Civility and the Free Speech Movement

We understand you have issued no regulation nor taken any steps to restrict political advocacy or "uncivil" speech on campus. Nonetheless, we are concerned that your call for "civility" may have — or already has had — a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech by UC Berkeley faculty and students.

This fall, the campus celebrates the achievements of the 1964 student movement that made Berkeley famous for extending the First Amendment’s definition of free speech to the University of California.

The naturally ambiguous definition of “civility” has sparked intense discourse on the UC Berkeley campus after Chancellor Nicholas Dirks sent an email Sept. 5 entitled “Civility and Free Speech.”

We don’t want “free speech” that is condoned by the administration. Let us explain. Chancellor Nicholas Dirks is tasked with defending and bettering the institution of UC Berkeley.

Those were my thoughts upon reading Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ message of Sept. 5. It came late on a Friday afternoon — one of those irritating, one-way messages that signs off in bold, “Please do not reply to this message,” thus clothing an imperative — “do not reply” — in the language of civility: “please.”

An email sent Friday from Chancellor Nicholas Dirks to faculty, students and staff proved controversial among some UC Berkeley faculty after it called for politeness in campus discourse.