The Power of Free Speech

In “Should This Student Have Been Expelled?” Nat Hentoff addresses a controversial situation of when a student was permanently expelled from Brown University. This article is directed to everyone free speech is a very controversial subject that is usually biased dependent on an individual’s opinions. Hentoff’s purpose for writing this article was to argue that even though hate words are not appropriate, it is still considered free speech. He feels that the student, Doug Hann, was unfairly punished by being permanently expelled from Brown University because he did not actually do any physical harm or illegal actions. Although Hann’s words were hurtful, no violent actions occurred. Hentoff’s style seemed almost sarcastic because he mocked the way that Gregorian twisted the description of Offense 111. The context is non-academic because the vocabulary is at an eighth grade level. Also, the context of the paper is very obvious because the very beginning of the paper you know that Hentoff is opposed against this punishment and thinks it is unfair. This is present in the arrangement of the article because Hentoff brings up examples from the argument and then provides evidence from multiple sources of why it is wrong to support his views. Hentoff was very effective in his argument through the combination of the arrangement along with the context he used to support his ideas. Especially when he used third party references. In my opinion, the student deserved to be punished for his actions but this punishment was too extreme for the violation. Although, I do see where Gregorian was coming from because eventually these actions were going to lead to some type of physical altercation. Overall, I agree with Hentoff that the student should not have been expelled for his speech.