According to the Constitution of North Carolina, Article 1, Section 14, “Freedom of speech and of the press are two of the great bulwarks of liberty and therefore shall never be restrained, but every person shall be held responsible for their abuse.” This statement is quoted in North Carolina House Bill 527, a bill written with the intention of “restoring and preserving” the right to free speech on college campuses in the UNC System.

Passed by the North Carolina House of Representatives in late April, HB 527 aims to give universities the power to penalize students who take part in protests (against campus events or speakers) that are deemed a violation to other students’ or groups’ rights to free speech, according to a Technician news article on the bill. 

Before I go on, I want to make it clear that nowhere is it stated that the bill condones hate speech — speech and ideas that target and oppress minority groups in a verbally, and sometimes physically violent manner. Rather, it’s about free speech that may or may not be used to protest other forms of “free speech.”

The conception of the bill occurred just after protests turned violent at the University of California-Berkeley and Middlebury College, to name a few instances, where students protested speakers Milo Yiannopoulos and Charles Murray, two controversial individuals who have repeatedly come under fire for making overtly hateful comments in favor of white supremacy. There have, however, been no examples of such demonstrations occurring anywhere at a North Carolina public university. HB 527 is a preventative measure, according to its sponsors.

In fact, according to Chris Millis (R-Onslow and Pender counties), one of the bill’s sponsors, “In order to preempt a violation of a student’s First Amendment right to free speech, House Bill 527 provides front-end oversight and accountability of the UNC System to ensure that all constituent institutions employ administrative policies that fully respect the First Amendment.”

On the surface, the sponsors are selling this bill as harmless, even looking to help in maintaining campus harmony. Furthermore, nowhere in the bill is it explicitly stated that it targets any particular group of protesters, meaning that should the bill become law, universities could penalize conservative students protesting by the same authority they could penalize liberal protesters.

Upon closer examination and practical application, however, the bill is rather suspicious in its motives. The timing of the bill, conceived immediately after (justified) protests in the name of social justice occurred on many campuses across the nation (including Berkeley and Middlebury), calls into question who the bill targets. The sponsors of the bill, Jonathan Jordan and Chris Millis, are both conservative House representatives with little to no experience as to campus culture surrounding freedom of speech on today’s campuses.

The biggest issue with the bill, however, is that although it’s intentioned to “restore” First Amendment freedoms to all students within the UNC System, the reality is that HB 527 regulates a First Amendment right that was never overtly taken from us to begin with. Moreover, it is unclear whether the bill is trying to protect the free speech of the students, or the free speech of speakers — like, for example, Milo Yiannopoulos — who come to campus events.

Either way, a law to regulate or bureaucratize a citizen’s inherent First Amendment right to free speech overly complicates the meaning of free speech. As written in the Constitution of North Carolina, when it comes to freedom of speech and of the press, “…every person shall be held responsible for their abuse.”

In the case of hate speech, institutional interference and deliverance of punishment is not only helpful, but necessary. In the case of strong objections made in a legal manner, however — be they against specific speakers, against specific events or anything else — should not only be protected, but also encouraged. Healthy discourse, according to HB527, is vital to “…the discovery, improvement, transmission, and dissemination of knowledge.”