The Dangers of Campus Speech Codes: Revisiting the Water Buffalo Affair

“The history which preceded the magazine’s shutdown and resurgence involved a controversy sufficient for the Red and Blue to be ‘expelled from the Student Activities Council (SAC)’ and to have ‘archives…trashed by the University.'”

In a recent article for Merion West, I wrote about how “the scale and scope of what [systemic racism] entails has expanded so widely and rapidly in the wake of critical race theory and Whiteness studies that white supremacy is allegedly ‘reified’ in every way imaginable.” In other words, when we start seeing Whiteness and racism anywhere and everywhere, the word “racism” has lost its meaning. This penchant for confirmation bias can easily lead to Orwellian speech codes that see racist connotations in everything we say, do, and “perform” in our social interactions.

Lest I seem to be overstating the case, I am reminded of the infamous Water Buffalo affair from the early 1990s, in which a weak-kneed administration at the University of Pennsylvania caved to political correctness and the imperatives of public relations in the interest of fighting “racism.” In the fall of 1996, as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, I joined a student-run magazine called the Red and Blue. I was eager to join after receiving the May 1996 issue during the summer, which was mailed by staff to incoming freshmen as a recruiting and marketing pitch. The issue opened with a hyperbolic declaration: “[w]hen the Class of ’96 arrived on this campus there was no free speech, no equal justice, and no due process.” The editorial pitch continued: “One year ago, this publication had been defunded and thrown out of its office.” In a triumphant tone, however, it boasted that, a year after then-president Judith Rodin eliminated a speech code which came under fire during the infamous Water Buffalo affair, “[t]he Class of ’96 leaves a transformed University.”

The editors dedicated the issue to the Class of ’96 “for a job well done.” Flipping through the pages, I read an article criticizing post-structuralism as “The Unenlightenment,” an interview with libertarian Penn history professor Alan Kors about his “strong views on freedom in the academy and [his] opposition to the doctrine of in loco parentis,” and an article about a lecture delivered by William Kristol, former Weekly Standard editor and former Penn political science professor, to a gathering in the English Department, in which Kristol was treated as a token conservative and, at one point, met with “uncivilized” disruption. Needless to say, I was drawn to the magazine’s stated commitment to “truth, justice, and fundamental constitutional rights that the University often ignores.”