That's 'Dumb Propaganda': Tucker Battles NY Dem on Transgender Military Ban

Former UCLA professorKeith Fink, who taught a class on free speech opened up about his firing from the school, saying there is "no doubt" he would still have a job if his views were liberal.

Fink, who filed a formal complaint with his unionpointed to the new Chair of the Department of Communication Studies, Kerri Johnson, whom he says has "great disdain for conservative views"as the driving force behind his ousting.

It was "preordained from the day she came in that the school was intent on getting rid of me," he told "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

"Mr. Keith Fink's teaching does not meet that standard of excellence," the school said in a statement, which Fink called a "french farce."

After the school slashed his class enrollment, students protested Fink's treatment saying they were prevented from enrolling in his classes.

Fink, who is also an attorney was known at UCLA for defending students if the school tried to "steamroll" their rights. In the last couple of years he acted as an advisor in cases involving Title lX for students who had done "absolutely nothing" but whose futures were threatened by school disciplinary action.

Fink added that he is the most vocal conservative there, and could count the outwardly conservative professors on one hand.

The professor concluded saying that he is saddest because he loves teaching.

"There's no amount of money that equals the joy I get out of steering someone in the right direction or teaching them a new thought or exposing them to a Bob Dylan song."

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That's 'Dumb Propaganda': Tucker Battles NY Dem on Transgender Military Ban

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Popular UCLA Prof Who Taught Free Speech Says He Was Fired ... - Fox News Insider

While there is no set precedent for the issue, more and more courts are encountering a new type of lawsuit related to social-media blocking. The Knight Foundation, for instance, is suing the U.S. government on behalf of Twitter users blocked by President Donald Trump, whose Twitter account has become alarmingly vital when it comes to understanding his presidency.

This week, a federal court in Virginia tackled the issue when it ruled on behalf of a plaintiff blocked by a local county politician. According to The Wall Street Journal, Brian Davison sued the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, who temporarily banned him from her Facebook page after he posted criticism of local officials last year. Judge James Cacheris found that she had violated Davisons First Amendment rights by blocking him from leaving comment, because, in his judgment, the chairwoman, Phyllis Randall, was using her Facebook page in a public capacity. Though it was a personal account, she used it to solicit comments from constituents.

The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards, the judge stated in his ruling. Cacheris did emphasize that his ruling should not prohibit officials from moderating comments to protect against harassment. Davison was only banned for 12 hours, and Randall faces no penalties. Still, the ruling is one of the first in a growing, thorny legal issue surrounding social media that has already reached the White house.

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Judge: Politicians Blocking Followers Violates Free Speech - NYMag - New York Magazine

You know our country is in serious trouble when the voice of reason is a comedian known for making prank calls with puppets. But, alas, here we are. Congratulations, Americayouve made me, Adam Carolla, the sane one in the room.

Ive been asked to testify before Congress Thursday morning on the topic of free speech on college campuses. I talk for a living. Words matter to me. I earn my paycheck from making people laugh, but whats going on across the country at many of our nations universities is anything but funny. (See what I did there!)

I realize my brief stint in a San Fernando Valley community college doesnt necessarily qualify me as the most distinguished, academic spokesperson on the subject. But as someone who has made a career by challenging ideas through humor, social commentary, and if warranted, ridicule; I represent someone on the front line.

Ive been in the talk game for more than three decades and I host the worlds most downloaded podcast. This constantly brings me in close contact with guests who disagree with me on many subjects. Challenging their ideas and points of views while they do the same to me is an important part of public discourse. When we enter into robust debate the best ideas will often rise. Its when ideas and points of view are censored that our country loses, because we may miss new ideas.

Right now a terrible fog of censorship is seeping into our college campuses in an effort to restrict free speech. Its like a fart in an elevatoreveryone smells it but no one will own it.

When did college move away from being the place where ideas, including the ones we may disagree with, were taught, discussed, and explored? It makes no sense unless the goal is to create people who dont think about ideas but simply follow them.

What kind of preparation is being provided if we are avoiding discussions on tough subjects? Are true facts and best research being sidelined because its taboo to someones feelings? Do you really want an engineer who designed the plane youre flying in to feel that the reality of gravity is a Caucasian micro-aggression because it was discovered by Newton?

Instead of fostering the development of young adults, colleges are providing coloring books, play-doh, puppies, and stuffed animals. Its basically your four-year-old daughters bedroom where one can shut out the challenges and facts of the outside world. Providing this bubble-wrapped type of education does not prepare the next generation for the challenges of life. It prepares them for failure.

But the real blame doesnt lie with the students. Campus administrators and teachers have promoted these ideas and then retreated to the sidelines when it became violent. How can there be accountability if there is no adult in the room? Why arent administrators of public universities accountable to us, the taxpayers, as we continue to fund a Social Justice Neverland, disconnected from the real world of working and regular people.

Ultimately this movement against challenging ideas is a disservice to students as theyre not being prepared for the world outside their safe spaces. Instead, their diplomassome of which cost in the mid six figuresmay actually set them back.

America has been the actual safe space where truth can be spoken to power. Where We the People can challenge a king and a corrupt idea like a monarchy. This right has been re-affirmed through our history. Its been fought for and people have died for it.

We must understand that we have the right to free expression, not the right to not be offended. This fundamental difference is being lost on todays college campuses. We should not be teaching students to retreat from debate, but to charge intellectually into it. Im not joking when I say that this is one of the most valuable and profound gifts given to us in America.

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There's Nothing Funny About Campuses Chilling Free Speech - Daily Beast

Claremont McKenna College recently suspended three students for a year and two others for a semester for their protest of Manhattan Institute Fellow Heather Mac Donald, author of The War on Cops and vocal critic of Black Lives Matter.

Claremont McKenna has taken a very harsh approach. This administrative action could have a chilling effect on future protests. Every student should have the ability to counter offensive, reprehensible speech with their own criticism.

But the school is not rebuking all students who exercise their First Amendment rightsonly those who choose to prevent others from assembling and speaking. And they're not denying students the ability to appeal or subjecting them to an arbitrary process: sanctions are decided by a three-person panel, and students may have as little or as much participation in the investigation process as they want.

And besides, how should a college clarify its commitment to free speech?

In early April, protesters blocked entrances to the auditorium where Mac Donald was slated to speak. Since nobody could get through to the event, she spoke to an empty room and livestreamed her speech as students pounded on doors and windows, shouting and chanting.

Mac Donald's academic conclusions are controversial. In a Fox segment following the protests, she summarized the core ideas in her book. "There is no epidemic of racially-biased police shootings, the Black Lives Matter narrative is completely false, and there are thousands of law-abiding residents of minority communities who are desperate for more police protection."

In her livestreamed speech, she challenged Black Lives Matter's premise "that the police are the greatest threat facing young black men today," while clarifying that "every police shooting of an unarmed civilian is a stomach-churning tragedy."

With its disciplinary action, Claremont administrators have sent a message that illiberal shutdown tactics are not tolerated on campus. In an official statement, college officials concluded "the blockade breached institutional values of freedom of expression and assembly. Furthermore, this action violated policies...that prohibit material disruption of college programs and created unsafe conditions in disregard of state law."

Several of the students who received suspensions graduated in May, so their degrees are being withdrawn for one year. Fellow students and activists criticized the decision because of the impact it might have on the students' job prospects. Attorney Nana Gyamfi, who is representing the suspended students, called Claremont's decision "cruel and unusual punishment."

Physically blocking people from hearing the ideas of otherseven those viewed as apologists for copscreates an environment where free speech simply can't thrive. Heather Mac Donald is an academic, not a professional provocateur. Her intellectual value must be considered stronger someone like a Milo Yiannopoulos. And she concedes in her speeches there are major issues with policing in the United States, and that a legacy of racial animosity toward law enforcement lingers on.

Claremont is right to make it abundantly clear that even disagreeable speech deserves to be heard and debated. And while student protests of this kind do not compare to outright government censorship of speech, it's startling to see these millennials barricading doors so their views won't be challenged.

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Claremont McKenna Disciplines Students in the Name of Free ... - Reason

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act is a minor updating of a venerable statute that has been at the center of the U.S. consensus on Israel policy the laws designed to counteract Arab states boycott of Israel by barring Americansfrom joining such boycotts.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union has dropped a bomb:It says the proposed act unconstitutionally abridges free speech.Although the ACLU is only lobbying against the current bill, its argument is against the entire system of federal anti-boycott law, including the anti-boycott provisions of the 1977 Export Administration Act, a consequence that the groupseems unwilling to admit (see Eugene Volokhspost). Indeed, the ACLUs position would make many U.S. sanctions against foreign countries (Iran, Russia, Cuba, etc.) unconstitutional.

