Category Archives: Free Speech

Conservative college students are getting more than just a four-year degree when they graduate. They're also getting a top-notch education in the persecution tactics and overt discrimination of their left-leaning peers.

Members of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), who met last month in the nation's capital, were exposed to ideas and tactics that will prepare them for the political battles theyll likely continue to face during their working careers.

Panelists discuss leftwing attacks on conservative free speech on America's college campuses at the recent meeting of the College Republican National Committee. Photo by Rachael Herbert-Varchetto

The day's best-attended panel, Free Speech on Campus, featured Casey Mattox of Alliance Defending Freedom, Grant Strobl of Young Americans for Freedom, Benji Backer of Conservatives for Energy Reform and Alex Staudt of Young Americans for Liberty.

Mattox opened the session by explaining why free speech is vital.

It matters that your free-speech rights are being violated, he said. You have ideas you want to get out there, and you want to be able to express those ideas. The other big problem that we're seeing is that [leftist students] are not going to stay on campus. The reality is, whatever lessons you're learning right now about how the First Amendment works, the things they're learning are lessons they are going to apply outside.

You have ideas you want to get out there, and you want to be able to express those ideas. Casey Mattox of Alliance Defending FreedomBacker built on that thought by explaining that the liberal students squelching speech now will go on to become teachers of children, members of Congress, entrepreneurs and community leaders throughout the country.

Free speech zones are dangerous for the country, and even the fact that we have free speech zones is dangerous for the country, Backer said in response to the restrictive practice of limiting conservatives to small, out-of-the-way places to protest or hand out materials. The campus is telling you, You can have this little piece of America and the rest of it is controlled by us. We need to make sure this is not happening on college campuses.

Alex Smith, national chair of the College Republican National Committee, corroborated the experiences of the panel.

If you're a conservative organization, they'll find any reason to shut down your table, shut down your event, Smith said. You didn't check the right box off on the paperwork, so therefore we have to cancel the event with 400 people because you didn't do the right thing.

All four panelists agreed that conservative students must use the law and follow it to the letter to catch administrators in the act with their own paperwork and legalese. They alsosaid that students should use social media to share their experiences, and should join student senates and governing organizations within their schools in order to change the narrative by continuing to act as a sane voice.

Staudt recommended tipping off local media to any ridiculous restrictions and aggression by administrators. In addition, he reminded attendees about the power of a unified letter signed by student organizations to oppose such restrictions. Between private and publicly funded institutions, students must also be wary of the fine print in their student handbooks, which can differ vastly regardingwhat is tolerated and what isnt.

During the discussion, students around the room told of varied experiences with discriminationsome hadnt experienced any issues, while others had dealt with intimidation or aggression. Two students spoke anonymously on concerns of being targeted or having legal action taken against them. One student stated that at Rutgers University after the presidential election, students and professors appeared morose, consoling each other at sympathy events to recover from the shock of President Donald Trumps win.

A second student alleged during a Q&A session with former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich that the reason she had been suspended from her sorority was for working as a campaign volunteer for Trump's team last fall. That revelation came from fellow sisters, who spoke quietly to her after sorority leadership failed to give a substantial reason for the dismissal.

The troubling trend to stifle speech now includes citing security concerns, according to Smith. Colleges and universities will sometimes say that a conservative event must be canceled because campus security is unable to ensure the safety of the students, or, in other cases, demand College Republican chapters pay fees for security to ensure the event goes on.

If you're a liberal student or liberal organization, you get more leeway from administrators to do what you want. Alex Smith, national chair of the College Republican National CommitteeThese are the weapons that are used against conservative students by and large, she explained. If you're a liberal student or liberal organization, you get more leeway from administrators to do what you want.

Campuses have always been liberal, but they were never as hostile or violent as they are for center-right groups, especially College Republicans," Smith added. After the 2016 election, it was polarizing. We've seen a huge backlash against conservative students. College Republicans were feeling threatened on campus for wearing a T-shirt or holding a meeting.

Attendee Alana Heines explained that during the election fallout, her college handed out tissues to students who suffered severe emotional distress. Another student, Kaitlyn Lee, was verbally accosted the day after the election. Her professor at the time stood in front of the class discussing the results. Speaking up, Lee stated that the students should try to maintain a peaceful and respectful manner while speaking their minds, regardless of their political stances. A classmate screamed at her from across the room, You're wrong! Later, the professor apologized to Lee, hoping the encounter would not make her feel as though she could not safely express her opinions during their instructional time.

Smith believes a large portionof the silencing efforts constitutesan organized plan by shadowy individuals such as George Soros with the capability to influence generations and systems.

