Censorship vs. Free Speech

I found Sherwood’s “Censoring Students, Censoring Ourselves” to be interesting to read. I read scenarios about students who brought in offensive papers and became intrigued. This is because I would have no idea what to do if a student vehemently refused to remove such offensive writing. However, my opinion on the topic would be to make sure that clients are writing opinions that can be logically explained. The student described in the article who was writing about getting “turned off by a woman carrying a briefcase” is just a completely opinionated statement with no good, solid facts to back up his argument that woman do not belong in the workplace. Had his paper been focused on truly good reasons that women are needed in a different area, it may have been acceptable, even if others do not agree with it. For example, if he stated that women are more needed at home to raise their children and given statistics about behavioral patterns of children with at-home mothers compared to mothers who work, it removes a great deal of the offense to women. When he just claims that he hates women in the workplace, it just sounds ignorant and rude.
Consultants consistently tell their clients to back up their opinions with facts. They encourage critical thinking, asking questions like, “Why do you think that?” or “Why does that happen?” I believe that questions such as these should help to remove “hate speech” because it helps to remove the ignorance. If you ask the student who wrote the sexist paper why he did not think that women belonged in the workplace and all he could respond with is that it “turns him off”, he would (hopefully) realize that maybe this is not the approach he should take to the paper.
So far, I have never heard a session where the client wrote any offensive things in his/her paper. However, I’m very glad that I read this selection in our book because I have been wondering about how to handle a situation like that. It seems to be a difficult call to make to choose between the freedom of speech and censorship of rude writing. I believe whatever is written should be backed up with valid facts.

References:
Sherwood, Steve. "Censoring Students, Censoring Ourselves: Constraining Conversations in the Writing Center." The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, 3rd ed. Ed. Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2008. 129-136.