The First Amendment to the United States Constitution may be the most famous and oft-cited modification to our country̢۪s establishing document that exists. Famous debates have abounded over the second, fourth, 14th and 21st (which repealed the 18th), but none can top the ongoing storm of the first.

Students, faculty and staff of California State University, Fresno get a daily dose of the amendment̢۪s effects as we pass through the designated campus Free Speech Area.

And as we know all too well, beneath the marvelous, shiny cry of “free speech for all!â€Â is the reality that this amendment protects the most offensive, unpopular and often annoying forms of speech in existence.

People walking through our Free Speech Area are frequently subjected to the infamous crazy preachers, as well as people who yell about legalized marijuana, people who want us to work at Target, unending public displays of what Greek life is like, petitions for all manner of political action you may or may not have any clue about, tracts for upstart Bible studies, Mormon missionaries, fliers for local bars and clubs, sidewalk chalk, club booths and, last Wednesday, a giant poster of the President of the United States sporting a Hitler mustache.

If, as comedian Dave Chappelle once mused, the Internet were a real place, the “free speech areaâ€Â would be where pop-up advertisements lurk. In just trying to get to a desired location students are subject to an influx of information that is, by and large, a frustrating waste of our time and energy.

The very concept of a designated free speech area has been successfully challenged at schools such as West Virginia University and New Mexico State University on the basis of their oxymoronic nature, e.g. because they stipulate that free speech does not exist in other areas.

Free speech areas do serve a useful purpose in keeping protests from disrupting class instruction and other university functions, but Fresno State̢۪s has become an area for annoyance. So, short of eliminating the free speech area, perhaps it could be referred to under a different name.

The name “Free Speech Areaâ€Â seems to explicitly call for fringe elements to have open season on whoever is passing through. It begs for harassing and hate-filled discourse to be spewed at passers-by.
Historically, the Supreme Court of the United States has been no kinder to compelled (forced) speech as it has to limits on free speech.

It would be too much to say that the Free Speech Area compels people to unpopular speech, but it certainly does have a way of bringing odd forms of expression to the forefront.

What keeps most individuals from spouting unpopular speech at strangers is not law, but the common knowledge that most people just don̢۪t want to hear it.

Regardless of what the area is referred to as, and irrespective of where you are as you read this, allow The Collegian to make this clear: when walking through the center of campus, we just don̢۪t want to hear it.