It is easy to relate China with censorship. In Hong Kong, students are protesting the “democratic” election of a chief executive and legislative officials out of a pool of candidates chosen by the Beijing administration.
The protest is known as Occupy Central, and the reason it hasn’t been squashed is because of Hong Kong’s history of isolation from the Chinese mainland. The people have been allowed to exercise a certain level of freedom of expression and assembly, and the crooked election has inspired indignation in Hong Kong’s students.
Douglas Lee Donoho, professor at the Shepard Broad Law Center, said, “In Hong Kong, they’ve been a little more lenient than they would in mainland China, and that’s because of Hong Kong’s special status. In the mainland, they would never tolerate any of this at all.”
Although Reuters reports that Hong Kong police have acted violently toward the protestors, which includes a now viral video of a police officer beating a pro-democracy protestor, the protests have not been completely smothered; while Hong Kong is under China’s rule, it’s still a separate entity.
Stephen Ross Levitt, associate professor in the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences, said the difference between Hong Kong and the U.S. is constitutional values. In China, an opinion outside of the constitutional values is not accepted or protected. A Chinese official would claim that censorship is preventing destructive speech from entering the Internet.
“[China] would consider that an abuse of your freedom of speech,” he said.
Levitt said we have a different concept of freedom of speech. So as long as it has to do with politics, the government, the economy, you’re free to express your opinions, even if they are objectionable to the state.
“We have a right to say we think this is wrong with the government; we take for granted what in China does not fully exist yet. It’s a weakness in their system. China is still a communist society,” said Levitt.
As easy as it is for China to censor what its people can access on the Internet and what they’re allowed to post on social media websites, it’s hard to think that we would have this issue in the U.S.
Donoho believes that people in the U.S. fully accept that they can protest without serious consequences from the government.
“However, there are plenty of instances, including public protests, where you see similar reactions from the government in the United States that you saw at least with Hong Kong,” he said.
The Hong Kong police’s use of pepper spray on protestors is reminiscent of the University of California, Davis pepper spray incident, in which police pepper sprayed demonstrators.
“Do I think that we live the ideal model of peaceful protest? Not really, no. I don’t think we’ve had a perfect record at all. I think we can do much better. The other side of the coin, you can’t tolerate violence,” said Donoho. “The government has the right to make sure it’s peaceful.”
The history of student protests in the U.S. is extensive. In the 70s and 80s, students protested against the Vietnam War and nuclear proliferation and were met with violent confrontations with police. There were widespread movements against the World Trade Organization in the 90s that involved police utilization of pepper spray, tear gas, stun grenades and even rubber bullets against protestors. In August of this year, the Ferguson protests pushed officials to order tanks and other military-grade weaponry to threaten protesters, despite the fact that most protestors were peaceful.
“[Utilizing force] doesn’t recognize their right to peacefully and disruptively, through civil disobedience, express their disagreement,” Donoho said.
Donoho said our rights as U.S. citizens are derived from the First Amendment, which has been very broadly interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to include any kind of expression, including things that are widely unpopular or against governmental policy.
“It’s probably the broadest definition of freedom of expression that exists in the world,” he said.
However, this constitutional right to freedom of expression may be limited in areas that are not public, including, for example, NSU.
“There’s still that potential; as a private school NSU could impose censorship on students,” Donoho said.
Donoho said the university, formally, is a private institution, and does not fall under the protection of the First Amendment. Other universities, such as Florida Atlantic University, do fall under the protection of this amendment because they are government and state sponsored institutions.
However, Levitt said NSU gets federal funding, so it may have limitations on how much it can censor student protest.
Donoho also believes that sometimes a university acts much like a governmental entity either because of its sources of funding or other measures.
“It’s very bad policy for the school as an institution of higher learning to restrict speech in any kind of way,” said Donoho. “But that’s not because it’s a constitutional problem, it’s more because it’s simply a bad policy.”
Donoho said he thinks that NSU, as a private institution for higher learning, would not benefit from censoring students and their beliefs or ideas, as Hong Kong has consistently done since the beginning of the protest s in September.
Similarly, Levitt said that while NSU cannot stop students from protesting on a public sidewalk, the use of its own private property may not be used to demonstrate opposition.
“All they can say is you can’t use our property to further [a] cause,” said Levitt.
