The University of Chicago is a green light school. That doesn’t mean speech is free

In September before my freshman year, I received a text from a stranger. She’d heard that I was interested in studying Russian and, as a fellow student at the University of Chicago, she offered me advice about the university’s language departments. We began a lengthy Facebook correspondence, and I was truly excited. An older UChicago student had taken time out of her busy summer schedule to contact me — and her support made my transition to college easier. I was thankful for her kindness.

Fast forward a few weeks and I’d moved into my dorm. I ran into this same older student often, but she rarely acknowledged me. And when we did speak, she was surprisingly unfriendly. At first, I didn’t understand. We hadn’t gotten into a fight. She barely even knew me. Then, I overheard her describe me to one of her friends. “That’s that Republican girl,” she said. The statement was true — I am Republican — but she meant it as an insult. My friends later told me that she was warning people to stop interacting with me, merely because I was on the “wrong” side of the political spectrum. She came to this conclusion without ever confronting me about it. To this day, we’ve never discussed the underlying “issue” of my political beliefs.

My point in telling this story is not to play the victim. I am vocal about my political beliefs, and I recognize that my speech has social consequences — as it should. It makes sense that individuals will surround themselves with people whose voices they admire and enjoy. But the problem here is not that I was judged for my words, but that I was ostracized without ever being given a meaningful opportunity to “explain myself.”

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