Collaboration
Often it can be tempting to get by merely as a lone wolf in the world of libraries, but the reality is that in this increasingly digital era where more and more people question the purpose of the library, it is in our best interest to collaborate and stand together so that we can achieve the goals most crucial to us. For me this arose in my very first year in UNCG's LIS program wherein my professor, Dr. Hersberger, proposed a novel sort of project: creating a policy for a free speech wall, one that might actually become reality. Collaborating with several of my colleagues we worked to research existing policy, understand legal cases related to free speech and expression, and work through all the complexities of having a free speech wall on a college campus—a place where, despite the popular image, free speech is not always so welcome.
We set about researching precedents and cases related to free speech as well as looking at how other schools had implemented and worked with free speech projects--including the pitfalls therein. At heart we all like to think of ourselves as advocates of truly free speech, but it does not take long before one starts running into issues. For example, what does one do if someone writes something racially offensive, and I mean really offensive, the sort of thing that makes even a casual racist a bit queasy. Should one just leave it up there, protect it, and celebrate free speech? Or, should one consider this an extreme exception—this will be taken down, but only because it is really bad? If one takes the latter path, then where does it stop? If someone decides to write so-and-so is a whore, does this get taken down? If someone decides to quote Nietzsche and write, "God is dead," does this get taken down? What if someone quotes Rushdie's The Satanic Verses? Or, what if a person spray paints a picture of Muhammad? What if a person says that Ukrainians should die? What if a person puts up a cartoon of a professor being shot? What does one protect and what does one censor? How does one justify this if one does not either censor everything offensive to anyone or conversely allow everything regardless? Free speech looks good on paper, but dealing with the reality of it is another matter altogether, and universities, reliant as they are on public image and generous donations, are often far too squeamish to tolerate this sort of thing.
The last example also gets into another issue: when does safety come into play? If someone writes that he or she is going to kill or otherwise harm another student on the wall, does one call the police? What if a person just puts up a drawing of some individual being shot? What if someone says he or she is going to commit suicide? Does one need to monitor the wall 24/7 just to make sure that if something bad happens one can stop it? Where does liability rest when it comes to such a project? Can the university be blamed? It is not hard to see why such projects struggle to get off of the ground.
To be sure, such incidents would be rare and abuse not all that common, but it will happen and the question of how to deal with it in a university setting is not an easy one. It was this sort of litany of questions and concerns that my colleagues and I labored over for several weeks, meeting after classes and collaborating online. In the end we attempted to work out our best solution, creating a formal policy for the theoretical wall, even mixing in a bit of technology to try to circumvent some of the difficulties.
I cannot quite say how this policy would perform in a real world setting, but it was an immensely educational experience to sift through these challenges and ethical quandaries and debate it all with my colleagues. Working together through our various perspectives to craft a unified policy was its own sort of challenge, but it is precisely that sort of challenge that is necessary to create a good, functional, and dynamic team capable of getting things done and creating new and novel solutions. Without a doubt I benefited more than a little from the whole experience on a number of levels.
Related: Free Speech Wall Policy