By Nat Galarea Gbessagee
The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
February 24 2019
Introduction
These days in Liberia, everybody is a constitutional lawyer. No longer can any public or private discussion be held wherein one or two persons do not claim constitutional violation. Presidential appointments to tenured positions, the ongoing legal wrangling over the impeachment trial of a sitting supreme court justice, and the recent suspension of student campus politics at the University of Liberia have all yielded shouts of constitutional violation. It is now as if Liberians have awakened from years of political slumber and found a new niche in freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. And in the name of constitutionally-protected freedom of expression, no topics are any longer off-limits in Liberian society, as every topic is now fair game for public discussion, whether personal or otherwise. Hence, news of the suspension on January 11, 2019, of political activities at the country’s oldest public university was greeted by heated debates on radio talk shows and social media; in newspapers; and among college professors, street vendors, politicians, and student groups. Many social media enthusiasts, newspaper article respondents, and talk show participants even indulged in the speculations that the University administration imposed the suspension not on its own merit but by the directives of higher-ups in the ruling national party. But does a University administration need outside intervention in order to discipline students, faculty, and staff of the university for cause?
The answer to this question is the main crux of the matter at hand. Two competing student political groups clashed on the University’s Capitol Hill Campus prior to the suspension. The University Administration, citing Rules 9,10, 11 of the Students Handbook, suspended all campus-based student political activities (including political/solidarity marches, political gatherings, the wearing of symbols and emblems depicting and promoting campus-based political groups, and student protests) for time indefinite, and warned that violators “shall be expelled” (Kwanue). These speculations raised additional questions such as 1) What does the University’s Students Handbook say about student politics and clashes by rival student political groups on campus? and 2) What aspect of the suspension of student politics on a university campus constitutes constitutional violation? I shall address these concerns in these narratives, with emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of University students and administrators, and the general requirements for campus politics at higher education institutions.
Free Speech and Free Assembly
The 1986 Liberian constitution upholds freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful and orderly assembly for all citizens and residents of Liberia, but not without limitations. Article 15(a) imposes individual responsibility for whatever claims made in the exercise of free expression, while Article 15(b) provides an academic freedom doctrine that protects the very act of giving and receiving knowledge. Article 17 provides not only the right of individuals to peaceful and orderly assemble, but also the right to accept or refuse to associate with political parties, trade unions, and other organizations. Article 15(b) also provides for individual rights to educational pursuits, but it doesn’t state “how” and to what extent knowledge can be given and acquired, “by whom,” and “at what level. “ It doesn’t state if knowledge can be impacted through a structured or unstructured system, and if a structured system, who may be qualified and accepted as students, faculty, staff, or administrators? It doesn’t state what processes, procedures, and requirements are needed for the acceptance and retention of students, faculty, staff, or administrators in a particular higher education institution. These omissions are often best settled by relevant state and federal statutes and related administrative laws, which are usually relied upon by University administrations in formulating policies for the general governance of the University.
In essence, the Liberian constitution and the administrative governance structures and purposes of universities do not give carte blanche permit to any student, faculty, staff, or administrator of a university to engage in political activities on a university campus outside of a disciplinary focus or practicum. For the exchange of knowledge requires more than an individual’s right to education: it requires a set of administrative structures that bind students, faculty, and administrators together in a social contract that spells out the policies for student registration, academic programs and associated curricula, academic probation, system of grading and awarding of grades, use of campus facilities, and the establishment, role , and leadership requirements of student clubs and sororities on campus.
Writing in The Perspective on 29 January 2019 in reaction to the suspension, fellow educator and a former University of Liberia assistant professor and department chair, Abdoulaye W. Dukulé, PhD raised the stakes in the discussion by the declarations that 1) Students are not accountable to the university authorities about their political views; 2) University students “are not children who need to be taught how to and when to speak”; 3) Politics on a university campus is national politics; and 4) It is an illusion to stop students from engaging in politics” on campus. He also described the suspension as “counterproductive” to the students developing the requisite leadership skills for future leadership roles in Liberian society, and as “against the freedom of speech and freedom of association enshrined in the Constitution” (Dukulé).
The readers can decipher the truth from the fancy in Dukulé’s claims. After all, the Liberian constitution gives each of us “The right to hold opinions without interference and the right to knowledge” (Article 15(b)). However, I do not see the suspension as violation of the free expression and free assembly rights of the students. I do not remotely believe that only children can be taught how and when to speak, nor do I believe that any groups of students, faculty, or staff can lawfully engage in any activity on a university campus outside specific university guidelines, policies, and approval processes. I do know that public speaking and oral presentation skills are as essential to the growth and development of the capacities of university students as the academic programs and curricula that undergird their academic pursuits. I also know that it is not against the norms of university governance for a University administration to abolish, suspend, or cancel particular university programs and campus activities.