In terms of what the goal is, some of it is people in schools, sometimes its just liberal administrators who are trying to get across their ideology to a susceptible group of students, Smith said. In other cases you see big-money figures like Soros and Tom Steyer. In some cases, its just a deep-seated hatred for conservatives.

Free Speech on Campuss Mattox had one of the pithiest lessons to share with the students. If you're spending all your time talking about draining the swamp in Washington, D.C., and not about the swamp in your student affairs office, then you're missing the boat, Mattox said.

In addition to the panel discussion, students at the gathering were treated to visits from Sean Spicer, White House press secretary; Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos; and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

Rachael Herbert-Varchetto is the Assistant Editor for Americas 1stFreedom magazine at NRA Publications. A proud Hoosier, she lives and works in Virginia.

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Battling The Free Speech Assault On Conservative College Students - America's 1st Freedom (press release) (blog)

TheBlaze.com

Berkeley's First Free Speech Debate of 2017-18 Inside Higher Ed Sure, it's still summer. But the University of California, Berkeley, site of intense debates over free speech and campus security during the last academic year, is being hit with the first such debate for the coming academic year. Young America's ... No, Cal Isn't Blocking the Ben Shapiro SpeechCALIFORNIA Now UC Berkeley will ensure conservative Ben Shapiro can speak on campus, will even waive venue feesTheBlaze.com Ben Shapiro to UC-Berkeley: 'This Bullsh*t Will NOT Stand'PJ Media all 6 news articles »

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Berkeley's First Free Speech Debate of 2017-18 - Inside Higher Ed

Ads That Perpetuate Gender Stereotypes Will Be Banned in U.K., but Not in the Good Ol USA! reads a recent headline on the website Jezebel. Yay to the good ol USA for continuing to value the fundamental right of free expression, you might say. Or maybe not.

Why would a feminist or anyone, for that matter celebrate the idea of empowering bureaucrats to decide how we talk about gender stereotypes? Because these days, foundational values mean less and less to those who believe hearing something disagreeable is the worst thing that could happen to them.

Sometimes you need a censor, this Jezebel writer points out, because nefarious conglomerates like Big Yogurt have been targeting women for decades. She and the British, apparently dont believe that women have the capacity to make consumer choices or the inner strength to ignore ads peddling probiotic yogurts.

This is why the U.K. Committee of Advertising Practice (and, boy, it takes a lot of willpower not to use the clich Orwellian to describe a group that hits it on the nose with this kind of ferocity) is such a smart idea. It will ban, among others, commercials in which family members create a mess, while a woman has sole responsibility for cleaning it up, ones that suggest that an activity is inappropriate for a girl because it is stereotypically associated with boys, or vice versa, and ones in which a man tries and fails to perform simple parental or household tasks.

If you believe this kind of thing is the bailiwick of the state, its unlikely you have much use for the Constitution. Im not trying to pick on this one writer. Acceptance of speech restrictions is a growing problem among millennials and Democrats. For them, opaque notions of fairness and tolerance have risen to overpower freedom of expression in importance.

You can see it with TV personalities like Chris Cuomo, former Democratic-party presidential hopeful Howard Dean, mayors of big cities, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It is Senator Dianne Feinstein arguing for hecklers vetoes in public-university systems. Its major political candidates arguing that open discourse gives aid and comfort to our enemies.

If its not Big Yogurt, its Big Oil or Big SomethingorOther. Democrats have for years campaigned to overturn the First Amendment and ban political speech because of fairness. This position and its justifications all run on the very same ideological fuel. Believe it or not, though, allowing the state to ban documentaries is a bigger threat to the First Amendment than President Donald Trumps tweets mocking CNN.

Its about authoritarians like Laura Beth Nielsen, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University and research professor at the American Bar Foundation, who argues in favor of censorship in a major newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. She claims that hate speech should be restricted, and that racist hate speech has been linked to cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and requires complex coping strategies. Nearly every censor in the history of mankind has argued that speech should be curbed to balance out some harmful consequence. And nearly every censor in history, sooner or later, kept expanding the definition of harm until the rights of his political opponents were shut down.

You can see where this is going by checking out Europe. Dismiss slippery-slope arguments if you like, but in Germany, where hate speech has been banned, police have raided the homes of 36 people accused of posting illegal content. A law was passed last month in Germany that says that social-media companies could face fines of millions of dollars for failure to remove hate speech within 24 hours. When debates about immigration are at the forefront in Germany, the threat to abuse these laws is great.

In England, a man was recently sentenced to more than a year in prison after being found guilty for stirring up religious hatred with a stupid post on Facebook. There are hate-crimes cops who not only hunt down citizens who say things deemed inappropriate but also implore snitches to report the vulgar words of their fellow citizens.

