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Freedom of speech is one of the core principles of America’s First Amendment. It is often defined as a person’s right to say whatever they like, as long as such speech does not endanger someone else’s personal safety. This goes to the heart of a crucial idea, which is that speech — even speech that we find repugnant — is different from conduct.
言论自由是美国宪法第一修正案的核心原则之一。它通常被定义为一个人想说什么就说什么，只要这种言论不危及他人的人身安全。这涉及到一个关键思想的核心，即言论——甚至是我们觉得令人厌恶的言论——不同于行为。
The boundaries of that idea have been tested in recent years in many ways. They were tested again last week when three presidents of elite US universities — the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and MIT — appeared before a House committee examining antisemitism on campuses in the wake of the Israeli war in Gaza. A wave of pro-Palestinian protests have hit campuses all over the US, where university politics lean heavily to the left.
近年来，这一思想的界限已经在许多方面受到了考验。上周，宾夕法尼亚大学、哈佛大学和麻省理工学院三所美国精英大学的校长出席众议院委员会会议，调查以色列发动加沙战争后校园里的反犹主义时，这一界限再次受到考验。支持巴勒斯坦的抗议浪潮席卷了美国各地的校园。美国的大学政治严重偏向左翼。
Such schools have in recent years tended to err on the side of condemning those who champion impolitic views, often conservative ones, or criticise leftwing ideas such as critical race theory. Now, that tendency has left them straddling an uncomfortable line between protecting individuals and protecting free speech.
近年来，这些学校倾向于谴责那些拥护非政治观点（通常是保守派观点）或批评左翼思想（如批判性种族理论）的人。现在，这种趋势使他们在保护个人和保护言论自由之间跨越了一条令人不安的界限。
Pro-Palestinian protesters on campuses chant slogans like “Intifada now,” or “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” which some interpret as a call for genocide against Jews. There have also been increasing episodes of harassment of Jewish students on campuses. In many cases, perpetrators have not been cancelled or fired as they might have had they criticised, say, affirmative action or used hateful language against minority students. This has provoked outrage among many (including some powerful donors) who feel universities are turning a blind eye to antisemitism.
支持巴勒斯坦抗议者在校园里高呼“现在就起义”或“从河流到海洋，巴勒斯坦必须自由”等口号，一些人认为这是在呼吁对犹太人进行种族灭绝。校园里骚扰犹太学生的事件也越来越多。在许多情况下，犯罪者并没有像批评平权行动或对少数族裔学生使用仇恨语言那样被取消学籍或开除。这引起了许多人的愤怒(包括一些有权势的捐助者)，他们认为大学对反犹主义视而不见。
The issue has now reached a tipping point. When asked if it would be against university bullying and harassment policies if someone on campus called for a genocide of Jews, none of the presidents could come up with a clear answer. Penn’s Liz Magill, who had labelled such calls “hateful” but claimed they were protected by the school’s commitment to free speech, backtracked the next day and resigned, calling the attacks on Jewish students unacceptable. In an ever more hateful world, she said, university speech “policies need to be clarified and evaluated”.
这个问题现在已经达到了临界点。当被问及如果有人在校园里呼吁对犹太人进行种族灭绝，是否会违反大学的欺凌和骚扰政策时，没有一位校长能给出明确的答案。宾夕法尼亚大学的利兹•马吉尔(Liz Magill)曾将这种呼吁称为“仇恨”，但声称这些言论受到学校对言论自由承诺的保护。她表示，在一个日益充满仇恨的世界里，大学的言论“政策需要明确和评估”。
Indeed. There are several thorny issues in play here, from changing generational views about Israel, to the parsing of individuals into ever smaller interest groups, to the challenge of balancing free speech and safety. Speech codes at private universities don’t have to follow constitutional law. These institutions could, if they chose, explicitly prohibit calls for genocide.
的确如此。这里有几个棘手的问题，从一代人对以色列看法的变化，到将个人划分为越来越小的利益群体，再到平衡言论自由与安全之间的挑战。私立大学的言论规范不必遵循宪法。如果这些机构愿意，它们可以明确禁止种族灭绝的呼吁。
Here, though, we should go back to the differences between words and actions. If there is a clear and present danger to someone’s safety, then speech that provokes that danger should be prohibited. That would include attacks on individual students during rallies. Direct calls for genocide should also fall under this rubric. But slogans that are merely hateful (or perceived as such) may not. Universities are places where people go to be exposed to different views: if speech is constrained with more and more specific rules designed to fit the politics of the day, the truth is likely to become harder to find. Too many institutions have drifted towards legalistic self-protection rather than truth seeking.
但在这里，我们应该回到言语和行动之间的区别。如果某人的安全面临明显而现实的危险，那么引发这种危险的言论就应该被禁止。这包括在集会期间对个别学生的攻击。直接呼吁种族灭绝也应属于这一范畴。但仅仅是仇恨（或被认为具有仇恨性）口号可能不属于此列。大学是人们接触不同观点的地方：如果言论受到越来越多的具体规则来的限制，以适应当时的政治，那么真相可能会变得更加难以发现。太多的机构已经偏向于法律上的自我保护，而不是寻求真理。
But to the extent that there are rules, they must be applied equally. Faculty and students cannot be penalised for hate speech against one group, and not another. The fact that the heads of America’s most elite universities do not have a clear understanding of their own speech codes and how to enforce them is cause for grave concern.
但只要有规则，就必须一视同仁。教师和学生发表针对某一群体的仇恨言论会受到惩罚，而针对另一群体的言论却不会受到惩罚，这是不合理的。美国最精英大学的负责人对自己的言论准则以及如何执行这些准则没有清楚的认识，这一事实令人严重担忧。