Policy on Speech and Expression Preamble

Georgetown University

  • Speech Code Rating
    Green
  • Speech Code Category
    Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
  • Last updated
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Relevant Excerpt

A university is many things but central to its being is discourse, discussion, debate: the untrammeled expression of ideas and information.

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“Free speech” is central to the life of the university ... The long and short of the matter is that “time, place and manner” are the only norms allowable in governing the expression of ideas and sharing of information that is the very life of the university.

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More is better. Discourse is central to the life of the university. To forbid or limit discourse contradicts everything the university stands for. [...] The remedy for silly or extreme or offensive ideas is not less free speech but more.

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Georgetown’s identification with the Catholic and Jesuit tradition, far from limiting or compromising the ideal of free discourse, requires that we live up to that ideal.

 

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