professor, communication studies; Shonda Craft, interim dean, School of Health and Human Services; and Nancy Thomas, director, Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, Tufts University. Photo by Nick Lenz ’11.
Education, openness and active listening can help students and employees find balance among the goals of free expression, diversity and inclusion, according to speakers at a public forum March 28 in Atwood Memorial Center.
Colleges should educate about free expression, not regulate it, said Nancy Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. Thomas was one of six speakers tasked with offering guidance to the audience of about 300 gathered in the ballroom.
Thomas, who has worked three decades on these issues, said campus codes that regulate speech are overly broad, vague, difficult to enforce and, ultimately, unconstitutional.
Nancy Thomas, a national expert on free speech, diversity and inclusion. Photo by Nick Lenz ’11.
What has worked, she said, are educational efforts such as cultural centers, first-year student training, classes on the history of inequality and slavery, and social justice programming.
“Would we even have had a Civil Rights Movement, if we curtailed free speech? Free speech is what enables change in this country,” Thomas said.
School of Public Affairs Dean King Banaian echoed Thomas’ call to educate, not regulate, with an emphasis on open discourse.
“In our discussions, what do we want our students to be? What do we want each other to be?” said Banaian, an economist. “The word we arrive at is open.”
President of Student Government Jack O’Neil-Como said too many campus discussions involve participants rehearsing their rebuttals when they should be listening to the opposing view. The senior mass communications major from Oakdale said: “Dialogue doesn’t always have to be a competition.”
O’Neil-Como said: “We can have a conversation with those we disagree with, while still maintaining our own beliefs.”
Dave Kleis ’89 offered an narrow exception to the “listen to other views” mantra. The four-term St. Cloud mayor said too much time is spent reacting to a voice or group. Raising other, positive voices, that believe in diversity and inclusion, is a better approach, he said.
In January, a Facebook page called St. Cloud White Student Union drew reactions on social and traditional media for its anti-immigration and anti-immigrant postings. The page has 50 followers. By contrast, the University’s Multicultural Student Services Facebook page has 17 times more followers. St. Cloud State’s flagship Facebook page has more than 38,000 followers.
The two-hour forum included remarks by Eddah Mutua, professor of communication studies, and Clyde Pickett, chief diversity officer for the Minnesota State system. The forum closed with audience discussions.
The forum was hosted by Ashish Vaidya, interim president, and moderated by Shonda Craft, interim dean of the School of Health and Human Services.
