• Extremist Speakers on Campus.
  
• Holocaust-Denial Advertisements.
  
• Vandalism, Graffiti, Intimidation and Harassment
  
• Making the Campus a Better Place

Extremist Speakers on Campus

• When an extremist speaker visits a campus, all community members should publicly express their opposition to hate speech. Such condemnation should be expressed in a timely fashion. For example, if possible, the administration may place an advertisement in the next morning's student paper criticizing the speaker's presentation. The First Amendment demands only that speech be tolerated. It does not require that others who disagree remain silent. Criticism is not a form of censorship; rather, it is a basic affirmation of freedom of speech and opinion.
• University officials in cooperation with student governments should be encouraged to help reduce the stress created by the extremist speaker's presence through sponsoring alternative forums, structured dialogue, prejudice-reduction training, educational programming and other appropriate interventions.
• University officials should ensure that only duly constituted and recognized groups within the university community may institute a request for a speaker who is to be paid from student or university funds.
• The university should work to see that the speech is held in a reasonably secure location. Admission might be limited in most cases to those with valid university ID cards. Questioning of speakers should be conducted in a calm, nonintimidating atmosphere.
• Campus and local officials should insure that security for the event is entirely under their control. Speakers should not be allowed to place their own private security force inside or outside the auditorium.
• If there is a simultaneous counterdemonstration, it should be held in a separate location from the speech to reduce the risk of physical confrontation.

Holocaust-Denial Advertisements.

• It is important that university officials be in touch with campus newspaper editors on a continuing basis to educate them about the nature of Holocaust denial, since campus newspaper staffs change from year to year. Outreach is needed well before any Holocaust-denial advertisements are received. Attempted intervention after the fact may be too late.
• Campus leaders need to educate campus editors on the background and agenda of Holocaust deniers such as Bradley Smith, David Irving and Ernst Zündel. Holocaust deniers belong to the larger hate movement and their message, though cleverly packaged, is really one of semicamouflaged anti-Semitism.
• Administrators should stress to the paper's editors that campus newspapers are under no legal or moral obligation to accept unsolicited advertising containing false, misleading and defamatory premises, and that commercial newspapers generally do not accept such advertising. Despite the claims of Holocaust deniers, this is not a legitimate First Amendment issue.
• Appropriate leaders of the academy, such as the university president and the chairs/members of the history department should be encouraged to take a public stand against the use of the campus newspaper to spread Holocaust-denial propaganda.

Vandalism, Graffiti, Intimidation and Harassment

• Universities must establish legally valid policies on student, faculty and staff conduct that are clear and unambiguous. Such policies should be widely published in student and staff handbooks and other appropriate places, making it clear that vandalism, racist graffiti, intimidation and harassment have no place on campus and will not be tolerated, and that violators will be punished.
• Enforcement of such policies must be strict and prompt. Following appropriate norms of due process, violators must be punished and must be publicly decried.
• Racist and bigoted graffiti should be promptly removed. Such graffiti should be seen as a special human-relations problem distinct from standard maintenance procedures and preset maintenance schedules.
• Posters containing bigoted messages should likewise be considered unauthorized and promptly removed by university officials.

Making the Campus a Better Place

• Administrators, student leaders and faculty have an ongoing responsibility to speak out on matters that could create or affect tensions on campus. This should be done during pre-crisis as well as crisis situations.
• Faculty and administrations must establish high-priority, long-term human relations and prejudice-reduction programming within their curriculum (where appropriate), in the orientation process, through student services, and in university publications.
• Students, faculty and administrators should be equally concerned and respond equally to instances of bias directed at any group on campus. Distinctions as to the seriousness of the incident and the importance of a response must not be based upon the group identity of the victims.
• Fraternities and sororities should be held responsible for acts of bigotry committed by their members as part of fraternal and interfraternal events.
• Alumni, parents and members of the surrounding community should be encouraged to speak out on issues of bigotry on campus. Their voices can have a major positive impact on the atmosphere on campus.

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