Freedom of speech is one luxury brought on by our democracy that people seem to take for granted.

There is a fine line between freedom of speech and being rude.

Over the past century, the United States has developed leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American civil rights activist; Ida B. Wells, a journalist and an activist against violent oppression; and even Mary Beth Tinker, who wore a black arm band to school in protest of the Vietnam War.

But what happens when free speech becomes less about social activism and more about hate? What happens when free speech elicits violence toward another race?

Last week a screenshot of a post on social media circulated around the Shippensburg University campus, showing hateful dialect toward people of color at SU. Since then, the student is no longer enrolled at this university — but is that enough?

His attack was inexcusable, bringing negative connotations and hate speech toward people of color, eliciting uproar within the Black Lives Matter movement. Can the university do more to invoke a dialogue to show that just because we have an amendment which promises free speech, that not all speech allows others to be free?

Can SU turn this hateful speech into an opportunity to bring the campus together?

Ubuntu is a word that means a lot to me — it means “humanity to others,” basically meaning, “I am what I am because of who we all are.” I hope some day soon, SU can take this meaning to heart.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and are not representative of The Slate or its staff as a whole

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