When I was young, liberals would often offer some iteration of the quote misattributed to Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. This was typically in defense of artwork that was offensive to Christians or bourgeoisie types a soiled painting of Mary, a bad heavy-metal album, whatnot.

You dont hear much of that today. Youre more likely to hear I disapprove of what you say, so shut up. Idealism isnt found in the notions of enlightenment but in identity and indignation. And if you dont believe this demand to mollycoddle every notion on the left portends danger to freedom of expression, you havent been paying attention.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor of the Federalist and the author of The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi. 2017 Creators.com

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Left & Free Speech New Danger | National Review - National Review

Claremont McKenna, the small, Southern California liberal-arts college, has punished seven students for their part in trying to shut down a speaking event last spring.

The undergraduates targeted Heather Mac Donald, a Manhattan Institute scholar who often focuses on law enforcement. She is most controversial for arguing that aggressive policing tactics pioneered by the NYPD in the 1990s saved thousands of black lives by reducing crimeand thatprotest movements like Black Lives Matter are part of a war on cops that makes everyone, especially cops and black men, less safe.

On April 6, roughly 170 people from the Claremont Colleges and beyond organized and executed a blockade of the venue where she was to speak. Some erroneously asserted that she is a white supremacist who disputes the right of Black people to exist.

They breached the perimeter safety and security fence and campus safety line, and established human barriers to entrances and exits, according to a statement released by administrators. These actions deprived many of the opportunity to gather, hear the speaker, and engage with questions and comments.

Among those found guilty of policy violations by a panel made up of a student, a staff member, and a faculty member, three students received one-year suspensions; two received one-semester suspensions; and two were put on conduct probation.

Their identities were not released.

The disciplinary measures are as harsh as any I can recall being levied against student activists in the spate of campus protests that began in October 2015 at the University of Missouri. That is sure to please one faction at Claremont McKenna, an institution where many alumni, trustees, and faculty members were perturbed to see free speech attacked by activists at their historically conservative institutionand convinced that a punitive response was needed to assure that going forward, students will be able to host controversial speakers without fear of getting shut down.

The administrations statement addressed those concerns:

Our Athenaeum must continue to invite the broadest array of speakers on the most pressing issues of the day. Our faculty must help us understand how to mitigate the forces that divide our society. Our students must master the skills of respectful dialogue across all barriers. Our community must protect the right to learn from others, especially those with whom we strongly disagree. And Claremont McKenna College must take every step necessary to uphold these vital commitments.

If any sizable faction of students are upset by the disciplinary measures, their reaction is likely to be tempered by the fact that they wont return to campus until the fall semester begins. In their absence, a Los Angeles civil rights lawyer, Nana Gyamfi, has emerged as the leading critic of the disciplinary measures taken against the students. She was kind enough to grant me a half hour interview on her birthday.

In her telling, Claremont McKenna first erred in extending an invitation to someone like Mac Donald, because she is not merely conservative in her viewsher rhetoric is dangerous. This is so, the civil rights lawyer argued, in part because of the way that Mac Donald vilifies participants in the Black Lives Matter movement, thereby putting them at greater risk of being harmed by critics agitated into violence. There is an element of karmic symmetry to the accusation, as Mac Donald insists cops are at greater risk of harm by critics agitated by Black Lives Matter.

Gyamfi went on to argue that students of color feel unsafe at the prospect of a Mac Donald speech on their campusand that they are, in fact, justified in that feeling. At first, I thought that she was using the characterization unsafe in the fashion of campus progressives who invoke the term even absent any claim of actual physical threat.

In fact, she was worried about real violence. She noted that in 2015 an anonymous figure posted a death threat against Claremonts students of color in an online forum. She spoke in general of speakers who rile up campuses, leaving members of marginalized groups feeling that, Damn, after this person spoke I feel physically in danger, I'm going to go back to these dorms and people are going to physically assault me. And she asserted that students in that situation have a duty to act in self-defense.

Thus the attempted shutdown in Claremont.

The students that engaged in this did so because they have an understanding of something we're all coming to: that we keep us safe, that we cannot depend even on the institutions we pay, whether the police or our universities, to keep us safe, she said. So we have to put our bodies on the line to be able to be safe. It doesn't make sense for you to be pursuing a degree somewhere and for someone to put a bullet in your head.

The notion that Mac Donald would plausibly incite students at Claremont to physically assault black classmates in the dorms after her speech struck me as incorrect and unfairMac Donald has been speaking publicly at college campuses and beyond for decades; her frequent speeches have never incited any audience member to violence; and nothing Ive ever known her to say, in years of listening critically to her words and reading her critics, has ever come close to even attempting incitement.