The ACLUs claims are as weak as they are dramatic. I should note that I have been involved with state-level anti-BDS (boycott, sanctions and divestment) legislation and have advised on some of the federal bills. Althoughwell-crafted measures avoid First Amendment problems, there are ways such laws can get it wrong, and I have been open in calling out measures that go too far. (For example, the application of such laws to prevent a Roger Waters concert is quite problematic.)

Current law prohibits U.S. entities from participating in or cooperating with international boycotts organized by foreign countries. These measures, first adopted in 1977, were explicitly aimed at the Arab states boycott of Israel, but its language is far broader, not mentioning any particular countries.

Since then, these laws and the many detailed regulations pursuant to them, have been the basis for a large number of investigations and prosecutions of companies for boycott activity. The laws are administered by a special unit of the Commerce Department, theOffice of Antiboycott Compliance.

The existing laws cover not just participation in a boycott, but also facilitating the boycott by answering questions or furnishing information, when done in furtherance of the boycott. For example, telling a Saudi company, You know, we dont happen to do business with the Zionist entity would be prohibited. It is no defense for one who participates in the Arab League boycott to argue that they happen to hate Israel anyway. Nor is it a defense to argue that one loves Israel and is simply being pressured by Arab businesses. It is the conduct that matters, not the ideology.

That is why the law has been upheld against First Amendment challenges in the years after its passage and has not raised any constitutional concerns in nearly four decades since. Refusing to do business is not an inherently expressive activity, as the Supreme Court held in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. It can be motivated by many concerns. It is only the boycotters explanation of the action that sends a message, not the actual business conduct. Those expressions of views are protected, but they do not immunize the underlying economic conduct from regulation.

This distinction between the expression and the commercial conduct is crucial to the constitutionality of civil rights acts. In the United States, hate speech is constitutionally protected. However, if a KKK member places his constitutionally protected expression of racial hatred within the context of a commercial transaction for example, by publishing a For Sale notice that saysthat he will not sell his house to Jews or African Americans it loses its constitutional protection. The Fair Housing Act forbids publishing such discriminatory notices, and few doubt the constitutionality of the Fair Housing Act.

If the anti-boycott measures are unconstitutional, as the ACLU argues, it would mean that mostforeign sanctions lawsare unconstitutional. If refusing to do business with a country is protected speech because it couldsend a message of opposition to that countrys policies, doing business would also be protected speech. Thus, anyone barred from doing business with Iran, Cuba or Sudan would be free to do so if they saidit wasa message of support for the revolution, or opposition to U.S. policy, or whatever.

It is little wonder, then, that opponents of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act feel the need to exaggerate what the act does. Itonly makes clear that the old and existing anti-boycott law applies not just to the Arab League boycott, but also to the new foreign anti-Israel boycotts, such as those being organized by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The best example of a criticism based on exaggeration is a claim that the bill would forbid anti-Israel activists from even expressing support for boycotts. There is nothing in the bill to sustain such a criticism. The old law already forbids support for foreign state boycotts of Israel, and the many regulations enacted pursuant to the law already define support to be limited to certain specified actions that go well beyond merely speech support. See 15 C.F.R. 760.1(e)(1). Those actions, enumerated in detail in 15 C.F.R. 760.2, allow for none of the free-speech-scare scenarios conjured by the ACLU. The new bill does not change or alter the meaning of support. It simply clarifies the list of foreign boycotts covered by the law.

The current laws ban on support of the Arab League boycott has never been used to punish opponents of Israel simply for expression. The expansion of the list of covered boycotts in the new bill wouldnot make it any easier to go after boycott activists. Anti-Israel divestment campaigns unlinked to foreign boycotts clearly support the Arab League boycott in the sense of promoting the same views and seeking the same goals. But they have never fallen within the scope of the existing prohibition, and they would not under the new bill.

It is easy to invent absurdly broad readings of statutes that would make them unconstitutional. The real question is if the statute would ever be applied and interpreted in that way. With the current bill, one need not wonder how it wouldbe enforced: There are decades of administrative regulations and enforcement policies under the existing law that wouldapply to the new one. These all confine the prohibition to commercial conduct.

Such updating of the 1977 anti-boycott measures could not be more timely. Several United Nations agencies have initiated secondary boycotts of Israel that is, boycotting non-Israeli companies because of their connectionto the Jewish state. In support of such secondary boycotts, the U.N.Human Rights Council is preparing a blacklist of Israeli-linked companies (using such a broad definition of supporting settlements that the blacklist couldsweep in any Israeli-linked firm).

The UNHRCs blacklist of Israeli companies is unprecedented the organization has never made lists of private companies or entities for any purpose. Indeed, as has been shown in a recent report I authored, the Human Rights Council clearly does not regard businesses supporting settlements to be a human rights issue except when Israel is involved.

The blacklist is not a mere research project. It will serve as the basis for economic action against the listed firms. Indeed, the UNHRC has not been coy about its motives; a year after passing the resolution calling for the database, it passed a resolution that in effect calls for a partial boycott against Israel. (Existing federal boycott regulations make clear that a regulated boycott call need not be explicit.) It is quite likely that U.N. agencies will begin avoiding business with companies because of those companies business with Israel.

Given the timing of the legislative process, starting a bill now that responds to things that have begun to happen and will materialize at the end of the year is not prophylactic; it is merely timely. Moreover, given the United Nations extraordinary obsession relating to Israel, it is quite proper for Congress to take what measures it can to forcefully check and deter the increasingly severe manifestations of this bias.

In short, the proposed statute is a timely action to expand the list of prohibited foreign boycotts with which it is forbidden to comply. The legislation does nothing to restrict anti-Israel expressions or even local BDS activity. Anyone who wishes to express their opposition to Israel through boycotts isentirely free to do so. The real question is why the ACLU is now attacking the basic constitutional understandings that underpin decades of American foreign policy and civil rights regulation but confining itsnew First Amendment standard to laws relating to Israel.

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Israel anti-boycott bill does not violate free speech - Washington Post

Every profession has its standards. Doctors who maim people lose their jobs, and teachers who abuse their students won't be licensed for long. But for lawyers, the list of unforgivable sins may be expanding to the heinous act of expressing personal opinions in social settings.

The American Bar Association is an organization that models rules for the legal profession. Different state bars are welcome to adopt their rules, and states overwhelmingly follow their lead. So when the ABA proposed an amendment to their misconduct standards, it was no small deal.

The problem is that the amendment is a violation of free speech. The relevant text states, "It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to ... engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law."

For clarity, the ABA also released comments, noting that, "Such discrimination includes harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice towards others" in activities including not just actually practicing law, but also "participating in bar association, business or social activities in connection with the practice of law."

This is incredibly broad language. Verbal conduct that manifests bias? Social activities in connection with legal practice?

Lawyers may often discuss controversial topics in forums like Continuing Legal Education events or a local bar dinner. What substantive conversation could lawyers hold that didn't violate a rule with such massive scope? Anyone actually expressing an opinion could run the risk of breaking the rule, which has already received plenty of criticism for "vague and uncertain" application doomed to be "fraught with difficulties" as well as its overbroad language and content discrimination.

But no one actually has to be thrown out of the legal profession for the rule to do its harm. As National Review writer David French points out, "actual enforcement isn't the point. It's about the fear of enforcement the chilling effect ... A mere allegation can ruin a career, and defending yourself from ethics boards can be painful and expensive even if your law practice remains intact. The safest course is always silence." The ultimate effect of rules like this is to reduce healthy debate to fearful compliance.

This rule is not alone in chilling speech in the name of workplace harassment.

For example, in 2006, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ordered further investigation in the case of an employee who complained that his co-worker's "Don't Tread on Me" hat constituted racial harassment. As UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh notes, no sane person ignores the risk of massive liability when dealing with speech and harassment claims. It's easier and safer to steer clear of the line, even if that means curtailing legitimate speech. And it's not far-fetched to anticipate this kind of broad prohibition applying to strictly political speech that is construed as racially-motivated criticism or endorsement of a sexist viewpoint.

