Responsibility, Freedom of Speech and Campus Speech Codes

This article argues that speech codes are not the answer to curbing offensive communication. The typical response to curbing verbal aggression on campuses throughout the U.S. has come in the form of speech codes--designed to prevent offensive communication. Speech codes, however, are not new phenomena to the U.S. landscape. Landmark Supreme Court decisions have provided numerous types of speech codes for identifying messages falling within and outside the boundaries of legally protected speech. All members, then, in the communication process engage in the creation of meaning. And more, they must take responsibility for not only the formation of meaning in a message but the responsibility for their reaction it. To deny this responsibility simultaneously denies the process of communication itself. On the issue of freedom of speech, a college or university serves its constituency effectively if it perceives the act of communication from the broader view offered by a transactional perspective