Tournament: Harvard Westlake Tournament | Round: 1 | Opponent: Interlake HS - Bellevue MW | Judge: Chapman, Abbey
I negate resolved: Public colleges and universities in the United States ought not restrict any constitutionally protected speech. 

The standard is respecting cultural diversity.
http://www.kaplanuniversity.edu/public-service/articles/cultural-diversity.aspx
Belfield 10, EdD, Lisa D. “Cultural Diversity in the United States – Kaplan University.” Kaplan University, Kaplan University College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Adjunct Faculty , 0 Dec. 2010,

“Culture is the lens with which we evaluate everything around us; we evaluate what is proper or improper, normal or abnormal, through our culture. If we are immersed in a culture that is unlike our own we may experience culture shock and become disoriented when we come into contact with a fundamentally different culture. People naturally use their own culture as the standard to judge other cultures; however, passing judgment could reach a level where people begin to discriminate against others whose “ways of being” are different than their own—essentially, we tend to fear that which we do not understand.
Cultural diversity is important because our country, workplaces, and schools increasingly consist of various cultural, racial, and ethnic groups. We can learn from one another, but first we must have a level of understanding about each other in order to facilitate collaboration and cooperation. Learning about other cultures helps us understand different perspectives within the world in which we live, and helps dispel negative stereotypes and personal biases about different groups.
In addition, cultural diversity helps us recognize and respect “ways of being” that are not necessarily our own, so that as we interact with others we can build bridges to trust, respect, and understanding across cultures. Furthermore, this diversity makes our country a more interesting place to live, as people from diverse cultures contribute language skills, new ways of thinking, new knowledge, and different experiences.”

Federal courts recognize the importance of promoting racial diversity.
Wells, 16. AMY STUART WELLS, LAUREN FOX, AND DIANA CORDOVA-COBO. FEBRUARY 9, 2016. “How Racially Diverse Schools and Classrooms Can Benefit All Students” (https://tcf.org/content/report/how-racially-diverse-schools-and-classrooms-can-benefit-all-students/) 

In the last decade, federal courts have ruled that the “educational benefits” of diverse universities, schools, and classrooms constitute an important, compelling governmental interest. Such diverse learning environments better prepare students for a global society by reducing racial stereotypes and fostering cross-racial understanding. These rulings were predicated in part on a growing body of research across several fields, including mathematics and science, that show people working in racially and ethnically diverse groups come up with better solutions to problems. Thousands of American universities and corporations have been inspired by this research to provide their students and employees with curriculum and/or trainings on problem solving and diversity—strategies most of our K–12 schools are not teaching. Furthermore, we lack the leadership in public education to make studying, documenting, and promoting those educational practices a priority.

Contention 1: Hate speech obstructs ability of group members to benefit from equal
educational opportunities.
William A Kaplin, 92 Professor of Law, Catholic University of America, “Hate Speech
on the College Campus: Freedom of Speech and Equality at the Crossroads,” Winston
Howard Lecture, Land and Water Law Review, 1992.

Sixth, a university might be able to regulate certain types of hate speech that are part of a pattern whose effects on the targeted group are so pervasive that group members are unable to benefit fully from campus educational opportunities. Under this rationale, pervasive patterns of hate speech, left unchecked, may create a denial of equal educational opportunity. This denial provides the university with a compelling interest in intervening to re-establish conditions of equality. In Healy v. James, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that universities need not tolerate First Amendment activities that “substantially interfere with the opportunity of other students to obtain an education.” 25 In other cases, the Court has held that government has a compelling interest in combatting denials of educational opportunity caused by race discrimination, and that compelling interests may overcome First Amendment rights.2 6 To invoke the reasoning of such cases, the university apparently must demonstrate that a continuing pattern of hate speech exists on campus, that the “hate speech” targets an identifiable racial or other minority student group, and that this student group therefore cannot pursue its educational opportunities on equal terms with other students. Such circumstances would be similar to the “hostile environment” concept that has become prominent in the field of employment discrimination.17 In effect, the university must demonstrate that continuing acts of hate speech have created a “hostile environment” on campus that serves to discriminate against an identifiable student group in its pursuit of an equal education. If such conditions existed, the university might temporarily implement narrow regulations that protect equal educational opportunity by prohibiting hate speech which perpetuates these conditions. Such regulations could provide sanctions against student organiza-tions as well as against individual students.

Contention 2: Racist speech harms the educational environment.
Robert C. Post, 91 Professor of Law, School of Law, University of California at Berkeley,
“Racist Speech, Democracy, and the First Amendment,” William and Mary Law Review, 1990-1991