Proponents of the rule cite sexism as the reason the rule is necessary. And Bloomberg View contributor Noah Feldman warns that "harassing words are prohibited because they are the mechanism whereby discrimination occurs."

But, as many sources have noted (including the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, The South Carolina Bar's Professional Responsibility Committee, the Texas Attorney General's Office, and the Illinois State Bar Association), this rule isn't necessary in the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions that already have anti-harassment rules.

Regardless, addressing sexism wouldn't require adopting a rule that, as a recent Montana Joint Resolution stated, "would unlawfully attempt to prohibit attorneys from engaging in conduct that neither adversely affects the attorney's fitness to practice law nor seriously interferes with the proper and efficient operation of the judicial system."

Various states and organizations have analyzed the proposed rule and rejected it, including those listed above, as well as the Professional Responsibility Committee of the ABA Business Law Section. States that do not adopt the proposed rule simply abide by their current anti-discrimination rules or adopt amended versions of the misconduct standards.

The bottom line is that lawyers don't sign away their free speech rights by virtue of their profession. Opposing harassment is not synonymous with regulating private speech. And when it comes to respecting free speech, this proposed rule simply crosses the line.

Jana Minich graduated from Cedarville University with a degree in political science. She is an incoming law student at the University of Virginia School of Law.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

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The American Bar Association's chilling efforts to suppress free speech - Washington Examiner

On Thursday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro testified about free speech on college campuses before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In less than five minutes, he dissected and destroyed the Left's argument against free speech.

"Free speech is under assault because of a three-step argument made by advocates and justifiers of violence," Shapiro declared in his opening remarks. "The first step is they say that the validity or invalidity of an argument can be judged solely by the ethnic, sexual, racial, or cultural identity of the person making the argument."

This "intersectionality" argument that society structurally oppresses people of ethnic, sexual, racial, or cultural identities and therefore only those who have been oppressed can speak about certain issues is the ground of the "microaggression" culture stifling speech on campuses, the Daily Wire editor argued.

"The second step is they claim that those who say otherwise are engaged in what they call verbal violence," Sharipo added. "The final step is that they conclude that physical violence is sometimes justified in order to stop such verbal abuse."

In order to understand how college campuses shut down speech often but not always conservative speech Americans must understand the philosophy of "intersectionality." Shapiro argued that this philosophy dominates college campuses and "a large segment of today's Democratic Party."

Intersectionality "suggests that straight white Americans are inherently the beneficiaries of white privilege and therefore cannot speak on certain policies, since they have not experienced what it's like to be black or hispanic or gay or transgender or a woman."

This philosophy, Shapiro declared, "ranks the value of a view not based on the logic or merit of the view but on the level of victimization in American society experienced by the person espousing the view." An LGBT black woman is automatically considered more correct than a straight white male, before any speech exits either of their mouths.

"The next step is obvious: If a straight white male, or anyone else who ranks lower on the victimhood scale, says something contrary to the viewpoint of the higher ranking intersectionality identity, that person has engaged in a microaggression," the editor declared.

He quoted NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who defined microaggressions as "small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless." Here's the key "You don't actually have to say anything insulting to microaggress. Somebody merely needs to take offense."

In other words, an offended person who fits the "oppressed" identities of intersectionality has the power to dub any speech from someone "less oppressed" a "microaggression." This word means not merely an insult. As Shapiro noted, "Microaggressions are the equivalent of physical violence."

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Ben Shapiro Stormed Congress and Blew the Left's Argument Against Free Speech to Smithereens - PJ Media

Earlier this month, Americans came together to celebrate the founding of this nation with fireworks and sparklers.

Though the United States is still a relatively young country, it has undergone dramatic changes from what it once was in 1776. Not only have we drastically industrialized and expanded our landscape beyond the original 13 colonies, but our political culture and climate has also undergone its own transformations. Our Founding Fathers wisely prepared us for tackling tyrannical leaders, preventing government overreach, and protecting our personal liberty.

Yet, they failed to avoid the development of political echo chambers.

This is not to say these men had not anticipated the possibility of our country developing a divisive political culture. In fact, John Adams communicated his fears of our democracy splitting into a two-party system, "concerting measures in opposition of each other." He even went as far as to call this the "greatest political evil under our constitution."

It's not hard to see why Adams held such passionate distaste for political parties. Lately, our democracy has amounted to pointing fingers and name calling from the echo chambers we've created. But the effects of these biased bubbles pour into other aspects of life. According to a Rasmussen survey, 40 percent of voters claimed the 2016 election negatively affected a personal relationship with a friend or family member. We've even seen students escalate to violent protests on college campuses against classmates they disagree with.

With the power of technology, we can retreat into our echo chambers on social media platforms. We can delete, block, and report dissent away. It becomes easier and easier to control what messages and ideas we hear behind our screens. This encourages the idea that tolerance is optional. That you can cut off relationships because you disagree with the other person; furthermore, you can segregate people in groups based on said opinions.

Intolerance of differing ideas is not the way to achieve positive social change. Intolerance only begets negative outcomes.

At Young Americans for Liberty, we strive to foster a culture of tolerance and respect. Disagreement is inevitable; how one addresses disagreement and differing perspectives is the key to success. I discourage everyone to stray away from trying to belittle our philosophical opponents on social media, that ultimately create opposing echo chambers and do not yield a positive result.

The message of liberty is a positive one. We are driven to action grounded in the principles of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government.

Every July we host our national convention that draws hundreds of students from multiple political, economic, and social backgrounds to engage in these ideas. Given their varying backgrounds, these students are bound to disagree with one another on the nuances of liberty. We even stage debates between people of different beliefs who nonetheless believe in the same overarching principles. I assure you, the overall theme is siding with more freedom, and less government intervention.

So what's our plan to combat big-government ideology among youths? I can tell you this: When a socialist comes to campus to speak, you won't see YAL members burning the campus to the ground or throwing rocks through windows. Through robust, campus activism and outreach efforts, YAL members are working hard to present the ideas of liberty in a powerful, peaceful manner to win the hearts and minds of the next generation.

Cliff Maloney Jr. is president of Young Americans for Liberty, a non-profit, youth organization based in Arlington, Va., that boasts more than 900 college chapters across the country.

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On intolerance for free speech, it's time for millennials to lead - Washington Examiner

Imagine if radical campus activists had to face the consequences of their actions. Imagine if they could no longer suppress and shut down speakers with impunity. Imagine if a college administrator grew a backbone and defended his institution from the barbarians at the gates.

Were not there yet. But Claremont McKenna College, a prominent liberal-arts school in Southern California, is at least taking action. The school has suspended five students who led attempts to shut down a college-sponsored lecture by Heather Mac Donald, the pro-police conservative commentator, in April. Three will be suspended for a full year, while two will be suspended for a semester. Two more will be placed on conduct probation.

The students, along with many others from the Claremont colleges and outside the university, blockaded the lecture hall where Mac Donald was set to speak, forcing the event to be moved and livestreamed from a secret location. In a statement, Claremont McKenna explained that the blockade breached institutional values of freedom of expression and assembly and deprived many of the opportunity to gather, hear the speaker, and engage with questions and comments.

Claremont McKenna should be applauded, first for inviting Mac Donald to speak, and second for taking a stand in defense of the idea of the university. It could have taken the easy way out, slapping all the protest leaders on the wrists with a mandatory course or probation to put an end to the story. Thats what Middlebury College did when its students shut down an event featuring Charles Murray, the libertarian social scientist, and in the process assaulted Professor Allison Stranger, who ended up with a concussion.

In fact, nobody ever seems to get punished for preventing the free exchange of ideas on a college campus. Unwilling to anger student radicals and their defenders in the media, college administrators routinely back down. They appease the crocodile, hoping that he will be grateful for the schools leniency and perhaps eat it last.

But appeasement has not worked. All across the country, student activists have become emboldened, trusting that they can do whatever they want, so long as they claim the moral high ground. After all, they only have to label a conservative as a white supremacist and they are free to take over campus and suppress her views. Their schools are too weak and fearful to stop them.

This is a sick state of affairs that should not continue. Claremont McKenna has shown that it is possible to take a stand. There is no reason why schools cannot suspend students who shut down campus speeches. Repeat offenders should be expelled. Anyone who participates in a violent protest should also be expelled. All schools should join Claremont McKenna in endorsing the University of Chicagos Principles of Free Expression, which declare that the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.

