A commission of leaders from across the UNC system met for the second time in Chapel Hill Thursday afternoon to hear the thoughts of faculty, students and citizens regarding the potential creation of a system wide hate crimes policy.
Such a policy could limit some forms of speech on all 16 campuses within the system.
System president Erskine Bowles created the commission following the events in the Free Expression Tunnel Nov. 5, 2008 and charged the group to determine if a policy is needed.
The commission is scheduled to make an initial report to Bowles in March.
Matt Woodward, a freshman in microbology who spoke to the panel, said he was glad to see those making the decisions listening to the concerns of students.
“I’m glad the commission was so receptive and made the panel open to the public so students could speak,” he said. “When administrative decisions are made sometimes the student perspective gets a little skewed.”
In total, the commission heard remarks from seven presenters, two of which were students. The public presentation segment of the meeting lasted under an hour.
Woodward said the lack of student attendance at the forum was disappointing.
“I do wish it was a little more advertised,” he said. “But I think that the commission is made up of well represented people so they’ll do what’s right for their best interests.”
Another goal of the commission is to advise Bowles on whether or not the UNC system should have required diversity orientation for incoming students.
Woodward said he feels the classes would help more than a policy alone.
“If we just make a policy we’re not going to get anywhere,” he said. “It’s the steps afterward. I think we need to look at this as a societal problem and say ‘OK, look at how much hate is in our culture’ whether it is spoken or written or even in our body language.”
While many of those who spoke to the commission were in favor of a system-wide hate crimes policy, Katherine Parker, a legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, spoke out against one.
In her presentation, Parker urged the commission to protect speech no matter offensive it may be.
“[The ACLU] don’t see the need in implementing a hate crimes or hate speech code at all,” she said. “There are hate crime provisions in state law that we think are more than adequate to cover sitations of hate crimes.”
Parker also said that a policy won’t fix the problems behind hate speech like the threatening messages written in the Free Expression tunnel about President-elect Barack Obama.
“Limiting speech and censuring students is just a bad idea,” she said. “It won’t even address the symptom but it certainly won’t address the underlying problem.”
Members of the N.C. State Campus Culture Task Force Committee, which Chancellor James Oblinger charged with making reccomendations about how to improve the campus culture in Raleigh, will meet today to make an initial report to Oblinger.
Woodward was the only member of the N.C. State task force present at Thursday’s meeting UNC system meeting.