Offensive speech

A few weeks after Proposition 8 was approved by California voters back in November -- banning same-sex marriage there -- professor John Matteson apparently assigned members of his public speaking class at Los Angeles City College to address the issue.

But student Jonathan Lopez reports his professor called him a "fascist bastard" and refused to let him finish when he rose to speak against same-sex marriage.

When Mr. Lopez tried to find out his grade, Mr. Matteson allegedly told him to "ask God what your grade is," according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Mr. Lopez last week by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona Christian legal organization.

Mr. Lopez, a Los Angeles resident working toward an associate's degree at the college, is described in the lawsuit as a Christian who considers it his religious duty to share his beliefs, particularly with other students. Mr. Lopez further contends the teacher threatened to have him expelled when he complained to higher-ups.

In addition to financial damages, the suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeks to strike down a sexual harassment code barring students at the college from uttering "offensive" statements.

In a letter released by the Alliance Defense Fund, the college said it deemed Mr. Lopez's complaint "extremely serious in nature" and had launched a private disciplinary process. In the letter, Dean Allison Jones also said two students reported being "deeply offended" by Mr. Lopez's address, including one who stated, "This student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom."

It's regrettable things have reached a point where such matters must burden the courts. It's hard to believe the free give-and-take of the classroom will be enhanced by students and professors seeking whispered advice from counsel before they rise to speak.

But what is a serious matter are college "speech codes" which seek to systematically stifle any utterances -- from students or faculty -- that any listener might find offensive. Presumably these students are attending class -- with a taxpayer subsidy, in this case -- to learn something. Let them start, then, by learning this: There is no right not to be offended.

A professor or instructor's duty may indeed include expelling or silencing those who interrupt class with unscheduled noisy protests or demonstrations -- especially those meant to intimidate and drive away other students because of their race, religion or sexual preference. But there is no evidence to date that Mr. Lopez was marching around in a white hood with a noose, threatening or attempting to instill fear in anyone.

In this context, if the instructor chose to broach this issue in class, then it was his duty to let each side be heard in full, using the occasion to teach tolerance of differing viewpoints -- even viewpoints that might tend to make listeners uncomfortable.

For how are students supposed to develop their independent critical skills, if not by hearing out and then weighing the logic of unfamiliar and even "offensive" arguments? Without this, education becomes nothing but the rote memorization of today's "politically correct" catechism.