Category Archives: Free Speech

In the wake of CNN threatening to out a critic if he does not limit his speech in the future, former federal prosecutor and First Amendment champion Ken White has published an eminently sensible post about the incoherence of the present moment's views on free speech, and on the way that partisanship causes us to apply a double standard that excuses "our bunch" and damns the "other side."

As you'd expect from White, he goes beyond the "pox on both your houses" and sets out a course for a consistent and coherent view on free speech, speech with consequences, and taking sides.

We're not consistent in our arguments about when vivid political speech speech inspires, encourages, or promotes violence. We're quicker to accept that it does when used against our team and quicker to deny it when used on the other team.

We're not consistent in our moral judgments of ugly speech either. We tend to treat it as harmless venting or trolling or truth-telling if it's on our team and as a reflection of moral evil if it's on the other team.

We're not consistent in our arguments about whether online abuse and threats directed at people in the news are to be taken seriously or not. We tend to downplay them when employed against the other team and treat them as true threats when used against our team.

We're not consistent in our arguments about whether calling some individual out by name exposes them to danger. We tend to claim it does when the person supports our team and sneer at the issue when the person supports the other team.

We're not consistent in our treatment of the significance of behavior by obscure individuals. When some obscure person's online speech gets thrust into the limelight, we tend to treat it as fairly representative if they're on the other team and an obvious non-representative outlier if they are on our team.

We're hopelessly bad at applying consistent legal principles to evaluate whether speech is legally actionable depending on which team it comes from.

We're pretty inconsistent in our assessment of what social consequences should flow from ugly speech, with our views of proportionality, decency, and charity diverging widely depending on whether the person at issue is on our team or not.

CNN, Doxing, And A Few Ways In Which We Are Full of Shit As A Political Culture [Ken White/Popehat]

Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins shot video of himself talking about the need for invincible U.S. powerwhile wandering the gas chamber at Auschwitz. In his five-minute ramble, Higgins explains the horrors that took place at the camp, where some 1.1m people, mostly Jews, where murdered by the Nazis during World War II. And that this []

Described by the BBC as a stunning attack on a female news anchor as if such a thing were at all unusual for the president of the United States of America, Trumps latest twitter barrage concerns the allegedly bleeding badly facelift of MSNBCs low I.Q. Crazy Mika Brzezinski. Brzezinski tweeted back, to mock Trumps famously []

Piers Morgan is a British journalist, pundit and Trumpkin who blew his big break in America and now presents breakfast television when not being nasty to women on Twitter. Here he is on Good Morning Britain getting savagely owned by copresenter Susanna Reid. This moment was just too beautiful for words, @susannareid100 @piersmorgan @CharlotteHawkns pic.twitter.com/hK2n88nBS4 []

Entertaining bold changes in your career can feel like an abandonment of what youve worked for thus far, but this fallacious mindset can cost you a lot more in the long run than the time spent at your current gig. Change is constant, and building new skills outside of your typical wheelhouse will do much []

Immersive 3D sound is usually only possible with an array of surround-sound speakers, or by using headphones with Binaural audio content. And since most readily-available media is mastered for generic stereo, your Dolby 5.1 setup wont automagically add an extra dimension to your listening experience. But you can still simulate a rich audio environment with []

If big-game bow hunting sounds a little too intense for your delicate sensibilities, or you want to start building your kids archery proficiency early, this Real Action Crossbow Set is a fairly convincing replica of the real thing.The toy bow fires suction-cup tipped bolts up to 20 feet, so you can work on your marksmanship []

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Debullshitifying the free speech debate about CNN and Trump's alt-right wrestling GIF - Boing Boing

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Free speech is muffled by an unwillingness to listen News & Observer After a century of building free speech rights into our laws and culture, Americans are backing away from one of the country's defining principles. In high schools across the country, teachers say they stay away from hot topics such as immigration and ... and more »

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Free speech is muffled by an unwillingness to listen - News & Observer

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa Published: July 5, 2017 12:00 AM CDT Updated: July 5, 2017 12:00 AM CDT

We live in times of hypersensitivity. One way in which collectivism acts against individual freedom is by declaring morally reprehensible and oftentimes prohibiting what is deemed offensive. The expression political correctness has come to define this assault on free speech that hides behind the mask of respect for the sensibilities of others.