(For what its worth, multiple students of color I spoke to at the Claremont Colleges agreed that Mac Donald presented no threat and disagreed with the attempt to shut down her speech; be wary of any source that treats students of color anywhere as a monolith.)

I asked if anything in the remarks that Mac Donald ultimately delivered, in a live stream at Claremont McKenna, struck Gyamfi as something that could incite violence. I have no idea, she said. If someone writes books and articles that I feel positions Black Lives Matter protesters as terrorists, and that positions extrajudicial killings of black people as acceptable I'm not going to wait until she says kill the n-words or who cares if n-words die, I'm not going to wait for the outrageous thing to come from her mouth when I know where this could possibly go.

If any student protesters were earnestly fearful that Mac Donalds speech would trigger an assault on them, or would include a racial-epithet-laden tirade about killing black people, they would have been well-served by a trusted figure with an accurate understanding of Mac Donalds views to alleviate their fears with the truth.

I tend to agree with Gyamfi that the punishments were overly harsh.

For me, thats partly because Claremont McKenna and other institutions sent students lots of unfortunate signals that they could protest without consequence, and partly because semester rather than year-long suspensions, paired with a book report on John Stuart Mill, Henry Louis Gates, and Jonathan Rauch, seem sufficient to send the needed message: attempts to shut down speech will no longer be tolerated.

To Gyamfi, only educational discipline was appropriate, in part because this was a non-violent protest. They didn't punch anybody out. It was not destructive. They didn't turn over cars or burn anything down. And the way the university responded to the protest clearly is intended to intimidate, to bully, to chill speech, to make people feel that anyone who even thinks about pushing back against one of these alt-wrong people is going to be slammed. You're requiring people to just take it, to hear things that are harmful to hear, to experience things that are harmful to experience, and to hear that pressure makes the diamond and friction makes the pearl. We already understand that no, it doesn't work that way, it shouldn't work that way in an educational institution, and you certainly shouldn't discipline students who are making an attempt to exercise free speech. And that is what they were doing.

That the punishment violates the free speech of the protesters, and is likely to chill speech, is a critique I encountered on Facebook as well, though the college did not punish students who protested Heather Mac Donald but did not block the event space.

I asked Gyamfi if she saw a distinction. What those insisting on a punishment worry about, I observed, is that permitting students to physically shut down any event featuring a speaker they dont like will render colleges helpless to function in the face of any dissenters. Should the alt-right be allowed to blockade Deray Mckesson speeches with impunity? At first, she changed the hypothetical, saying she would not object if Jewish students attempted to shut down a speech by an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier. That too would fall under her notion of self-defense against dangerous speech.

But what about protesters shutting down a speaker whose ideas you regard as unobjectionable, I pressed. Would that be legitimate because peaceful protest should never be punished? Or is it okay to punish protesters who stop others from speaking or listening? If they're protesting it's okay, she argued. I don't think it's okay if you're being an ass and not engaging in protest. Then you're just being an ass. But I think if they're actually engaging in protest, then I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is.

It shouldnt be punished.

I respect the consistency of her view, and the empathy that it extends to people who believe themselves to be standing up for what is right. But I dont want to live in a society where it prevails. Think what it would mean, campus progressives, if people could block others from speaking, or assembling, then escape punishment so long as their protest was in earnest. Alt-right bigots could surround mosques to prevent Muslims from attending services. The right to abortion would be meaningless as those who regard even first trimester procedures as murder formed human barriers around rural clinics. The Westboro Baptist Church could decide that rather than just protest the funerals of AIDS victims, it would physically prevent families from gathering for the eulogy.

That dysfunctional arrangement could hardly stay nonviolent for long. Folks would still want to have political gatherings. Thus the rise of campaign rallies where protesters would try to prevent any assembling, and counter-protesters would be on hand to counter, with victory that day going to whoever happens to push harder in their blockade.

The red rover champions of 1980s elementary schools would thrive. But the arrangement would be a catastrophe for marginalized peoplejust as failing to protect freedom of speech or freedom of association on college campuses would be a catastrophe for marginalized students.

The perfect punishment is a difficult thing to determine. But in my estimation, Claremont McKenna was correct to impose some punishment on student protesters who denied others the ability to speak and listen. While many forms of protest should always be permitted on college campuses, all students will ultimately benefit if future shut-down attempts are averted.

Dissents are welcome at conor@theatlantic.com.