If, after that, a few radicals still seek to break the rules, let them suffer the consequences of satisfying their confused consciences. The rest of the student body the ones who dont want to spend the year back home with their parents will get the message: You can speak and protest all you want, but you cannot prevent someone else from speaking.

If conservative protesters force a Marxist student organization to cancel its speaker event, they should also be suspended. This is about more than protecting conservative speakers or viewpoint diversity. It is not even best framed as a matter of free speech. It is, quite simply, about repelling a growing assault on the idea of the university. In silencing lecturers and suppressing ideas, the students behind this assault place free inquiry within ever-more-circumscribed boundaries, necessarily perverting the pursuit of the truth that has always been academias sacred mission. If criticism of Black Lives Matter is out of bounds, for example, then what will separate the academy from the public square? Only the lack of personal responsibility.

Allan Bloom, that great defender of the university, explained its mission far better than I can:

The question that every young person asks, Who am I?, the powerful urge to follow the Delphic command, Know thyself, which is born in each of us, means in the first place What is man? And in our chronic lack of certainty, this comes down to knowing the alternative answers and thinking about them. Liberal education provides access to these alternatives, many of which go against the grain of our nature or our times. The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

Bloom wrote thatliberal education puts everything at risk and requires students who are able to risk everything. But as he surely knew, it also requires courage on the part of teachers and administrators. Teachers must create a classroom that can bring students into contact with the alternative answers, and administrators must set and enforce rules that sustain teachers and students in their proper purpose.

In suspending students who deliberately shut down a campus speech, Claremont McKenna has stood up in defense of free speech and of itself. Let others follow.

READ MORE: BDS, Hypocrisy, and our Barren Public Sphere Be Very Worried about the Future of Free Expression Anti-Free-Speech Radicals Never Give Up

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

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Claremont McKenna Defends Free Speech Other Universities ... - National Review

Like disputes over abortion, the death penalty, and drug prohibition, the conflict between Israel and Palestine divides Americans into polarized camps of mutual distrust. If any consensus is possible on those issues, it is that there is nothing like a consensus, and that the attendant conflict is better handled through politics than violence.

Yet dozens of members of Congress have backed confusingly worded legislation that would impose new restrictions on American citizens who want to participate in boycotts against Israel, if they originate with an international organization like the UN or the EU. The bill thus seems to risk excluding some would-be boycotters from normal politics by criminalizing some expressions of dissent as a serious felony.

One neednt favor Boycott, Divest, Sanctions, the most prominent boycott campaign targeting Israel, to believe that criminalizing boycotts is deeply illiberal.

Say that BDS is the best path to securing equitable peace in the Middle East. Or say that targeting Israel for a boycott, alone among countries that abuse human rights, is inconsistent, wrongheaded, and unlikely to help Palestinians. The merits dont matter here. Americans have a right to adopt even mistaken positions, to engage in even ill-advised activism, and to stop dealing with even laudable entities.

Just how bad the new proposal is depends on how its least-clear language is interpreted. Domestically conceived boycotts of Israel would definitely remain legal.

But according to the ACLU, the law would punish individuals for no reason other than their political beliefs by expanding the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945, which prohibit U.S. persons from complying with a foreign governments request to boycott a country friendly to the U.S.

The ACLU analysis argues that:

the bill would amend those laws to bar U.S. persons from supporting boycotts against Israel, including its settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, conducted by international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union. It would also broaden the law to include penalties for simply requesting information about such boycotts. Violations would be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison. We take no position for or against the effort to boycott Israel or any foreign country. However, we do assert that the government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, punish U.S. persons based solely on their expressed political beliefs.

At National Review, Noah Daponte-Smith mostly agreed. This proposed legislation is indeed unconstitutional and unconscionable, an abridgment of the right to free speech, which is quasi-sacred in American life and enshrined in the founding document of our government, he complained. The senators who currently support it should be, quite frankly, ashamed of themselves, he added. They have lost sight of one of the founding principles of American government, allowing it to be overshadowed by the spectral world of the IsraeliPalestinian dispute.

Other analysts took issue with the ACLUs reading.

Haaretz reports that two of the bills original bipartisan co-sponsors, Senator Ben Cardin and Representative Rob Portman, insist its critics are overstating what it actually forbids:

They wrote that the bills critics misunderstood its language and that despite the ACLUs warnings, no U.S. citizen will face legal penalties for supporting a boycott of Israel under the new legislation. The two congressman explained in their letter that the most controversial part of the bill the one detailing the criminal penalties for participating in boycotts of Israel was in fact an expansion of a law, enacted in 1977, prohibiting U.S. companies from taking part in state-led boycotts of Israel.

That bill was adopted in order to counter the Arab boycott of Israel. The new bill adds a new component to it, stipulating that the penalties for participating in a state-led boycott of Israel will also extend to participation in boycotts led by international governmental organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union.

The newspaper added, Not all of the bills critics are convinced. The language is confusing and doesnt clearly state what Cardin and Portman wrote in their letter, one Democratic staffer told Haaretz, adding that it wouldnt surprise me if a large number of Democrats will ask to amend this, making it much more clear that citizens expressing support for boycotts will not be punished for their political opinion.

The bill strikes me as constitutionally suspect even if Cardin and Portman are correct that only companies, not individuals, will be targeted for participating in some boycotts. If a U.S. citizen owns a chain of Mediterranean restaurants, or a plastic-widget factory, or a freight-forwarding service, and declines to do company business with a foreign country, in support of a UN-led boycott against what she regards as human-rights abuses there, it would be an outrage to punish her as a felon.

Another analysis worth considering, The US anti-BDS bill may be bad, but not as bad as some critics say by David Schraub at Jewish Telegraphic Agency, argues that although the ACLU is mistaken in some of the concerns that it expresses, the bill nevertheless poses a significant risk of chilling speech because whether or not Israel boycotters are doing so because they personally find the nation terrible versus because they wish to support a U.N. declaration that Israel is terrible will often be quite blurry. In any event, its not clear why that should be legally dispositive.

He concludes, laws can be bad without being apocalyptic and inadvisable without being unconstitutional. Discussions of Israel/Palestine, in particular, suffer from a marked propensity from people on all sides to abandon care and perspective This bill does not do the more outrageous things it stands accused of. That does not mean it is well-drafted, necessary or worth the tempest it is stirring up.

See the article here:

Why an Effort to Thwart Some Boycotts of Israel Fails the Free-Speech Test - The Atlantic

Beth McEvoy , WCSH 1:36 PM. EDT July 24, 2017

AUGUSTA, Maine (NEWS CENTER) The ACLU of Maine says Governor LePage is violating free speech protections by deleting comments or blocking people from commenting all together on his officialverified Facebook page.

The ACLU sent a letter to the Governor on Monday, saying he must stop selectively deleting comments posted by constituents and reinstate commenting privileges to all people who have been improperly blocked.

The governor doesnt get to decide who speaks and who doesnt, based on whether they are praising him or disagreeing with him, said Zachary Heiden, legal director at the ACLU of Maine.

The First Amendment protects the right of all people to express their opinions to the government. Social media may be a relatively new forum for public speech, but the Constitution still applies.

The ACLU says courts have affirmed that First Amendment's significance of social media.

NEWS CENTER reached out to Governor LePage's office but has yet to hear back.

ACLU letter to Gov. LePage by NEWSCENTER26 on Scribd

2017 WCSH-TV

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ACLU says LePage is violating free speech protections by deleting ... - WCSH-TV

My conversation with Faisal Saeed Al Mutar can be best summed up with one word: Balance.

Al Mutar is an Iraqi-born human rights activist who has been published in The Humanistand appeared as a guest multiple times on The Rubin Report, the talk show hosted by classical liberal pundit Dave Rubin. He has a nuanced view on questions pertaining to relations between the West and the Islamic world, denouncing both the Islamophobia of reactionary politicians like President Donald Trump and what he perceives as the apologist tendencies of certain factions on the left.

It is difficult, in this age of increasingly polarized extremes, to strike a balance between two positions. In terms of the ongoing fight against Islamist terrorism, there are sides who claim that all criticism of Muslim individuals is somehow bigoted, while others seem incapable of or unwilling to recognize the difference between the majority of innocent Muslims and the handful of terrorists.

I picked apart these distinctions and tried to have a measured, balanced conversation with Al Mutar.