Any attempt to deviate from this hypocritical abuse of power should be welcome. Which is why we should rejoice at two recent developments.

The first is the decision by the Supreme Court to side with the Asian-American rock band The Slants against the Patent and Trademark Office, which had refused to register a trademark for the group on the grounds that the name is offensive to Asians. This is not the first time the Patent and Trademark Office, armed with a provision against offensiveness in the federal trademark law, has made decisions based on political correctness. It canceled the Washington Redskins' trademark in 2014 on the ground that the name offended American Indians.

The second development is the courage shown by Kara McCullough, Miss USA 2017, a young scientist who works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in answering two questions during the pageant. McCullough was asked whether affordable health care for all Americans is a right or a privilege. She said that she sees it as a privilege because her own insurance comes from her employment; in order to obtain coverage one should get a job, she added, and we should cultivate an environment in which people can have jobs and therefore health care.

When asked about feminism, she stated that she was more for equalism and associated the other term with not caring about men. Of course, she was massacred in the social media and part of the mainstream media (which, realizing she was not going to back down, subsequently tried to present her comments on the controversy as a retraction).

Of course, neither McCullough nor the Slants had any intention of being offensive. In McCullough's case, regardless of one's views on the matter, all you have to do is watch her making the original comments to see that she was responding quite honestly based on personal experience. In the band's case, it's even more absurd to take offense since the name actually ridicules the stereotype by wearing it as a badge of honor.

John Stuart Mill, who wrote in the 19th century, might as well have been living in our times when he attacked, in the second chapter of his book On Liberty, the idea that offensiveness should be used as an argument against free speech.

The first problem, Mill noted, is where to draw the line (fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed) because anyone who finds it hard to counter an argument will accuse their opponent of being offensive (intemperate).

The second problem is that limiting free speech for the sake of political correctness will be unfair to people of perfectly good faith. People who are informed and competent often misrepresent other people's views or suppress facts and arguments. Who is to say what is a perfect representation of someone else's views? The offended party? That would turn people of good faith into morally culpable beings all the time!

The third problem is that the denunciation of offensive speech, as Mill maintained, usually targets those who defy the prevailing opinion.

Free speech is one of the protections we have, as individuals, against the tyranny of the majority (whether it is truly a majority or not). The world needs more people like Miss USA 2017 and more Supreme Court decisions that defy political correctness.

Vargas Llosa is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute.

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Independent Institute fellow: Two victories for free speech - NewsOK.com

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When the Supreme Court declared that the Constitution protects gay marriage, did it thereby establish a view that all Americans must affirm?

The court itself answered that question nearly 75 years ago: No official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

The court should stand by that pronouncement and reject the efforts of civil-rights bureaucrats to force creative professionals to celebrate gay weddings with their art.

When a bride and groom go to Jack Phillips bakery for a wedding cake, his lawyers told the court, he talks to them. He gets to know them and their relationship, and he celebrates them by baking a cake.

Mr. Phillips also turns down some jobs he does not want to take. He does not make cakes for Halloween, because theyre contrary to his religious values. And for the same reason, he says, he does not make cakes for same-sex weddings.

So when Charlie Craig and David Mullins asked him to make their wedding cake, he refused and, his lawyers say, offered to make them a cake for some other occasion. His faith teaches him to serve and love everyone, wrote the lawyers, and he does.

The couple went to another bakery and to the Colorado civil-rights bureaucracy, which ordered Mr. Phillips to start making cakes for marriages he does not believe in or stop making wedding cakes altogether. It even ordered him to re-educate his staff.

Mr. Phillips fought back, all the way to the Supreme Court, which accepted the case.

