Are Bias Hotlines Curtailing Free Speech Across Major Universities In The US?

New York University (NYU) is one among the few educational institutes which promotes a Bias Hotline service publicly. The hotline has been set-up to enable to students to file complaints against bias, discrimination, verbal, physical or mental harassment, etc anonymously. Other universities such as The University of Missouri and New Jersey’s Drew University also promote “bias hotlines” on their websites. The New York University Bias Response hotline offers a channel for community members to express their experiences with and worries about potential bias, discrimination, or harassing behavior. The university openly promotes its hotline openly at many places around the campus including the back of the student’s ID card.

A Critical Evaluation Of Bias Hotlines

·         While these hotlines have been instituted to promote strict anti-discriminatory behavior in the institute’s campus, many people claim that these services are mostly being used to report faculties or students for controversial opinions, which sadly has become a form of discriminatory act that is being promoted by the mass instead.

·        Students also tend to believe that these hotlines can simply be used to fire a complaint against candidates who choose to express their opinion on a controversial topic that they find offensive, which might not be true. This kind of experiences disables students and other faculties from expressing their opinions not just on campus but also everywhere else, in the various walks of their life, which is certainly not a lesson that should be promoted among the youths.

·       Also the criteria for what kind of actions or words will be counted under bias, discriminatory or abusive demeanor is decided by the university itself, which very often tends to exclude students from registering their complaints against the so called powerful and aristocratic communities.

·        Most of the complaints fired at Penn State were related to anti-racist behavior. Of the complaints, 36% were made against undergrad students and 29% were against faculty members. 

Cherise Trump (Executive Director of Speech First – a community which promotes free speech across campuses in America) claimed that “These policies do not cultivate a space of inclusion and diversity. Instead, they compromise students’ fundamental rights to free speech and inquiry, which will have a profound effect on their educational experience,” which is true to a large extent. “Colleges absolutely have a duty to address discrimination, harassment, sexual violence, and other crimes on campus. But laws are already on the books to punish people who engage in that kind of conduct,” she stated.