On the similarities between the far right critics of Islam and the Islamists themselves:

There are all these people trying to push what a Muslim should be. So with ISIS theyre telling youif you want to be a Muslim you have to follow these strict codes. And for the alt right-ers they say the ISIS narrative is the only way to be a Muslim. So somehow they kind of compliment each other. And so after the same-sex marriage which I think it was great, like a celebration of diversity and love, and love is love, right? And amazing that in a country that is as free as the United Kingdom that they allowed that to happen. And I was watching, observing what people were saying. And you go to alt-right websites, other than saying Wow, thats amazing that there arefresh liberal voices coming up, they were attackingthem.Like, oh these guys arenot real Muslims, theyre infidels. Which is kind of the same thingthat ISIS says about these people!

On why he is so critical of President Donald Trump:

If you are really standing for fighting against Islamic extremism and stuff like that, when you ban entire nations especially countries like Iraq and Iran and many of these folks who are on the front lines of fighting Islamic extremism and terrorism and so on and, if you ban them from coming to the country or make an entire condemnation of entire nations, youre not really siding with the allies that you claim that youre siding with.

Watch our conversation for more on finding balance in the Islamic extremism debate.

Read the rest here:

WATCH: Free speech advocate Faisal Al Mutar faces criticsm from right and left - Salon

msowoya delivering his speech

LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly, Richard Msowoya this week, emphasized the need for the public to embrace freedom of expression with caution.

Msowoya said this when he presided over the 2017 Young People for Democracy Awards, organized by Free Expression Institute (FEI), in the capital Lilongwe.

The Speaker praised FEI for its commitment to issues of freedom of expression, but said the right to free speech was not without its limits.

I encourage you to continue raising peoples awareness on what the right to freedom of expression is, he said before adding: It would help our country if people fully understood what free speech is, compared to what constitutes slander or defamation are, said Msowoya.

Our people must be made to understand the potential of social media, which can be used for constructive purposes or abused to cause harm to individuals or organizations, he said.

In his remarks, FEI board member,

, applauded Malawi Parliament for passing the Access to Information Act. Chisusu said it is important that there must be a conducive environment where people are able to express themselves in whatever way they choose, including being able to stage demonstrations.

He however, observed that there was still misunderstandings or deliberate misrepresentation of the right to demonstrate.

Chisusu added that FEIs commitment is to ensure that Malawi learns from events of July 20, 2011, and vow to never again allow blood to be shed, property to be destroyed or people to suffer casualties, when they are meant to be enjoying their right to freedom of expression.

Often demonstrations have been associated with violence or damaging of property. Demonstrations are a lawful means of expression. All law-abiding citizens and all arms of Government, in particular law enforcement agents, must never obstruct anyones enjoyment of their right to demonstrate.

Every year, the Free Expression Institute organizes an essay writing competition, which culminates in the winner receiving the Young People for Democracy Award, presented on July 20 as a symbolic gesture to mark commemoration of the events of July 20, 2011 when at least 20 Malawians were killed in the aftermath of nationwide demonstrations.

This year over 600 young people in Malawi, participated in the competition, in which they wrote on the topic: How can we sustainably preserve Malawis cultural heritage.

The winner, who received a trophy from the Speaker, and a cash prize of MK200,000, was Nebbert Mtika, an Environmental Education Supervisor at the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust. Edward Katukana, Comfort Mchali, Tawonga Msowoya, and Frank Phiri, were in positions two to 5 respectively.

The rest of the top ten contestants were Praise Kaimfa, Don Sidira Munthali, Edward Lwanja, Wonderful Mwangonde, and Precious Bondo Mipando.

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Embrace free speech with caution Speaker Msowoya - The Maravi Post

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Posted: Jul 24, 2017 12:01 AM

Hate speech is not free speech, the Left increasingly insists particularly on college and university campuses. In my new book The Complete Infidels Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies), I show why the very concept of hate speech is a scam. Here are the top seven:

1. Twitter decides who has the right to hate speech

Consider, for example, what Twitter does not consider to be hate speech. A Muslim named Obaid Karki, @stsheetrock on Twitter, runs a website headed Obaid Karki St.Sheetrocks Painfulpolitics Offensive Comedy Hepcat and another called Suicide Bombers Magazine. He posted this on one of them in late May 2016, just before the European Union and the social media sites announced their new agreement: Robert Spencer mustnt [be] featured but lynched

Karkis posted this call for me to be lynched on Twitter. But Twitter refused to delete his account or even remove the threatening tweets.

2. Social Media blocks the truth by deeming it hate speech

Videogame developer Mark Kern was suspended from Twitter for writing, I dont see why mosques with radical leanings should be excluded from surveillance when the rest of us get our emails collected by the NSA. The administrator of a proDonald Trump Facebook group was banned for arguing that Trump was not anti-Muslim but anti-ISIS.

In early February 2017, they came for me.

On February 7, 2017, referrals to my website, Jihad Watch, from Facebook numbered 23,783, and from Twitter, 1,718. These numbers were generally representative: referrals from Facebook for several years up to that point had averaged between 15,000 and 20,000 a day, and 1,500 to 2,000 a day from Twitter. But on February 10, 2017, those numbers dropped suddenly and precipitously, with only 2,923 referrals from Facebook and 295 from Twitter. Thats around where they have held since then: on March 20, 2017, there were 1,954 referrals from Facebook and 241 from Twitter.

Did thousands of people who used to click through to Jihad Watch articles from Facebook and Twitter suddenly lose interest on February 10, 2017? Of course not. What happened on that day was that Facebook and Twitter began to censor Jihad Watch as hate speech, in accordance with the assurances they had given to the European Union.

Blocking the Truth

Facebook, immediately after concluding an agreement with the European Union, began moving aggressively against foes of jihad terror and mass Muslim migration in the West. Nina Rosenwald, the president and founder of the conservative think tank Gatestone Institute, on June 2, 2016 recorded Facebooks haste to implement the new speech regulations: On Tuesday, the European Union (EU) announced a new online speech code to be enforced by four major tech companies, including Facebook and YouTube. On Wednesday, Facebook deleted the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestones Swedish expert.

Carlqvists crime, according to Rosenwald, was to take note of real crimes by Muslim migrants: Ingrid had posted our latest video to her Facebook feedcalled Swedens Migrant Rape Epidemic. In that video, said Rosenwald, Ingrid calmly lays out the facts and statistics, all of which are meticulously researched. Rosenwald added that the video was adapted from a research paper that Gatestone published last year. The video has gone viralracking up more than 80,000 views in its first two days. But the EU is quite candid: it is applying a political lens to their censorship....

Facebook banning anti-jihad opinions

Facebook banned the page of a gay magazine, Gaystream, after it published an article by David Berger, its editor-in-chief, criticizing German gay activists and leftists for ignoring the Islamic root causes of the Orlando jihad massacre. Berger wrote, Whoever had thought the culmination of masochism and Islam-appeasement by left-green professional homosexuals was already achieved, will now be mistaken: it becomes even more masochistic and perverse.

5. Deleting jihad awareness

In July 2016, YouTube also invoked hate speech criteria, which supposedly it had developed as a tool to use against jihad recruiting videos, to delete a video critical of non-violent Muslim Brotherhood efforts to advance Sharia in the West.

6. The immunity of the censorship of certain social media groups explain a lot

On July 13, 2016, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on behalf of Pamela Gellers American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), of which I am vice president, challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which grants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube immunity from lawsuits, and thus makes it impossible to challenge their consistent bias against foes of jihad terror and tolerance of jihad terror activity.

Section 230 of the CDA explicitly immunizes Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube from challenges to anything they do to restrict access to or availability of material that that they deem obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

David Yerushalmi, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel, added, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have notoriously censored speech that they deem critical of Islam, thereby effectively enforcing blasphemy laws here in the United States with the assistance of the federal government. It has been the top agenda item of Islamic supremacists to impose such standards on the West.... Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are falling in line, and we seek to stop this assault on our First Amendment freedoms.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watchand author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidels Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

Read more from the original source:

6 Incidents Unmasking Social Media Giants as Enemies of Free Speech - Townhall

On June 27, University of California at Los Angeles Professor Keith Fink was told that his 10-year teaching career in the Department of Communication Studies was over. No substantive reason was given; Interim Dean of Social Sciences Laura Gmez simply stated "your teaching does not meet the standard of excellence." The decision attracted national attention in large part because Fink teaches courses on the First Amendment, including a course on Free Speech on Campus a hot-button topic that has become politically-charged in recent years (inversely and ironically so, because the Free Speech Movement was born within the liberal mecca of UC Berkeley in the 1960s).

