If you haven’t met Michael Venyah, our local fire-breathing evangelist of Soulwinners Ministries, you are one of the few.
Venyah, despite his small stature, makes himself noticed with the oratorical skills of Cicero and Mississippi’s late firebrand Sen. Theodore Bilbo. If he didn’t have a loud enough voice to be heard in the neighboring town, he would effectively be stifled by the university.
Many on campus are tired of his blazing-pits-of-hell rhetoric. It seems that enough people have complained about his message that the university has banned him from his conspicuous position near the Union steps to the rarely-used free speech stone between the YMCA building and George Hall.
The university sent Venyah to the free speech zone in order to keep people from hearing him. This only illustrates that free speech zones are actually an assault on our constitutional right to free expression.
The U.S. Bill of Rights says that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” The dictionary defines abridging as, “to diminish or reduce in scope.”
Speech is being abridged on our American university campuses. Our university, like many others, has enacted free speech zones designated for people to protest, speak out, proselytize and express themselves in any matter. Louisiana State University has Free Speech Row and our university has the free speech class memorial. Even Ole Miss, whom the Princeton Review named as one of the “10 Most Politically Conservatives Colleges,” has had to implement a free speech zone.
The problem is that the free speech zone is usually an isolated spot far away from the school’s civilization.
Several constitutional scholars have traced the zones’ beginnings to the ’70s when university administrators sought to limit protest that they saw as disruptive to classes and the academic routines of colleges. It appears that even in our modern day of non-activism, our nation’s universities have further sought to put the lid on free speech by abridging our constitutional right to expression.
In 2000, a student was arrested for protesting in a non-free speech zone. In response, the university didn’t correct the problem but instead created more free speech zones.
Most people would say they don’t like to be inconvenienced by protesters and preachers, including Venyah’s shouting. The paradigm of free speech is that it doesn’t provide one the right not to be inconvenienced unless bodily harm or undue pressure is exerted.
We in Starkville should consider ourselves lucky when it comes to being inconvenienced by free speech. In the Washington, D.C., morning rush hour, one could be subjected to protesters forming a human chain on the Potomac River Bridge which is a lifeline between Virginia and D.C. One would be tempted to break the human chain with their SUV.
How about being asked while entering your workplace to join the fight against the Mullahs of Iran by joining the Mujahadeen? Muja who?
The only free speech that should be limited is that which obstructs traffic, causes bodily harm, constitutes undue harassment and disrupts the class routine. Therefore, MSU should affirm the rights of free speech by abolishing free speech zones and returning our evangelist to a place where he can exercise his rights effectively.
Edward Sanders is a junior political science major. He can be reached at [email protected].