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Suspensions for College Students Who Thwarted Free Speech - The ... - The Atlantic

In what was surely the most hot-button episode of WCPN's Sound of Ideas in months, City Club of Cleveland CEO Dan Moulthrop appeared alongside local attorney Subodh Chandra* and the ACLU's Elizabeth Bonham Wednesday morning to discuss the City Club's recent announcement that it'll be hosting fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on August 3.

That announcement met with immediate criticism on social media. Cleveland.com clutched its pearls and called the response "one of the most volatile in the 105-year history of the citadel of free speech."

The Twitter critics people who wondered, among other things, what exactly Lewandowski would bring to the City Club (besides, perhaps, notoriety) and who prodded Moulthrop to explain the decision, in light of Lewandowski's thuggish behavior on the campaign trail were described as "voices of intolerance."

Moulthrop has since orchestrated a kind of publicity tour, which included the Wednesday morning SOI broadcast. First, he penned an op-ed for Cleveland.com, celebrating the distinguished history of the City Club and casting the decision to host Lewandowski (at Congressman Jim Renacci's invitation) as a natural extension of the organization's valor in the face of tension and controversy. In a head-scratching formulation, he characterized the criticism of the City Club's decision as "intolerance for dissent."

But that particular position was greeted with skepticism by Subodh Chandra, a City Club member, Wednesday morning. He agreed in principle with Moulthrop's invocation of free speech ideals, but reminded Moulthrop and listeners that the First Amendment protects citizens from government infringement on their free speech rights. It has nothing to do with private entities like the City Club, which makes specific choices about who it invites and what topics it elevates. In Chandra's view, Lewandowski "degraded" the City Club. If he was a valid guest, Chandra asked, who would be off-limits?

Moulthrop said the outer limits were for the City Club's board to determine.

Elizabeth Bonham, too, stressed the need for clarity when framing the debate. She agreed that the current controversy was not a First Amendment Issue, and that when private organizations invoke the First Amendment, it's a misrepresentation. They can certainly advocate free speech, she said. But they aren't bound by the First Amendment at all.

Moulthrop pushed back, suggesting that citizens engage with free speech in a different way than lawyers do, and that it's incumbent upon civil society organizations to work adjacent to the Constitution.

To Chandra, the question was almost immaterial "a distraction," he said. There was no disputing that the City Club was constitutionally allowed to host Lewandowski. To him, though, Lewandowski was just a shitty, substandard guest a "third-tier, B-list" failed politician and fired strategist best known for assaults on reporters and protesters. One caller suggested that Chandra's take was "elitist."

But it gets to a fundamental issue that critics of the City Club's decision have voiced: Unless you're the United States government, being "inclusive" in celebrating free speech does not at all mean being exhaustive. Unlike the government, which must permit everything short of violence, critics believe that private entities can (and should) be selective in the speech they choose to give a platform to. In their view, celebrating civil discourse might mean the opposite of what it's being said to mean; it almost certainly means excluding people like Ann Coulter and Alex Jones and holocaust deniers.

In the critics' line of thinking, declining an invite from Jim Renacci to host Lewandowski should not be seen as "suppressing free speech" or "silencing" an opposing viewpoint. The City Club should be perfectly capable of defending a person's right to say something without flying that person to Cleveland and giving them an hour at an esteemed local institution to spew kooky or bigoted hot takes. One can recognize (and cherish) the U.S. government's inability to censorMilo Yiannopoulos, for example, and still believe that Simon & Schuster shouldn't publish his memoir.

Mercifully, Dan Moulthrop does not appear to believe that the City Club is the United States government. But his exact position is difficult to nail down: He has advanced the idea that the City Club musthost Lewandowski "we must engage in dialogue with those who are shaping public discourse" but not in spite of his behavior. Moulthrop seems to believe that the former strategist is really a top-hole guest. He has deflected questions about Lewandowski's documented assaults.

To the City Club, Lewandowski is valuable because he was part of something historic (the election of a real estate mogul and reality TV star to the U.S. presidency), and now influences more than 2 million people every day on Fox News. Inviting him and, crucially, giving attendees the opportunity to ask him tough questions is in keeping with the City Club's mission.

But to Chandra, Lewandowski is only famous for being infamous. And as a known purveyor of alt-facts and propaganda, even the vaunted City Club Q&A isn't likely to yield an informative or productive dialogue. Chandra said, though, that his primary issue was with the City Club's apparently diminished standards. Now that Lewandowski has been invited, Chandra encouraged people to attend and ask questions.

Meanwhile, eye-rollers on social media are curious about the "dissent" which they're being called intolerant of: What is Corey Lewandowski dissenting from, for example? And by whom are we called upon to practice inclusive free speech values vis-a-vis C-Lew? Well, by Dan Moulthrop and the City Club's recent defenders. In their view, presumably, Lewandowski represents dissent from our own ideas. It's important to welcome him,therefore, as a civil/civic attempt to broaden our minds and find common ground, etc.