Today, for reasons worthy of a Ph.D. thesis, Free Speech purism has shifted from a "liberal" cause to a "conservative" cause. The First Amendment (especially with respect to its first clause: speech) should be apolitical. Accordingly, I (and Fink, too) view it simply as a non-partisan constitutional law issue one where the past 10 years of campus speech codes, mandatory "diversity training," "hate speech," so-called "safe spaces," and "trigger warnings" all fly in the face of dozens of Supreme Court opinions, none of which lend any credence to the legality of the aforementioned "ideals."

The facts of Fink's case alone are intriguing, especially insofar as they highlight UCLA's lack of commitment to academic freedom, due process, and fundamental fairness. His case also illustrates the growing intolerance on campuses toward ideas that do not conform with their traditional progressive agendas, especially among faculty.

While American research universities have historically dominated international rankings, largely due to their willingness to support a wide range of intellectual beliefs, academic freedom is under siege. Administrators, who rarely are zealous defenders of academic freedom and instead are typically trained in problem mitigation, are undermining the very purpose of the modern research university: to promote the free exchange of ideas. This, in turn, leads to them targeting students, faculty, and ideas that are at odds with their own.

Indeed, Fink, a rare conservative on a campus largely comprised of left-leaning faculty and ideologues, is not the first victim of viewpoint and/or political discrimination at UCLA: there are striking parallels between Fink's story and those of Political Economist Tim Groseclose and Epidemiologist James Enstrom. The nexus between these three cases is UCLA's cultural intolerance towards "conservative" views, or more precisely, views that contradict those of the faculty majority.

Particularly galling, however, are the stark differences between Fink's treatment and that of Gabriel Piterberg, the disgraced Professor of History and sexual predator.

By all outward measures, Fink is an excellent teacher.

His qualifications to teach the subjects of free speech on campus, free speech in the workplace, entertainment law, and contemporary social issues are unparalleled. He's a renowned attorney who specializes in these fields, and won the National Collegiate Debate Championship for UCLA for three consecutive years a record unmatched to this day. His students (liberal and conservative alike) universally love his teaching and describe his classes as among the most influential and developmentally-important classes they've taken at UCLA, some going as far to say that his classes "teach tolerance without imposing tolerance." Students characterize his lectures as dynamic and engaging; he's garnered widespread admiration for the attention he gives to students' individual academic and professional pursuits.

His instructor ratings and course ratings are significantly higher than those of his peers a point that his department chair, Kerri L. Johnson, even concedes which has propelled his classes to the top of students' lists of favorites. Fink can easily fill classrooms with hundreds of eager students; there are always students that are turned away due to lack of space (or more recently, arbitrary and dishonestly-justified caps on his courses' enrollment).

In short, he's an excellent teacher with a virtually impeccable teaching record.

Piterberg's case is a totally different story.

Piterberg has been sanctioned by the UC Regents as a result of allegations of sexual misconduct with two graduate students. His settlement includes a minor reduction in pay along with a conveniently-timed quarter away from UCLA where he could instead pursue a prestigious fellowship, thereby boosting his (and UCLA's) academic credentials. As Cassia Roth notes, "Piterberg's 'quarter off' may have cost him financially, but it actually boosted his real academic capital, his research status. And it also enhanced UCLA's own academic standing."

Even before his sexual assault fiasco, he was not particularly popular in the classroom. Students characterize his lectures as monotone and unorganized; he's not known for his concern for students, and students generally note that success in his courses requires mere regurgitation of facts and that he is "not so great a lecturer."

That's no way to teach a subject as important as history. Many students are skeptical of taking his courses, with some even protesting his mere presence on campus. His classes this past year have failed to attract even 50 students. "[I]ts not a good learning environment," says one student who recently took his course.

Although the disgraced Piterberg may be tenured, sexual assault is absolutely "for cause" grounds sufficient enough to justify early dismissal yet he remains on campus. Fink, a lecturer up for promotion to Continuing Lecturer (effectively granting job security), who boasts an objectively excellent teaching record and well-documented influence on thousands of students easily exceeds the criteria set forth for his advancement yet he was shown the door.

These cases have diametrically different outcomes, but why?

This dissonance sheds light into some of the less-glorious aspects of UCLA's inner workings. It exposes a system where department chairs like Kerri L. Johnson can make up rules to suit their interests; it highlights UCLA's flagrant disregard for their very own rules; and perhaps most shockingly, it shows a top-down culture whereby deans and vice chancellors (such as Laura Gmez and Jerry Kang) don't simply administrate, but rather dictate their campus' intellectual climate in complete derogation of academic freedom (a principle they pay lip service to but rarely match it with their actions).

It's no surprise that Jerry Kang (Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) dislikes Fink's presence on campus. Fink regularly takes Kang to task about issues related to student speech, conduct, and academic freedom typically using Kang's in terrorem email missives as springboards to highlight how the abstractions of First Amendment jurisprudence commonly pan out in public universities.

After all, what better way to teach free speech on campus than to use examples from students' own university?

But when Kang and his peers took issue with this, they should have addressed their concerns directly, expediently, and professionally rather than waiting until Fink's eighteenth quarter where they could sheepishly assemble a star chamber review process rigged against Fink from the outset.

For now, Johnson, Gmez, Kang, and the other administrator-bureaucrats who orchestrated Fink's Kafkaesque review may be rejoicing in the fact that they successfully eliminated Fink's outspoken, popular, and intellectually-competing voice from their campus.

But their rejoice will be short-lived: UCLA is already suffering as a result. Fink will not put this battle to rest, not because it involves him, but because it threatens all lecturers' academic freedom and belies the very tenets upon the modern research university are predicated.

Andrew Litt is a law clerk at Keith A. Fink & Associates. He was a teaching assistant for Fink at UCLA.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

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At UCLA, free speech is suppressed and double standards reign - Washington Examiner

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Visitors walk through Sather Gate at UC Berkeley.

Visitors walk through Sather Gate at UC Berkeley.

Give UC Berkeley credit for learning from the past years intensive course in free speech and right-wing provocation. After a series of standoffs with conservative speakers left the university looking less than eager to accommodate all comers, its approach to the latest controversial invitation strikes the right tone by making unfettered expression the clear priority.

University officials initially expressed reservations about the time, date and type of venue requested for the Berkeley College Republicans next would-be guest, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, prompting the group to revive its accusations of a consistent bias against right-wing speakers. But the university announced Thursday that it would take additional steps, including possibly paying or waiving venue fees, to make the speech happen on the September evening requested by the student organization.

UC Berkeleys new chancellor, Carol Christ, said in a statement that the university welcomes a broad range of perspectives, including Shapiros: We believe deeply in the value and importance of free speech and fully support student groups right to invite speakers of their choice to campus. She added that the school had hosted literally dozens of speakers from both conservative and libertarian movements without incident. The key is for the hosting organization to work collaboratively with the campus.

Indeed, the recent crop of speakers and their supporters have at times seemed more eager to be refused than to be accommodated and to therefore have the opportunity to accuse UC Berkeley of being a liberal echo chamber that has drifted a long way from the days when the Free Speech Movement began there. The Berkeley Republicans habit of demanding a particular date, time and venue without consulting the administration makes the universitys job more difficult. So do left-wing protesters threatening and carrying out violence, necessitating heightened security measures.

For those and other reasons, scheduled campus speeches by professional provocateurs Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter were ultimately called off this year. UC Berkeley appears to be striving to avoid a similar outcome in the case of Shapiro, whose books and commentary have targeted Palestinians, Hollywood and universities.

If all the student group and its guests are looking for is a cancellation and a headline, maintaining an open campus will only serve to call their bluff.

UC Berkeleys efforts to welcome the next controversial speaker recognizes that the public university has a special obligation to facilitate the free exchange of ideas even when the ideas are questionable and the interest in exchanging them is in doubt.

Read the rest here:

Editorial: UC makes right call on free speech - San Francisco ... - San Francisco Chronicle

A very interesting post from Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizens Consumer Law & Policy Blog); here are the opening paragraphs:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued an order signed only by the Clerk declaring that a significant free speech issue bearing on the rights of anonymous Internet users will be decided in a totally secret proceeding, involving sealed briefs, a sealed record, and without any help from would-be amici (including Public Citizen) seeking to explain the dangers posed by the proceeding.

