Photo Gallery: Vanessa Villar, Latinx Leader, Using Her First Amendment to Make a Difference on Campus

As some­one who iden­ti­fies with a minor­i­ty group on cam­pus, Vil­lar feels it’s nec­es­sary that stu­dents are pro­vid­ed with the encour­age­ment and space to embrace their right to free­dom of speech. Accord­ing to Vil­lar, she feels the uni­ver­si­ty has cre­at­ed an envi­ron­ment where she feels com­fort­able speak­ing to admin­is­tra­tors, the university’s Board of Trustees, and in oth­er occa­sions where she wants to express her views. Pho­to by: Cami­la Vallejo 

“Although we want stu­dents to express their opin­ions, hate speech is def­i­nite­ly an issue on this cam­pus because a lot of peo­ple feel they can tar­get who­ev­er they want and say what­ev­er they want in a very rude and nasty way,” said Vil­lar. “The uni­ver­si­ty then doesn’t do enough to han­dle that neg­a­tive aspect of free­dom of speech.” Pho­to by: Cami­la Vallejo 

For stu­dents that want to voice their opin­ions, Vil­lar sug­gests the Under­grad­u­ate Stu­dent Gov­ern­ment as a good begin­ning. When she was involved with USG as the Mul­ti­cul­tur­al and Diver­si­ty Sen­a­tor in pre­vi­ous years, she wit­nessed that the orga­ni­za­tion was effec­tive in try­ing to fix issue stu­dents expressed to them. How­ev­er, Vil­lar would sug­gest that USG seek issues on cam­pus, as oppose to wait­ing for stu­dents to come to them. Pho­to by: Cami­la Vallejo