Here's the best thread from the Twitter opposition:

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Civility Now! Corey Lewandowski Ignites Free Speech Debate in ... - Cleveland Scene Weekly

People protest far-right writer Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley on February 1, 2017. A scheduled speech by Yiannopoulos was cancelled after protesters and police engaged in violent skirmishes Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

One fairly common idea that pops up again and again during the endless national conversation about college campuses, free speech, and political correctness is the notion that certain forms of speech do such psychological harm to students that administrators have an obligation to eradicate them or, failing that, that students have an obligation to step in and do so themselves (as has happened during recent, high-profile episodes involving Charles Murray and Milo Yiannopoulos, which turned violent).

Such claims of harm often summed up as speech is violence arent typically invoked in response to actual Nazis, or anything like that. Rather, they are used to argue against allowing speakers like Murray and Yiannopoulos who, for better or worse, do fit in the conservative mainstream or even significantly more moderate ones like Emily Yoffe, who has expressed skepticism about certain claims pertaining to the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. In one instance students successfully canceled a showing of American Sniper by arguing the films ostensible Islamophobia would make students feel unsafe and unwelcome though the screening was later uncanceled.

Now, given the fog of culture war that has descended on this subject and the tendency of opportunistic (mostly) conservative outlets to hype these kinds of events, it isnt clear how common they actually are people often forget the polls suggesting that college students, broadly speaking, tend to hold pro-free-speech views. But either way, it is hard to take seriously the idea that an American Sniper showing or an Emily Yoffe appearance, or even a Yiannopoulos talk, is so potentially psychologically harmful that established norms about free expression which protect both College Republicans and Palestinian students advocating on behalf of their people should be tossed out the window.

So its weird, in light of all this, to see the claim that free speech on campus leads to serious psychological harm being taken seriously in the New York Times, and weirder still to see it argued in a manner draped in pseudoscience. Yet thats what happened. In a Sunday Review column headlined When Is Speech Violence? Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, explains that scientifically speaking, the idea that physical violence is more harmful than emotional violence is an oversimplification. Words can have a powerful effect on your nervous system. Certain types of adversity, even those involving no physical contact, can make you sick, alter your brain even kill neurons and shorten your life. Chronic stress can also shrink your telomeres, she writes little packets of genetic material that sit on the ends of your chromosomes bringing you closer to death.

In light of all this, she writes, it makes sense to think seriously about banning certain campus speakers:

The scientific findings I described above provide empirical guidance for which kinds of controversial speech should and shouldnt be acceptable on campus and in civil society. In short, the answer depends on whether the speech is abusive or merely offensive.

Offensiveness is not bad for your body and brain. Your nervous system evolved to withstand periodic bouts of stress, such as fleeing from a tiger, taking a punch or encountering an odious idea in a university lecture.

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Whats bad for your nervous system, in contrast, are long stretches of simmering stress. If you spend a lot of time in a harsh environment worrying about your safety, thats the kind of stress that brings on illness and remodels your brain. Thats also true of a political climate in which groups of people endlessly hurl hateful words at one another, and of rampant bullying in school or on social media. A culture of constant, casual brutality is toxic to the body, and we suffer for it.

Thats why its reasonable, scientifically speaking, not to allow a provocateur and hatemonger like Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at your school. He is part of something noxious, a campaign of abuse. There is nothing to be gained from debating him, for debate is not what he is offering.

This is a weak and confused argument. Setting aside the fact that no one will ever be able to agree on whats abusive versus whats merely offensive, the articles Barrett links to are mostly about chronic stress the stress elicited by, for example, spending ones childhood in an impoverished environment of serious neglect and violence. Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood with a poor single mother who has to work so much she doesnt have time to nurture you is not the same as being a college student at a campus where Yiannopoulos is coming to speak, and where you are free to ignore him or to protest his presence there. One situation involves a level of chronic stress that is inflicted on you against your will and which really could harm you in the long run; the other doesnt. Nowhere does Barrett fully explain how the presence on campus of a speaker like Yiannopoulos for a couple of hours is going to lead to students being afflicted with the sort of serious, chronic stress correlated with health difficulties. Its simply disingenuous to compare the two types of situations in a way, its an insult both to people who do deal with chronic stress and to student activists.