The case arises from a subpoena served by the United States on the employer-rating site Glassdoor, originally demanding identifying information about the owners of more than one hundred pseudonymous accounts that had, it appears, been used to post reviews of a particular employer whose contracting practices were subject to a federal criminal investigation. Glassdoor refused to produce the information demanded by the grand jury subpoena, citing the First Amendment right of its users to speak anonymously.

In an effort to compromise, the government limited its production demand to eight specified reviewers. Glassdoor responded to that offer by proposing that it notify the users of the subpoena and provide identifying information for such of its users who were willing to be identified to the prosecutors. After the government rejected this offer, Glassdoor moved to quash the subpoena, invoking its users First Amendment right to speak anonymously which, Glassdoor contended, created a privilege against production of the information. At the same time, it notified its users of the subpoena, thus meeting one of the conditions of the Dendrite line of cases that it cited in its motion. Those cases rely on the First Amendment right to speak anonymously as a basis for posing procedural and substantive obstacles to civil subpoenas seeking to identify online speakers so that they can be served with process and sued for wrongful speech. Eventually, Glassdoor also invoked Bursey v. United States, a decision in which the Ninth Circuit quashed in part a grand jury subpoena directed at the process of publishing the newspaper of the Black Panther Party.

The entire subpoena litigation was conducted under seal, but we know some of the details because, having taken a contempt citation to secure its ability to appeal, Glassdoor next obtained the governments stipulation for the partial unsealing of the briefs exchanges by the two sides on Glassdoors motion to quash. Glassdoor had appealed, and raised the possibility that parties beside itself might wish to provide the Court of Appeals with the benefit of their views of the applicable law. The trial judge granted that request; as a result the briefs supporting and opposing the Glassdoor motion to quash, as well as reply briefs both from Glassdoor and from the government, are available in the public record, as is the judges ruling on the motion. The finer details from the papers were redacted, including for example the name of the company under investigation and some of the detail about the content of the employee reviews whose authors.

We know from Judge Humetawas opinion that she refused to apply the Bursey line of cases because she considered that it only protected against grand jury subpoenas directed at dissent against the government, and she refused to take seriously the First Amendment rights of Glassdoors users because well, for reasons that showed a misunderstanding of the First Amendment rights at issue. On the one hand, the judge thought that the First Amendment privilege being asserted could extend only to political speech, and on the other hand she seems to have suggested that no First Amendment obstacles could be posed to a grand jury subpoena because newspapers do not generally have any First Amendment rights to stop grand jury intrusion into their sources absent a showing of bad faith on the part of the government; the judge deemed Glassdoor indistinguishable from a journalistic enterprise.

Grand jury proceedings have historically been secret, and there are good reasons for such secrecy; but its indeed dangerous to have significant legal issues resolved in secret proceedings. Im not sure quite what should be done in cases like this, but I agree that this is an important issue, and Levys post is much worth reading.

See the rest here:

'Ninth Circuit poised to resolve major free speech issue in secret proceeding' - Washington Post

Sometimes in the course of our political life, someone proposes something so mind-bogglingly stupid that its hard to know exactly what to say about it. Senate Bill 720 is one of those things.

Over the past few years, a small but prominent movement has cropped up, using the age-old tactic of boycott to protest what it sees as Israels unjust occupation of territories that are assumed to belong rightfully to the Palestinians. Called BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) after the strategy it employs against the state of Israel and goods produced therein, it has acquired a certain notoriety on college campuses, not least for its uncomfortable associations with veritable anti-Semites.

Israels supporters in the Senate, justifiably seeing this as a problem, have come up with an innovative solution: Make participation in BDS or other boycotts of Israel a felony, punishable by enormous fines and up to two decades in prison. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act enjoys remarkable bipartisan support: Its not often you can get Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse to sign onto a measure alongside Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Its proponents number 43 in the Senate and 234 in the House.

The American Civil Liberties Union opposes it. This bill would impose civil and criminal punishment on individuals solely because of their political beliefs about Israel and its polices, the organization writes in a letter to senators. The thrust of itscriticism is simple. Many companies and individuals conduct no transactions with Israel, for lack of a need to; the bill would make illegal such an action only if it bears a political motivation. The bill therefore penalizes political beliefs and so is both unconstitutional and unconscionable.

This is correct, and we should be pleased that the ACLU has taken a break from mind-numbing Resistance-focused anti-Trump litigation and has rediscovered the meaning of the civil liberties so prominent in its name. This proposed legislation is indeed unconstitutional and unconscionable, an abridgment of the right to free speech, which is quasi-sacred in American life and enshrined in the founding document of our government. The senators who currently support it should be, quite frankly, ashamed of themselves; they have lost sight of one of the founding principles of American government, allowing it to be overshadowed by the spectral world of the IsraeliPalestinian dispute.

This condemnation will, I would hope, suffice for those on the Left whose first instinct, on hearing the news of the bills consideration, was to ask somewhat sardonically when the ostensible right-wing defenders of free speech would profess their opposition to the bill. Sean McElwee wrote on Twitter: I expect our valiant campus speech warriors will stay silent. From The New Republics Jeet Heer: Its interesting how silent free speech absolutists are when attack is not on campus but from Senate.

This point, now made rotelyon the left, is meant to insinuate that those on the center and Right who care deeply about the state of free speech on campus Conor Friedersdorf, Nicholas Christakis, Jonathan Chait, even some at National Review are in fact nothing but reactionaries dishonestly appropriating the free speech argument to keep the boots of the rich, white, and powerful stamped down upon the backs of leftist agitators.

This is, of course, total bunk. A significant number of prominent supporters of campus free speech have also expressed opposition to the Senate bill. Nicholas Christakis has; Jonathan Chait has; Yair Rosenberg has; Walter Olson has. The hypocrites whom those on the left desperately wish their opponents to be have not materialized; they are, by and large, a highly principled bunch.

Such is exactly how most debates over free speech have played out recently. Consider the case of Lisa Durden, an adjunct professor at Essex County College who was fired after making controversial comments on Fox News. Leftists jumped on the apparent lack of outcry as prima facie proof of conservative hypocrisy on the subject: Conservatives care only when its one of their own facing opprobrium. One commentator wrote:

In contrast to other free speech-related controversies on college campuses, there has been almost no media coverage of Durdens ouster. That omission is part of a pattern: When wealthy, right-wing speakers encounter protest, the tendency among both right-wing and centrist writers is to scold snowflake students while dutifully preaching the virtues of diverse ideas in a college education, no matter how outr or dangerous those ideas may be. When marginalized faculty, often women of color, encounter professional censure, the same centrist writers say nothing. Once could almost conclude that the PC-run-amok and trigger warning controversies exist solely to reaffirm existing power dynamics. Its not really about free speech on campus at all.

And, yes, when it comes to Mike Cernovich and Milo Yiannopoulos or Tomi Lahren, thats more or less correct; they really are distasteful hypocrites who care not one bit about free speech and who use the principle instead to advance their particular cause. They are of the new breed of conservatism that views its primary goal as melting special snowflakes and doesnt give much of a damn about anything beyond that. But we knew that already; weve always known theyre unprincipled actors seeking only to aggrandize themselves. Their silence on Lisa Durden tells us nothing new or interesting about their character. Their place in the intellectual debate over free speech is marginal in any case, and what really matters is not what they think but what the more rational, principled minds of the Right and center say. From them we might be able to glean whether the defense of free speech is something truly principled or is just a veil for contemptible beliefs.

From them we hear a near-universal condemnation of Durdens firing. Jonathan Haidt of Heterodox Academy, a centrist talisman for the free-speech cause, wrote that in 2017, its clear that the threat profile is now bipartisan. Jonathan Marks, a conservative, said, I am no fan of Lisa Durden....Yet it is precisely as an academic conservative that I must say, to coin a phrase, Im with her. Similar reactions could be found across the span, from right to center, of defenders of free speech. Again, the supposed hypocrites were not what they were presumed to be.

As goes the debate over free speech, so drifts the broader current in our public sphere. Over and over again, it seems, we care more about scoring partisan points in the eternal shouting chamber of Twitter than we do about achieving concrete change in the tangible conditions of everyday life. Rank partisanship has allowed us to rest quite content with having uncovered hypocrisy on the other side. This tactic is nothing but a cheap cop-out. We blissfully avoid all the difficulties of a serious debate that challenges our intellectual precepts. It is possibly the least edifying, most counterproductive way to run a civil society. It only heightens the tensions already latent in our partisan system. It distracts us from the content and merits of the issue at hand.

