Good for these students! We need more free speech, not less.

The FIRE blog reports.

Student Government at UC Santa Barbara Votes to Support Free Speech on Campus

On March 2, 2016, the Associated Students Senate of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) voted in favor of a resolution asking administrators to protect free speech at the university, as reported by The College Fix. The vote and resolution are the student government’s response to concerns over UCSB’s Bias Response Team and national examples of censored speech, as well as UCSB’s “yellow light” rating from FIRE.

The resolution opens by acknowledging the vital role free speech plays on college campuses:

Whereas: The core mission of the public university is to be a place where all ideas, no matter how sacred, are open to be questioned and challenged; and,
Whereas: Free speech, free thought, and free expression are central to this core mission.

Importantly, the resolution also states, “the Senate and Associated Students can support the right to free expression even when the Senate strongly disagree[s] with what is being said.” This is a core principle of free speech and sets the bar high for other University of California student governments to follow, especially given the number of recent incidents of censorship at other UC schools. Last fall, for example, the student government at the University of California, San Diego voted to defund all student papers in an effort to target The Koala, a satirical student newspaper, after it published an article mocking “safe spaces.” In 2013, UC Berkeley’s student government voted to prohibit the phrase “illegal immigrant” on campus. And, just last month, UC student body presidents released a letter urging the UC Regents not to let free speech “distract” from creating inclusive campuses.