Student government here at Ashland recently voted unanimously to pass a resolution supporting free expression in response to speech restrictions imposed by students protesters at campuses around the country.

According to James Coyne, the Student Senate president, the vote was unanimous based AU students understanding the importance of free speech.

This question arose for the Senate when other institutions include Yale took what they seemed to be the wrong approach. Yale students were seen to hostile toward free free speeches on campus and AU did not think that was the way to handle it.

“After seeing what was taking place on college campuses across the country, we determined that it was important that we speak out and say that they were not representatives of the minds of all college students,” Said Coyne. “We were disturbed by the hostility students showed toward free speech at different institutions.”

The Student Senate was unsettled by these schools declaration that Colleges must be safe places for students to be. While no student should actually have their physical safely threatened, they rejected the notion that ideas that might be offensive to groups of students should be banned from campuses.

“I was seeing a trend of colleges across the country having protests where free speech was under attack,” student senator Josh Frey, told Campus Reform. “And we thought, as college students, that there were not a lot of people coming to defend free speech among students.”

The Senate believes that Universities need to allow all ideas, no matter how controversial to enter into a conversation.

“Controversial ideas, if wrong, will be proven wrong, when held up to the light of reason,” Said Coyne. “ If they are barred entry into a public forum, however, we allow the heresies of falsehood to continue on without refutation.”

AU Student Senate can be seen as an innovator for the vote they passed. While other schools are not wanting to see free speech, AU is embracing it.