Ive focused on the Left so far, but I dont mean to suggest that this phenomenon occurs only there. Its prominent enough on the right as well publications like The Federalist specialize in a sort of Obama did it too! smarminess, always allowing them to the elide the actual issue at hand. Through this strategy, they decline to express an opinion on the content of the actual matter, instead directing their ire at the Left. This is a convenient way to avoid being trapped in the contradictions and convulsions of the Trump administration, but its a terrible way to run a public sphere in a democratic society.

What, then, is a reasonable path forward? Besides taking a Luddite approach to Twitter a remarkably poor platform for any sort of reasoned and constructive discussion, prone more to aggravation than to conciliation the world might be a substantially better place if we simply decided to step away from the partisan register in which we conduct our debates. Stop thinking about what the other side thinks, at least for a while. Start looking more critically, with a more penetrating eye, at what you and your side think. Otherwise the cycle of finger-pointing will do little but deepen, and our public sphere become all the more barren.

Noah Daponte-Smith is a student of modern history and politics at Yale University and an editorial intern at National Review.

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BDS: Free-Speech Conservatives Oppose Senate Bill That Would ... - National Review

Do you think the creators of Pokemon Go should have to fill out a 10-page event-permit application each time you want to play the augmented reality game in a public park?

Neither does a Wisconsin district judge, who just pressed pause on a local ordinance that singled out AR games for particularly tough treatment.

Some three months after Candy Lab, the creator of a Pokemon Go-like game sued Milwaukee County over the local law, US district Judge J.P. Stadtmueller gave the company, and by extension the makers of other AR games, a temporary win.

In an order Thursday, Stadtmueller ruled AR games constitute free speech and thus any law affecting them would have to be narrowly tailored so as not to unreasonably harm companies or citizens and avoid falling afoul of the First Amendment. The county had been trying to control the games after parks were allegedly trampled by Pokemon Go players last year.

Here's the ordinance:

Permits required for location-based augmented reality games. Virtual and location-based augmented reality games are not permitted in Milwaukee County parks except in those areas designated with a permit for such use by the director of the department of parks, recreation, and culture (DPRC). Permits shall be required before any company may introduce a location-based augmented reality game into the parks, effective January 1, 2017. The permitting application process is further described on DPRC's website for companies that create and promote such games. That process shall include an internal review by the DPRC to determine the appropriateness of the application based on site selection, protection of rare flora and fauna, personal safety, and the intensity of game activities on park lands. Game activity shall only occur during standard park hours, unless otherwise authorized by the DPRC director, who has the authority to designate special events and activities within the parks outside of the standard operational hours.

The permit application also requires a $250 deposit and for the event sponsor to have $1 million worth of general liability insurance.

As it stands, the judge believes the law may be unconstitutional. So Milwaukee is now unable to enforce it, at least until the relevant lawsuit -- again, by Candy Lab, not Pokemon Go creator Niantic -- reaches its conclusion.

Representatives for Milwaukee County, Candy Lab and Niantic didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

You can read the judge's order below.

Candy Lab Wisconsin Preliminary Injunction Order Augmented Reality Games by CNET News on Scribd

via The Associated Press

Read more:

Take that Milwaukee. Pokemon Go is protected free speech - CNET

Censorship is demeaning.

When the New York Times finds a professor of psychology to tell us that hold on to your seats words can actually hurt, and therefore certain speakers should be prohibited from campuses, it is arguing that the vulnerable students need protection from authorities on high.

When the U.K.s Advertising Standards Authority proposes to ban harmful traditional gender roles from all advertisements, it makes clear that it doesnt believe women can handle a depiction of a mother cleaning up after her family. Even if women are not bothered, they must be protected: They may not recognize harm because certain negative stereotypes are so normalised.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, the aforementioned professor of psychology, demeans us with science. On Sunday, she wrote, If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems that speech at least certain types of speech can be a form of violence. This allowed her to conclude that its reasonable, scientifically speaking, not to allow a provocateur and hatemonger like Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at your school and that we should halt any speech that bullies and torments.

Barretts conclusion does not follow from her premises. As Jesse Singal notes in New York, the studies that Barrett cites are mostly about chronic stress, attributable to prolonged and sustained emotional neglect or verbal abuse during childhood. They has nothing to do with attending a college at which a loathsome person happens to be giving a speech that can be protested or simply ignored. Yiannopoulos, stupid as he is, is not going to physically damage your brain by speaking on your campus.

Barrett surely knows this, which is why she adds that Yiannopoulos is part of something noxious, a campaign of abuse. Therein lies her sleight-of-hand: On the one hand, he can be banned because his words are literally violent, but on the other, it is acknowledged that his words dont actually cause physical harm, but only contribute to the larger campaign of abuse that can be claimed, without any evidence, to have equivalent effects to sustained verbal abuse during childhood.

Barrett poses as a faithful interpreter of scientific evidence, determined to protect students from the words endangering their telomeres. But in reality, her argument would pave the path to the criminalization of unpopular speech. Violence is dangerous, after all, and it merits state violence to subdue and prevent it. By her logic, any controversial speaker could be grouped with a campaign of some sort and thus made into a contributor to something akin to physical violence in its effects.

Consider what the results would be of treating this argument seriously. Take Linda Sarsour. Among her other activities, she delights in claiming that Zionists have no place in the feminist movement. So whats stopping me from saying that, while not physically harmful in themselves, Sarsours bullying statements join a larger campaign of abuse against Jews, and therefore deeming her speech responsible for causing chronic stress? Should she on these grounds be prohibitedfrom criticizing Zionism?

In Britain, you can be arrested for speech, even if its only an offensive Facebook post. This is all for the safety of the public, of course. On Tuesday, Britains Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) published a new report, pushing Britain further into the free-speech abyss. The report presented an evidence-based case for stronger regulation of ads that feature stereotypical gender roles or characteristics which might be harmful to people.

The report will form the basis of new standards to be created for 2018 by the ASAs sister organization, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP). Together, the ASA and CAP self-regulate the advertising industry, a power they have been granted by the British government. Advertisers cannot opt out of their advertising codes unless theyd like to face sanctions as severe as criminal prosecution, imprisonment, and confiscation of financial assets.

This means that, for example, ads that depict men as stereotypically inept at performing housework or women cleaning up after a mess they did not make themselves will be prohibited. Ella Smillie, the lead author of the ASA report, says she hopes to ensure that modern society is better represented. I would have no problem with that, but it is not what Smillie has recommended. She has sought to forbid the representation of anything but modern society, whatever that means. So just like that, Britain will essentially make it illegal to depict my father and mother in advertisements.

To depict a man struggling with an old vacuum cleaner while a woman succeeds with a newer product would supposedly restrict the choices, aspirations, and opportunities of children, young people and adults. But again, this has nothing to do with expanding womens range of choices. Rather, the new proposals aim to promote one choice and forbid the representation of another.

The ASA claims its report is backed by a major independent research study by GfK, the German market research firm. But if you care to read the report in full, you will find its evidence laughably sparse. Free speech and liberty to offend does not correspond with a right to cause harm, its authors assert, unaware of how broad a claim they have just made. On this logic, one could call for the banning of a million books and the suppression of a thousand columnists for causing harm.

But the report continues, As the evidence links the depiction and reinforcement of stereotypes to unequal outcomes and real-word harms for men and women, it could be argued that the right to offend does not apply. But just a few lines earlier, the authors state that the literature is not conclusive on the role advertising plays in constructing or reinforcing gender stereotypes. In any event, these harms are suspect, relying on value judgments about men and women that the British people never authorized their advertising regulators to make. And the report uncritically presents very controversial claims about them, including about so-called stereotype threat. This is the contested idea that people will perform more poorly when they feel at risk of conforming to a stereotype.

Of course the media can encourage conformity, and of course the British regulators pose as advocates of choice and liberation from conventions. They cast themselves as protectors of women everywhere, vulnerable to have their ambitions crushed by ads for home appliances. However, this is just a pose. In reality, the regulators only offer a different, more modern conformity, casting traditional practices as not only unjust, but bad for your health.

In suppressing free speech, the paternalistic censors in Britain and at the Times cannot claim to be on the side of freedom or the little guy. Long past destroying the old orthodoxies, they seek to create new ones. While claiming to watch out for your interests, they pursue social engineering.

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

Continued here:

Censorship: It's Always for Your Own Good - National Review