Prior to the start of the fall semester, the Wellesley community was embroiled in controversy when senior administration debuted its Protest and Demonstration Policy at Student Leader training. Students, faculty and staff were reasonably upset about the policy because it restricted the freedom of movement and expression in our community. After the tireless efforts of activists, the administration rescinded the policy. We at The Wellesley News would like to commend the administration for repealing their poorly-executed Interim Protest and Demonstration Policy. With that being said, we would also like to reiterate our commitment to supporting and defending our freedom as legal adults to protest on our own campus. Throughout the history of Wellesley College, disruptive protest has been one of the only ways students have been able to inspire change on campus, and we must preserve our ability to disrupt if we want this institution to continue to improve. To have a system that would mandate demonstrators petition for administrative approval is fundamentally inane, as the act of protest is inherently a demonstration of disapproval.

Student protests are what convinced Wellesley to divest from institutions that supported the Apartheid system in South Africa. Student protests are what created an Ethnic Studies major. Student protest forced this school to admit more students who identify as members of minority groups. When this institution has resisted progress historically, students have pushed it to reconsider.

We are living in a time where institutions of higher learning are considering how to best address the issue of free speech and controversy on campus. There have been countless incidents at other universities which have resulted in huge amounts of property damage and negative press. There have also been cases where people have been injured at demonstrations. It is understandable that the administration has no desire to see such events occur here. However, students at Wellesley and at other universities are legal adults. Therefore, we should be trusted to make decisions about our safety and understand the consequences. To take actions such as the Interim Protest and Demonstration Policy originally proposed, regardless of the reason—and even in the case of genuine and understandable motives, such as liability or safety concerns—would have unacceptably infantilizing and repressive consequences. We as students came to Wellesley to grow and strengthen our voices, not to have them quieted or moderated to suit administrative wishes.

We are a powerful force, and should not be infantilized in Wellesley’s attempt to maintain its pristine image.This is counterproductive. In choosing Wellesley we invested in it—time, money and our hopes for our futures. We want this place to be the best it can be. If a group of students is moved to protest, such protests are ultimately in Wellesley’s best interest. Yes, protest might make the school look worse in the short term, but in the long term it ensures that our community doesn’t just look better, but that it actually becomes the best version of itself.

In recent years, our community has neither threatened nor denied a speaker the right to present at Wellesley based on their ideas and has made efforts to encourage productive dialogue surrounding controversial issues. In instances where there were dissenting reactions to events on campus, such as the recent defacing of posters, students and faculty responded appropriately with the intention of promoting respect on campus. In essence, we have exercised our right to free speech in the form of disagreement. When a visiting lecturer comes to campus to share their beliefs, the audience should have an opportunity to object to those perspectives. Wellesley students are not complacent when a guest speaker offers harmful rhetoric. Unlike the events that transpired at Middlebury College in early March in which a speaker and professor were attacked, we have neither engaged in the violent silencing of opposing opinions, nor do we support such actions. Instead, Wellesley students listen to and understand those that differ from us regarding politics, religion and other sensitive topics and respond with productive discourse.

Wellesley will not be labeled an echochamber of liberal opinions while we have demonstrated concerted efforts to seek out well-evidenced opinions that differ from ours. We have the right to speak freely and to debate opinions. In the coming years, we will continue to do just that — never with violence, but with constructive dialogue. Yet, even as we exercise our right to object, onlookers are offended by our audacity. It would be against our principles as a place of intellectual conversation to deny free debate through respectful avenues.

Wellesley is viewed as a laboratory for left-wing feminism, namely due to several prominent alumnae closely associated with our college. While our institution does train young women to be industry leaders, attacking us is not a proxy for criticizing Wellesley alumnae. Media attention seems to arise from the fact that we, as students from a predominantly women’s college, are willing to speak out about important issues that affect us.

Several writers have taken it upon themselves to defend freedom of speech in response to our editorial. Even as they attempt to safeguard their interpretation of this right, they seem unable to dissociate their judgments from overtly sexist commentary. Comments and tweets responding to our article referred to us as having “our pantyhose in a twist over free speech…” and then sarcastically called us “tough broads.” Others told us to “listen to the man in the house” and “get back in the kitchen.” We do not resist disagreement to our claims, but we do resist insults that are explicitly sexist and denigrate us simply for being women. Despite our editorial not including any issues regarding gender, many of the criticisms have centered around this aspect of our identity.

We welcome discourse on free speech and on how we define and defend it, but the responses have largely been irrelevant to the conversation we sought to develop. Instead, they have relied heavily on ad hominem attacks on not what we said but who we are — attacks that do not further discourse in the slightest.

When women become actively involved in the political sphere, we are often met with commentary that is sexist or accused of propagating misandry. We are deviating from the standard by voicing our objections, and that is considered a threat to freedom of speech.

However, the line most commonly pulled from last week’s editorial referenced hostile retaliation in cases of dissent. To be clear, this statement was misconstrued as a call for violence against oppressive speech. We neither condone violence as a form of disagreement, nor have we used brutality in our community. Instead, we are committed to protecting our students’ right to feel safe on campus.

Nevertheless, there is something threatening to modern society about women exercising independent thought. Those that are offended by the editorial and thus inclined to write and tweet about events at Wellesley are exercising their First Amendment rights. We are exercising ours by disagreeing. To refuse to continue to engage with our opinion is to be guilty of the same infringement of freedom with which we are charged. The world suppresses women’s voices even while demanding the recognition of uncensored expression.

We respect free speech at Wellesley. We reiterate that there is a line between free speech and hate speech. We fight not against free speech, but to protect members of our community from language that harms or threatens their well-being. Thus, we respect the right to use speech to challenge other views. We will listen to and dismantle arguments and opinions that threaten a person’s ability to speak freely.

As the Editors-In-Chief of The Wellesley News, we would like to clarify our actions on Twitter on Thursday during the Clinton event. In excitement for Secretary Clinton’s visit to Wellesley College, we tweeted some of the content from Clinton’s talk with President Johnson. We understand that it was closed to the press and intended be to kept within the College community. We are regretful of our transgression of those requests. By no means did the Wellesley News intend to ignore the wishes of the administration or the Clinton team. As the student newspaper, we were enthusiastic to share some of Clinton’s inspirational quotes to the student body. In light of the cancellation of the livestream and Tishman overflow room, we especially desired to serve those members of our community who were unable to get a ticket to the event. Former Secretary Clinton is an inspiration to many of us, not only as a politician, but as a Wellesley alumna — we wanted to share the sense of camaraderie and positivity that pervaded the event.

Upon further reflection, however, we have realized that our actions could have jeopardized the privacy and intimacy of the talk. Thus, as decided by members of the Wellesley News staff, we promptly removed our tweets. At no point did the College nor the Clinton team contact us with this request. We realize that some of the quotes were used by news sources, but the speculation around the removal of our tweets were incorrect.

As Editors-In-Chief, we have learned the great impact our internet and social media presence can have. In this very exciting year for the paper, we have learned many things on professionalism and journalistic integrity. Journalism is a complicated industry that requires making difficult choices; as seen with politicians, journalists and even Wellesley students ourselves, comments we post online hold a considerable amount of weight. In this case, our judgment to tweet was wrong; however, we value this experience as a teachable moment during our Wellesley career. More importantly, it reminded us, not only as a publication, but as students, to be more prudent with our social media posts. We hope that this clarifies any confusion surrounding our actions, and look forward to continue serving the Wellesley College community.

Thank you,

Editors-In-Chief of The Wellesley News