For instance, in The Aims of Education and Other Essays, educator Alfred North Whitehead tells us that “The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning” (93). The key point here is that if a university must maintain the connection between individual zest of life and knowledge, then it stands to reason that both the old and the young people participating in learning at the university level must proceed with caution, care, and unity of purpose and not antagonism. For knowledge, it appears, must be impacted and acquired within a quiet and peaceful atmosphere and not within a noisy and chaotic atmosphere. this is why, regardless of what the political, religious, or philosophical persuasions of a student, faculty, or administrator might be, administrators of universities and other higher education institutions always have primary responsibility for creating a conducive learning environment that gives equal access, opportunity, and protection to all categories of students. To this end, many universities will not allow any visitor, student, faculty, staff, or administrator on campus without proper identification and security check.
All educators should know that University administrations generally recognize the educational benefits to be accrued to the university, the community, and the country when students are exposed to political debate and information, including partisan political activities on campus. However, in handling student partisan political activities on campus University administrations are mostly concerned with maintaining an orderly and peaceful learning environment at all times, in strict compliance with university rules, regulations, and procedures, and avoidance of any activities that will bring into disrepute the mission, vision, and core values of the university. Hence, the issues of individual free speech and peaceful assembly in no way abrogate the functions of college and university administrators and the expectations that persons designated as students must meet.
There should, therefore, not be any need to reinvent the wheels on university governance in the face of the recent University suspension order by resorting to the kind of provocative language that led us as a nation and people to the abyss of self-destruction in our recent past. For while it may make political sense to try to move the discussion away from what actually transpired on the University campus to warrant the suspension to purposeful yearnings for individual bravado, political intrigues, and public relations stunts, the focus should instead be on restructuring university education in Liberia to prepare students not for active roles as opposition politicians, but to prepare for future leadership roles students who are highly motivated people and have the knack for scholarship, discovery, development, and progress.
Example of University Policy on Use of Campus Facilities for political purposes
Every University administration has a duty to safeguard the image of the university by making sure that all campus activities are in line with the mission, vision, and core values of the university. As a result, University administrations are directly and indirectly responsible for any and all activities and programs on campus, including public statements of a political nature. Hence, student partisan politics on a university campus is not a matter of constitutional right but a “privilege” that can be revoked at any time based on the administrative prerogatives of University administrations. For instance, in a research study and publication on student politics and activism in Africa, it is found that the impetus for student governments and related student political activities on university campuses is to provide a platform for student representation in university governance.
The study, however, found that “In Kenya, Nigeria and in private universities in Uganda, candidates for student representatives [on university councils and boards of trustees] are vetted by university officials [and] In Ethiopia, student representatives are appointed by university officials rather than being subject to the democratic election process from the student body” (Klemenčič et al. 20). Indeed, it goes without saying that while an individual student, faculty, or staff of a university may have the right to make a political speech, that political speech, once made on the campus of the university, is subject to the administrative purview of the University administration. In other words, University administrations don’t want to be wrongly and unfairly associated with the unapproved acts of students and faculty on campus, in the same way none of us as individuals persons would want in our private lives to be aligned with or held accountable for the hate speech or treasonable actions of guests in our homes.
Consequently, the key concern of almost every University administration around the world has always been how to avoid a negative or wrongful public perception about the University’s mission, vision, and core values. This is why many colleges and universities not only impose a term of use policy on-campus facilities but also make sure that requests for permission to use campus facilities are guided by the principle of viewpoint neutrality and evenhandedness. The following excerpts from the standing policy of the State University of New York System in the U.S. provide a broader context as to whether or not students attending a particular university are not accountable to authorities of that university about their political views:
These excerpts (“Policy on the use of University-controlled facilities”) are self-explanatory, but Bullet #2 makes it very clear that student partisan political organizations are recognized and treated like any other student organization on campus, with respect to University regulations governing the recognition, membership, sponsorship, and use of University facilities. Bullet 4 requires for any proposed meeting by a campus-based student partisan political organization to spell out the educational purposes of such a meeting to the University, while Bullet 5 makes it very clear that University Administrations do reserve the right not to permit any advocacy on the University campus that may potentially lead to lawless action.
These policy guidelines also invalidate the claim that “The university cannot arrogate itself the power to stop its customers – the students - to assemble and discuss issues relative to their wellbeing” (Dukulé). Given the administrative governance structures of universities, it would be improbable for a university not to have the power and authority to regulate and suspend a particular student activity. But, for the sake of political expediency, it might be possible for a service provider not to want to evict an unruly customer or group of customers. Hence, if one removes the politics from the analogy, the logic of everyday social contract will show that no customer has the right to abuse a social contract or the social space of others without consequence. If, for example, a customer in a nightclub is intoxicated or drunk and begins to shout and use profanity at other customers, the club owner has every right to ask that disruptive customer out or to call in the police to remove that customer from the club.
A university campus is a closed public space intended for use by only authorized users. It is not an isolated island or the proverbial paradise where individual bliss and freedom reign without restraint. A university, like any educational institution, is one of few institutions in the world where payment by students of the required tuition and fees is not a guarantee for promotion to the next grade or degree level. This is why success at any higher institution of learning depends usually on students being required to attend all scheduled classes, complete all class assignments and exams on time, and show respect for fellow classmates, the instructors, and the school, college, or university administrators. These requirements are what they are without malice to anyone, let alone the arrogation of power and violation of the constitutional rights of students.
