Articles about Free Speech – tribunedigital-baltimoresun

NEWS

April 18, 2013

The positions The Sun's writers have taken recently with regard to free expression have not fulfilled its higher calling to support these paramount values. First, the essential theme of the Sun's April 3 article about Towson University and the white student union ("Towson U. fights back against negative attention") was that the university needed to apologize for not interfering with the attempts of certain students to form a white student union. But the university should have been commended, not condemned, for taking a principled stand in allowing unpopular speech, weak-kneed though its support may have been.

NEWS

September 27, 2012

The article, "Free speech clash grips U.N. " (Sept. 25) could also apply to the recent lecture at the Baltimore Council for Foreign Affairs (BCFA), where its president, Frank Burd, caved into pressure from pro-Israel groups and would not allow questions concerning the Middle East during a lecture by University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer. Even though the topic was China, Mr. Burd was evidently afraid that the professor's comments critical of Israel and U.S. policy favoring Israel would offend some of his audience so he limited discussion solely to China, something that he had never done before.

NEWS

March 6, 2011

More than anything else, the debacle regarding Westboro Baptist proves how once-powerless people can steer the media to convey their message. Through the prism of modern media we share both very enriching, positive story lines (the Chilean miners) and negative, satanic campaigns (Westboro Baptist Church). While we may detest the way some choose to manipulate media to spread their messages to the masses, we still hold freedom of speech to be one of the most fundamental and necessary building blocks of our great society.

NEWS

April 13, 2013

As a Johns Hopkins University alumna, I am deeply disappointed in the school's decision to chide Dr. Benjamin Carson to the point that he has stepped down from delivering the commencement address to the graduating class ("Dr. Ben Carson steps down as speaker at Hopkins graduation," April 11). A university, especially one with Hopkins' vaunted reputation, should stand for the value of free speech in the marketplace of ideas and the respect for diversity that are the hallmarks of a free and civil society.

NEWS

February 14, 2014

As a fellow Marylander, former teacher, and mother of a college student, I wish to thank Professor Melani McAlister for her intelligent and thoughtful commentary on protecting academic freedom (" Maryland bills would stifle academic freedom," Feb. 12). I have been following this issue closely and was pleased to see a piece that not only laid out the facts of this important debate but highlighted how serious a threat the bills being considered in Annapolis (and the U.S. Congress) are to what the "Free State" and the Unites States are supposed to stand for. What kind of message are our legislators sending to students and to all citizens if their response to the exercise of free speech is to punish those who engage in it?

NEWS

By Jonah Goldberg | September 24, 2012

"No One Murdered Because Of This Image. " That was a recent headline from The Onion, the often hilarious parody newspaper. The image in question is really not appropriate to describe with any specificity in a family newspaper. It's quite simply disgusting. And, suffice it to say, it leaves nothing to the imagination. Four of "the most cherished figures from multiple religious faiths were depicted engaging in a lascivious sex act of considerable depravity," according to The Onion, and yet "no one was murdered, beaten, or had their lives threatened, sources reported Thursday.

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Articles about Free Speech - tribunedigital-baltimoresun