Its also worth pointing out that this sort of scaremongering Milo is coming and he is shrinking your telomeres! could become a self-fulfilling prophecy for some students. Theres an intriguing area of behavioral science known as mind-set research, and one of its tenets is that the relationship between stress and humans response to it is partially mediated by how people expect stress to affect them. In one intriguing study, for example, a group of Australian college students were given a psychological test and then told at random that it revealed they were either good at dealing with stress or bad at it. Then they watched, on a MacBook, a very disturbing ten-minute video of a car wreck, after which they were asked to close their eyes and relax for three minutes. When they opened their eyes, the researchers running the study asked them to estimate the number of times the films sounds and images intruded on their consciousness during the interlude, and how distressing they found the film overall. As it turned out, the students who were told at random they were good copers were less affected by the film they experienced, on average, about four and a half intrusions during the three-minute interlude, and rated their distress level at 5.65 on a 10-point scale. The poor copers, on the other hand, experienced about 18 intrusions and rated their distress level at almost an 8. Its an interesting finding albeit one conducted on a fairly small sample of 33 students and there are other studies which also suggest that the way we are primed to respond to stress can affect how we eventually do.

Now, it would be just as much of a stretch to say that a single column like Barretts could cause students to self-traumatize as it would be to say that an upcoming Yiannopoulos appearance could traumatize them. But in the aggregate, if you tell students over and over and over that certain variants of free speech variants which are ugly, but which are aired every moment of every day on talk radio are traumatizing them, it really could do harm. And theres no reason to go down this road, because theres no evidence that the mere presence of a conservative speaker on campus is harming students in some deep psychological or physiological way (with the exception of outlying cases involving preexisting mental-health problems). This is a silly idea that should be retired from the conversation about free speech on campus.

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If there really is nothing to the Russia collusion allegations, the editorial posits, transparency will prove it. But, uh, what if not?

If you tell students over and over and over again that certain types of speech are harming them, dont be surprised when they feel harmed.

Now that Trumpcare is all but dead, McConnell will give conservatives their straight repeal vote, and then move on to tax and budget legislation.

Were not laughing, youre laughing.

The House GOP wants the president to break his promise not to cut Medicare, for the sake of funding regressive tax cuts.

Thats 13 years to get a little less than 250,000 women on the ballot.

It was never possible to reconcile public standards for a humane health-care system with conservative ideology.

Sometimes government is complicated because life is complicated, and sometimes compromise requires policies that just arent so simple.

A new book claims Trump didnt want to use the governors phone for his congratulatory call from Obama.

He had to be talked into it, and warned them that he wont keep the deal indefinitely.

After two more GOP defections, McConnell said his bill will not be successful but Obamacare is still in danger.

Obamacare repeal is in big, big trouble.

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Telling Students 'Speech is Violence' Could Be Dangerous - NYMag - New York Magazine

The free-speech zone in Belle Plaines Veterans Memorial Park was quietly eliminated Monday night with the swift, sweeping approval of a 15-item consent agenda.

Our intent was good but it just became too convoluted, said council member Theresa McDaniel.

The city created the zone earlier this year to allow for Joe the privately owned statue of a soldier kneeling at a cross-shaped grave marker to remain in the city-owned park, even though the cross is an explicitly religious symbol. But that paved the path for what would have been the first satanic monument on public property in the United States, attracting national attention to the small town.

The memorial, proposed by The Satanic Temple of Massachusetts, had not yet been installed at the time of the vote.

Joe was removed by his owners last week after America Needs Fatima, a national non-profit, announced a Rosary Rally in protest. The event drew more than a hundred people, as well as a handful of freedom of speech advocates and several members of Minnesotas Left Hand Path Community, which supports the satanic memorial.

Now, with the citys reversal of its original decision, the stretch of grass that was once designated for anyone to place memorials will remain empty, except for the American flag stuck into the ground where Joe once kneeled.

There was no public comment and no council discussion regarding the free-speech zone during the council meeting. It was one of 15 items on the consent agenda, which were approved as a batch at the beginning of the meeting.

The free-speech zone was created by a 3-2 vote earlier this year, after Joe was removed from the park, eliciting a strong reaction from Belle Plaine residents, said council member Cary Coop, who voted against the zones creation.

Since Belle Plaine approved The Satanic Temples proposed memorial which met all the free-speech zones requirements the town has attracted widespread attention, with hundreds of phone calls and emails pouring into city hall and demonstrations organized by outside groups.

Ive never seen anything like this before, Coop said. I think people are really, really tired of it. Its been non-stop controversy for a year now.

Overlooking the Rosary Rally in Veterans Memorial Park Saturday afternoon, Belle Plaine resident Kyle Tietz said he was disappointed at the possibility of the city reversing its decision.

They fought a battle, they made a decision. Stick with it, he said. Let everybody put their own things up. Everybody has an opinion. Thats what makes this country great This is the veterans park, isnt it? Thats what they fought for.

