For the seventh consecutive year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has given the University a red-light rating for its sexual harassment policy in a report assessing free speech codes on college campuses. The red-light rating is given to schools with at least one policy that "both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech," according to the report.
The University's sexual harassment code was flagged for being "too vague" and "over-broad," said Azhar Majeed, the foundation's associate director of legal and public advocacy.
"This policy gives purported examples of sexual harassment, which encompasses speech, such as suggestive jokes of a sexual nature," Majeed said. "Something as obvious as a joke on ‘South Park' or the ‘Daily Show' would potentially be a suggestive joke of a suggestive nature" that could constitute sexual harassment, Majeed said.
The 2012 report rated 392 colleges and universities, 65 percent of which received a red-light rating. Harvard, Cornell and Columbia were also labeled as red-light for some of their policies.
Since 2005, the foundation, a nonprofit education organization that advocates free speech on campus, has been rating colleges around the country. It began rating Brown in 2006. The released ratings are based on "publicly available policies" from 288 public universities and 104 private universities, according to the report. Policies analyzed include Internet use guidelines and protest and discrimination policies.
The foundation uses federal standards to evaluate whether a policy violates free speech. In the case of sexual harassment policies, the foundation relies solely on the Davis standard, established in the 1999 Supreme Court case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which holds that student behavior must be "severe, pervasive and objectively offensive" to qualify as sexual harassment, Majeed said.
"Davis is the only decision handed down by the Supreme Court, and that makes it a controlling decision from the nation's highest court," he added.
"There are many external organizations that provide assessments and rankings using any range of criteria and methodology," wrote Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Marisa Quinn in an email to The Herald. "I am not aware of the criteria used by (the foundation) so am not able to comment on the assessment."
"The University community values and promotes freedom of speech and freedom of expression and ensures that its principles and standards of community conduct are clear, shared and well understood," Quinn wrote.
Student responses to the rating were conflicted. "The examples (the foundation) gave were very vague, I guess necessarily, because it's a hypothetical example and not like a real-life example," said Jean Mendoza '12. "I never considered them problematic, but I can see why they would."
"I never really evaluated it because I'm inside Brown, but just hearing an outsider judge and evaluate our system and point out this flaw, that makes you question how Brown functions," Mendoza said.
"Reading the (sexual harrassment) policy didn't come across as vague or over-broad," said Zack McKenzie '14. "It just came across as concise, more in that it's not a 50-page policy. It's easy enough for students to understand. So while it lacks specific elaboration that could go on for pages, it does enumerate its policy clearly."
