The latter signals the university can include “verbal conduct” that a listener of a public speech might find hateful or offensive on the basis of race, sex, religion or some dozen other categories as a violation of the ADP. What this means in theory is words are considered actions, and actions, of course, may be punished. What this means in practice is an assault on the First Amendment.

The current example of this assault came from a speech last spring by Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Protesters attempted to silence him, and MSU police had to remove some audience members and arrest others.

But in early October, the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, the successor to the MSU Office of Affirmative Action, launched an investigation of discrimination allegations by the protesting students against the MSU College Republicans and the MSU Young Americans for Freedom, the student groups who legally sponsored Simcox’s speech.

As you might guess, allegations referenced violations of the ADP, even though the ADP specifically asserts its prohibitions “are not intended to abridge University community members’ rights to free expression.” As faculty advisers of the two student groups, we too were charged with discrimination in the ways noted above.

Perhaps you are wondering what it took for the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives to launch an unprecedented investigation of faculty advisers. In our case, the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives explained that “only two students ? made the direct allegation that an advisor ? may be somehow complicit in the harassing and discriminating conduct.” As a letter we received helpfully clarified, “We thought it necessary and appropriate to at least look into your role.”

This “look” into our role, however, is itself illuminating. We recognize it as an attempt to intimidate conservative students, and we interpret our investigation as a warning (and, by cooperating, an opportunity) to step out of the way of that intimidation.

Free speech is meant to protect even hateful and hurtful speech because that’s often a matter of viewpoint and bias. Moreover, the charge of “hate speech” easily is used by those who want to win an argument by silencing opponents.

Also, MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives has willingly or unwittingly permitted itself and the ADP to be seized as a tool by those most anti-democratic among us to suppress speech and punish speakers or those who invite them to campus. Our response emerges from these key points. Specifically, we have proposed an amendment to the ADP that amplifies existing language protecting free expression by prohibiting the university from launching an investigation of a public speech simply because a hearer charges discrimination. That ADP amendment reads, in part, that “no actions may be taken under the provisions of this policy against such speakers or speaker sponsors because of the content of a speech.”

The MSU School of Journalism and the Department of Political Science faculties have approved this change, and the proposed amendment to the ADP is now before the advisory councils of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and the College of Social Science. Ultimately, the MSU Board of Trustees will have to approve amending the ADP.

But whatever the trustees ultimately decide, it’s vital that students and faculty oppose the use of the institutional power of the university against free speech and speakers. Democracy is protected by limiting the ability of our governors (or university administrators) to use such institutional power against those whose speech is considered deplorable or even hateful. That institutional restraint is what the First Amendment is about. Anything else puts us on the road to real violence. Anything else puts us down the road to real tyranny.

Dr. William Allen is a political science professor and adviser to the MSU chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. Reach him at allenwi@msu.edu.

Dr. Frederick Fico is a journalism professor and adviser to the MSU College Republicans. Reach him at fredfico@msu.edu.