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Belle Plaine eliminates free speech zone - SW News Media

Patch.com

Sponsor of Free Speech Bill Caught Stealing Anti-GOP Sign Patch.com Sponsor of Free Speech Bill Caught Stealing Anti-GOP Sign. BROOKFIELD, WI A Republican lawmaker admitted on Friday that he stole an 80-year-old man's anti-GOP sign from the State Capitol Building under the guise of upholding the "decorum" of the ...

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Sponsor of Free Speech Bill Caught Stealing Anti-GOP Sign - Patch.com

If ever there were a more important time in the last half-century to lift up Americans First Amendment right to free speech, its today. Its a foundation stone of our democratic republic, but one that is under increasing stress with each passing day.

Take, for example, the events of July 8 in Charlottesville.

Earlier this year, the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson and rename the parks where they now stand Justice Park and Emancipation Park. The actual removal is on hold with a suit by statue supporters making its way through the legal system.

In the meantime, the statues have become a flashpoint in the ongoing culture wars. Richard Spencer, a founder of the alt-right white supremacist movement, has been to town for a rally. Corey Stewart, the fiery anti-immigrant populist who barely lost the June 13 Republican gubernatorial primary, has embraced the statues as his ticket to a larger political stage. A Charlottesville white nationalist blogger has seen his profile rise considerably, and in June there was a torch-lit rally of support for the statues that reminded many of Ku Klux Klan rallies of decades past.

Perhaps most disturbing of all, last weekend more than four dozen members and supporters of a Ku Klux Klan coven from North Carolina, who had obtained an assembly permit from the city, held a rally at the foot of the Lee statue.

Community leaders, from the mayor to the president of the University of Virginia, urged folks to stay away from the KKKs protest. The university and city helped plan and stage several community events designed to blunt the KKKs message of hate. But still, more than 1,000 gathered in and around the two parks theyre just blocks from each other to protest the Klans presence in the city.

Tensions understandably were high. After all, its not every day you see a gathering of Klansmen in their robes and regalia, waving Confederate flags and spouting their hateful rhetoric. Nor is it every day that a thousand or more protesters show up to counter that message. Police officers took elaborate steps to protect the Klansmen as they exercised their First Amendment rights, the same rights the anti-Klan protesters were exercising.

At the conclusion of the rally, specially trained Virginia State Police troopers were on hand to make certain the Klan members were able to exit safely, but they still had a phalanx of protesters to make it through. In those moments, anything could have set off a tragic series of events.

Police asked the thousand-member crowd to disperse and go home as the Klan rally had ended. They begged, they pleaded nothing. They officially declared the crowd an unlawful assembly under Virginia law and warned protesters to leave nothing. They put on their gas masks as a way to tell protesters what was next nothing. Then came the release of three canisters of tear gas, and in the following moments, almost two dozen protesters were arrested and charged with various offenses.

The KKK rally and the counter-protest were difficult to watch, but they illustrate just how important the First Amendment is and why we must protect it. There are legal limits to free speech, but the Klan was well inside the perimeter of whats legal, as were the KKK opponents. The police stoically and professionally did their jobs of protecting the public and making it possible for citizens to exercise their constitutional rights in as safe an environment as possible.

Spencer, the alt-right founder, is planning another rally next month, and already there is trepidation about what could transpire. Let him exercise his right to free speech, though its ugly hate speech. Let his opponents rally against him, but peacefully. We cant let the First Amendment become the victim of mobs, on either the left or the right.

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Free Speech Can't Just Be For Speech We Like | Editorials ... - Lynchburg News and Advance

Conservative authorBen Shapirois expected to testify before a joint Congressional hearing on free speech on college campuses later this month, according to a new report by The Hollywood Reporter.

Comedian Adam Carolla, Shapiro and former American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen will testify before theCommittee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Affairs for up to two hours on July 27.

Lawmakers on the committees include Darell Issa (R-Calif.), Mark Sanford (R-Fla.) and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.).

The hearing comes after protests, and in some cases riots, have broken out on college campuses over guests invited to speakto students.

In February, University of California, Berkeley was on a campus-wide lockdown after protests broke out against Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, an "alt-right" leader who was scheduled to speak at the school.

Similar protests happened later in the year when Ann Coulter was invited to speak at Berkeley's campus.

Shapiro,one of those invited to testify this month, has also sparked protests among students on campuses.He was escorted off the campus ofCalifornia State University, Los Angeles by police last year after protests broke out over his planned appearance.

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Ben Shapiro to testify in Congressional hearing on college campus free speech - The Hill