Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Week 2 Post

Michelle Horner
Week 2 Blog

For this week’s blog, I read 3 other students summaries of Derek Bok’s essay “Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus.” The summaries that I read were Kelsey Webb’s, Taylor Effling’s, and Michael Noel’s. I was surprised to find a large number of similarities between our four summaries. For example, we all commented on the First Amendment’s guarantee to free speech. Some pointed out that this specific event was ruled on previously by the Supreme Court and thus we have precedent to follow. The Supreme Court’s decision was regarding all public institutions. We all noted the difference between the public institutions that the Supreme Court ruled on and the fact that Harvard is not a public but is rather a private institution. Maybe not directly stating it, but we all noted that Bok and the Harvard officials realized that even if this act was censored, the individuals would find different ways to torment or insult people. We all pointed out that the Harvard officials decided that the best measure to take would be to educate and try to persuade the individuals not to partake in this form of expression.
I had also noticed that there were some things that I included that others did not and that they did but I did not. My summary was the only one out of the four that included a direct quote from Bok. I also noted that the other student’s did not include Bok’s key distinction that the appropriateness of the actions does not affect the situation dealing with their legality under the First Amendment. It seems that there were other important items that I failed to perceive. For example, all of the other articles noted that other universities had set forth codes and others had ignored the problem. I also did not mention the Supreme Court’s decision yet I did comment on it’s implications regarding Harvard being a private institution. Reading these other summaries helped me to see perspectives that I would not have realized on my own.
I do think that by summarizing, the writer does partake in an “editorial exercise” that can easily provide a different “spin” on the article. I noticed in all four summaries we noted the issue and the solution. Other than that the different information that we each chose to include as the most important allowed for each to have it’s own “spin.” Kelsey’s focused on the event the issue and the action while Taylor’s focused on the issue the First Amendment and the action taken. Michael included all four; the issue, the event, the First Amendment and the action. Mine however was much shorter and just included the issue and the action taken. I do not see an ethical problem with placing the importance in different places. I think that it is the responsibility of the reader to realize that every writer does have his/her own opinion and will write with that opinion at heart. Each story, article, or message will have it’s own importance to the writer thus creating a different spin on the article. There should be no ethical consideration with placing emphasis in a different area of someone’s essay.