Free speech: It's not a hard concept

The reality surrounding free speech can be, and sometimes is, contentious. But the issue itself is relatively simple.

Let everyone speak. Let people decide on their own whether to listen or not to listen. Provide security, if necessary, to ensure the rules of decorum are followed. Impose disciplinary measures against those who would try to silence a speaker or take over a meeting where a lecture is being presented.

That seems to be pretty much what happened at a recent event, where audience members inside the Illini Union listened to a guest speaker while protesters outside denounced the speaker as, according to one sign, "a fascist alt-right sympathizer who looks like a mashed potato."

Some on campus seemed to be scandalized this particular speaker was a conservative who spoke enthusiastically about free-market capitalism as the best method of building wealth and reducing poverty.

Most people would find that type of event wholly ordinary on campus. At the same time, most people would be similarly undisturbed if a liberal gave a talk on why single-payer is the best approach on health care, a socialist asserted government should take over private enterprise or a libertarian advocated the legalization of illegal drugs.

These speakers advocate points of view, and people make of them what they will. No nannies are needed to ensure that dissenters' feelings not be hurt by being exposed to an opinion they do not share.

But that common-sense viewpoint seems alien to members of the campus community, which explains why University of Illinois President Timothy Killeen has decided to appoint a task force made up of faculty, administrators and students to develop permanent policies addressing speech issues.

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