Today’s university student leaders must learn that NOT all students at a university are interested in student campus politics but their studies. This is why University administrations must take steps at all times to preserve and protect the rights of both groups through effective campus policies. Student campus politics should not serve as a hub for creating and training opposition political blocs in society, or as launchpads for active national politics where students as public actors can issue statements of threat and ultimatum on national policy issues. Rather, campus politics should be used to expose students, especially political science majors, to the essential knowledge and negotiation skills required for success at future politicking at the local, regional, and national levels.
Conclusion
Political activism by students on university campuses was the main catalyst for fundamental changes in national governance across Africa and much of the Third World in times past. In Liberia, the waves of student protests on Liberian high school and college campuses in the 1960s and 1970s against national government policies and practices culminated into democratic changes in national governance in the latter part of the 1980s and currently. And it is this nostalgia of grandeur political activism to effect changes in national governance that remains the dreamchild of many student political parties on Liberian college and university campuses today. In reality, though, the tides have changed. With the advent of the internet, the social media, and citizen journalism globally, and multiple political parties, democratic elections, tuition-free college education, and an open society dominated by vocal radio talk shows locally, student campus politics can no longer be based on activism but intellectualism. University students must now maximize their potentials for future leadership roles by cultivating a sense of responsibility in respecting both the policies and administrators of the university and in learning to operate within the social space provided to them as students and nothing more.
Speculations about constitutional violations and governmental higher-ups dictating to the University administration to suspend campus politics are not merely satirical, but serious attempts to create public awe about the suspension and undervalue what are legally the administrative prerogatives of the University Administration. Moreover, equating student campus politics to national politics; invoking the proverbial “writing on the wall” (Dukulé); and imploring students to sidestep University regulations and mimic the tactics of REACT (the clandestine anti-government leaflet produced in Monrovia in the 1980s) might not only be advocacies for radical public protests by students against the University Administration, but also what American Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. aptly calls the “morass of propaganda.” Writing on the “purpose of education” back in 1947, Dr. King hinted that one of the chief aims of education is “To save man from the morass of propaganda” (King) and not to help motivate man into endorsing and enduring propaganda.
To Dr. King, “Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction” (King) and not the other way around. Given the scenarios at play ever since the suspension of student politics at the University of Liberia, I am afraid that we are not allowing ourselves as educated persons in Liberia to sift and weigh evidence and discern the true from the false by the very careless nature of our public discourses on national issues, which are often laden with profanities, unfounded declarations, character assassination, and outright disdain for public officials.
I just do not think our individual grandstanding on governance issues in Liberia, and the acrimonious nature of our intellectual discourses and political advocacies will do us any good in our common drive towards fostering peace, national development, and cohesion. We need to deal with our governance issues with care and not conflict. And I do believe that the suspension on student campus politics can be lifted, but the best way to lifting the suspension would have to be through direct negotiation with the University Administration and not through direct or indirect confrontation and speculations. After all, students do have a duty to prepare themselves for future leadership roles, but that preparation will be incomplete without the guidance of University Administrations and the faculty they hire.
As Whitehead suggests, “The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground: for it is the past, and it is the future” (3). Basically, our students must learn to respect the present even as they prepare for the future because the future might not be any different from the present. If, however, students in the present continued to yield to political manipulations of the kind obtaining at the University of Liberia and across Liberian society by challenging and disobeying existing rules and disrespecting authority, then students in the future will do exactly as their compatriots in the present when national leadership would have been thrust upon the current class of students. Therefore, students in the present must develop the moral compass and fortitude to guide themselves against the kind of incessant political manipulations that have engulfed Liberian society. Otherwise, if we fail as educators to teach our students “to think intensively and to think critically” (King), then “If we are not careful, our colleges [and universities] will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts” (King). I hope that our students will not descend to this level and will muster the courage to negotiate suspension of student campus political activities with the University Administration.
Works Cited
Dukulé, Abdoulaye W. “The Ban on Student Politics Cannot Stand.” The Perspective, 29 January 2019.
https://www.theperspective.org/2019/0129201902.php. Accessed 12 February 2019.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “The Purpose of Education.” DrMartinLutherKingJr.com. n.d.
https://www.drmartinlutherkingjr.com/thepurposeofeducation.htm. Accessed 15 February 2019.
Klemenčič, Manja et al.“Organising in African Higher Education: Polity, Politics and Policies.” Student Politics
in Africa: Representation and Activism, edited by Thierry M. Luescher, Manja Klemenčič and James Otieno Jowi. Vol. 2., African Minds, 2016.
Kwanue, Cewhy. “UL Suspends Student Political Activities.” The Daily Observer. 14 February 2019,
https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/ul-suspends-student-political-activities/. Accessed 15 February 2019
“Policy on the use of University-controlled facilities by non-commercial organizations.” State University of
New York. State University of New York. n.d. Web. Accessed 16 February 2019.
Whitehead, Alfred North. The Aims of Education and Other Essays. The Free Press, 1929 (1957/1967).
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