Each of the four categories of harm so far discussed can be caused by racist expression
within public discourse. There is, however, yet a fifth kind of harm which is quite
important to the contemporary controversy, but which is relevant only to the specific
educational environment of institutions of higher learning. This is the harm that racist
expression is understood to cause to the educational mission of universities or colleges.
The prevention of this harm is central to the definition of a great number of campus regulations. Universities and colleges characteristically seek to regulate racist communications that “directly create a substantial and immediate interference with the educational processes of the University,” without articulating exactly how racist expression can cause that interference. 45 Some campus regulations are more specific, focusing on the damage that racist expression is understood to cause to particular individuals
or groups. For example, some regulations only proscribe racist expression that “will
interfere with the victim’s ability to pursue effectively his or her education or otherwise
to participate fully in University programs and activities..”46 Presumably this interference
will occur for reasons similar to those that we have already canvassed. In a
number of instances, however, college or university regulations enunciate special educational
goals that are understood to be inherently incompatible with racist expression.
For example, Mount Holyoke seeks to inculcate the value of diversity, which it views as
plainly inconsistent with racist expression. Accordingly Mount Holyoke’s regulations
provide: To enter Mount Holyoke College is to become a member of a community….
Our community is committed to maintaining an environment in which diversity is not
only tolerated, but is celebrated. Towards this end, each member of the Mount Holyoke
community is expected to treat all individuals with a common standard of decency.47
Marquette University defines itself “as a Christian and Catholic institution. . . dedicated
to the proposition that all human beings possess an inherent dignity in the eyes of
their Creator and equality as children of God.”48 Accordingly Marquette’s regulations
seek to maintain “an environment in which the dignity and worth of each member of its
community is respected” and in which “racial abuse or harassment . . . will not be tolerated.
49 Mary Washington College sets forth what appears to be a secular version of
this same educational mission; its regulations provide that the”goal of the College is to
help all students achieve academic success in an environment that nurtures, encourages
growth, and develops sensitivity and appreciation for all people.“50 Accordingly”any
activity or conduct that detracts from this goal-such as racial or sexual harassment-is
inconsistent with the purposes of the college community.“51 In such instances, racist
expression interferes with education not merely because of general harms that it may
inflict on groups or individuals or the marketplace of ideas, 52 but also, and more intrinsically,
because racist expression exemplifies conduct that is contrary to the particular
educational values that specific colleges or universities seek to instill.5
146

Hate Speech 

Contention 3: Hate speech inflicts pain on the entire targeted community.
William A Kaplin, 92 Professor of Law, Catholic University of America, “Hate Speech
on the College Campus: Freedom of Speech and Equality at the Crossroads,” Winston
Howard Lecture, Land and Water Law Review, 1992.

On another level, hate speech inflicts pain on the broader class of persons who belong to
the group which the hate speech denigrates. If blacks are targeted by a particular hate
speech incident, for instance, all blacks on campus who become aware of the incident
may be hurt-not just the person who was subjected to the speech or those who personally
witnessed it. A case in point is the introductory example about the defacement of
the Beethoven poster after an argument over whether the composer had black ancestors.
Blacks throughout the university, students as well as faculty members, reacted
to that incident. One black faculty member described her pain as follows: The most
deeply offending aspect of the Beethoven defacement concerns the ability of black and
brown and red and yellow people to name their rightful contributions to the universe
of music or any other field. It is the right to claim that we are, after all, part of Western
Civilization. It is the right to claim our existence …. The failure of the university to
acknowledge this level of the harm in the Beethoven incident allows students to deface
me. In the margins of their notebooks, or unconsciously perhaps, they deface me;
to them, I “look like a stereotype of a black person,” . . . not an academic; they see
my brown face and they draw lines “emphasizing . .. the lips, and coloring in the black
frizzy hair …” In the margins of their notebooks, I am obliterated.’

Contention 4: Arguments for free speech ignore the real and psychological harms of
racism.
Jill Gordon, 03 Professor of Philosophy, Colby College, and Markus Johnson Colby College,
“Race, Speech, and a Hostile Education Environment: What Color is Free Speech?”
Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 34, No. 3, Fall 2003.

These cases from our own institution clearly follow the problematic pattern we have
identified. What African Americans on campus experience as unambiguous racism
with harmful effects, many white students and college officials interpret as not racist,
because of their perceptions of the perpetrator’s intent, and they see the fundamental political issue at stake to be the freedom of speech of the perpetrator. Even if, for the mere
sake of argument, we take these white students, faculty, and administrators at their
word and grant that the perpetrators had no racist intent, these cases still show that
racism operates in the unconscious and makes its way out of the unconscious in speech
and behavior. Colleges and universities create and would like to occupy the imaginary
world that Lawrence and Mills describe, the imaginary world in which racism
does not exist, or exists only when individual intent can be shown, or exists only when
whites and white authority say it exists. The white majority, by having the privilege to
name the problem—and in these cases usually naming the protection of the free speech
of racist students—also determine de facto what the problem is not. The reactions of
white faculty, students, and administrators to these racist acts therefore undermine and
delegitimize the experience of the African Americans on campus, thus intensifying the
impact of the initial racism. These types of overtly racist incidents, combined with the
microaggressive racist responses to them by whites, would seem to indicate that predominantly white college campuses do not furnish black students with a comfortable
educational environment.38

Contention 5: Oppostion to speech codes is motivated largely by racism.
Richard Delgado Charles Inglis Thomson Professor of Law, University of Colorado
and David Yun JD, University of Colorado, “The Neo-conservative Case Against Hate-
Speech Regulation- Lively, D’souza, Gates, Carter, and the Toughlove Crowd,”

A second reason why even neoconservatives ought to pause before throwing their weight against hate-speech rules has to do with the nature of latter-day racism.39  Most
neoconservatives, like many white people, think that acts of out-and-out discrimination
are rare today. The racism that remains is subtle, “institutional,” or “latterday.”40
It lies in the arena of unarticulated feelings, practices, and patterns of behavior (like
promotions policy) on the part of institutions as well as individuals. A forthright focus
on speech and language may be one of the few means of addressing and curing this
kind of racism. Thought and language are inextricably connected.41 A speaker who
is asked to reconsider his or her use of language may begin to reflect on the way he
or she thinks about a subject. Words, external manifestations of thought, supply a
window into the unconscious. Our choice of word, metaphor, or image gives signs
of the attitudes we have about a person or subject.42 No readier or more effective
tool than a focus on language exists to deal with subtle or latter-day racism. Since
neoconservatives are among the prime proponents of the notion that this form of
racism is the only (or the main) one that remains, they should think carefully before
taking a stand in opposition to measures that might make inroads into it. Of course, speech codes would not reach every form of demeaning speech or depiction. But a tool’s unsuitability to redress every aspect of a problem is surely no reason for refusing to employ it where it is effective.