The Free Speech Clause prohibits the government from forcing people to affirm a message officials choose for them. The Supreme Court has ruled that schoolchildren may not be forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and drivers may not be forced to display license plates that say Live Free or Die. The pledge and that motto may be laudable messages, but Americans are free to decide they do not agree. Similarly here: The government has no right to force Mr. Phillips to agree with the Supreme Court, to think the right thoughts, or to bake a cake for someone he does not wish to bake it for.

Mr. Phillips may be wrong about civil marriage contracts. But the First Amendment protects the right to be wrong.

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A baker's free speech - Toledo Blade

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Oregonians right to free speech is particularly strong. And, as the states Court of Appeals reminded us last week in its Oregon Wild v. Port of Portland decision, it does not distinguish among types of speech. Commercial, political, religious and private speech are equally protected by the language in Article 1, Sect. 8 of the state constitution.

The case goes back to 2013, when Oregon Wild sought to buy an advertisement at the Portland Airport decrying clear-cutting on federal forests. The ad was rejected, and Oregon Wild sued. It won in circuit court, and the Port of Portland, which runs the airport, appealed. Wednesday the court rejected all three of the ports arguments supporting its ban.

The ports regulation, the appeals court said, had the effect of law. It also rejected, as it had before, the idea that a ban on some kinds of speech was not based on what was said but on its need to run the airport well. Finally, the court said, the state constitution prohibits banning speech based on content. Religious and political speech, in other words, are just as well protected in Oregon as commercial speech is.

Oregons free speech protection is stronger than the federal governments. No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion or restricting the right to speak, write or print freely on any subject whatsoever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right, it says, and the courts have agreed. Consider what state Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Jones wrote in 1982 in a case involving a dirty bookstore in Redmond: In this state any person can write, print, read, say, show or sell anything to a consenting adult even though that expression may be generally or universally obscene.

In Oregon, speech is speech, no matter what is said, and no matter where. Government entities should not try to find ways to curtail speech.

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Editorial: Keep free speech strong - Bend Bulletin

President Donald Trumps escalating attacks on the media have disturbed and unnerved politicians, commentators and citizens across the political spectrum and they have unleashed a national dialogue on free speech and its limits.

Those attacks seemed to reach a crescendo with Saturdays scathing denunciation of the media for its efforts to silence him and his followers. The fake media, he said, is trying to silence us. But we will not let them. Because the people know the truth. The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But Im president and theyre not. The supposed truth that Trump hopes people know is that they cannot trust the media.

Saturdays condemnation, coming on the heels of last weeks tactless Twitter attack on MSNBCs Mika Brzezinski, turned out only to be a prelude to what followed. On Sunday, the president tweeted what appears to be an edited version of his 2007 WrestleMania appearance, where Trump attacked wrestling icon Vince McMahon. Trump is shown, just outside the ring, body slamming and getting on top of a man whom he repeatedly punches. The CNN logo is superimposed on the face of his victim. Lest anyone miss his point, the presidents tweet included the words #FraudNewsCNN #FNN.

Commentators quickly reacted. ABCs Matthew Dowd claimed Trump is advocating violence against media. CNNs Ana Navarro denounced the tweet as an incitement to violence. She warned that the president is going to get somebody killed in the media.

But does the presidents video pose a clear and present danger? And if so, to whom to specific persons, or to democracy itself?

Since the start of his presidential campaign and through the first months of his term in the Oval Office, Trump has shown himself to be a free speech radical, playing against, as well as within, conventional understandings of the First Amendment. His speech is frequently tasteless and intentionally offensive, and Sundays tweet is certainly both and, as the commentators warned, potentially harmful.

But, as the distinguished political philosopher George Kateb noted, even worthless or harmful speech is, and should be, protected by the First Amendment. Moreover, the video posted on Sunday is not incitement in the legal sense of that term. The Supreme Court has said that the government may only prohibit the advocacy of violence when such advocacy is intended to produce imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action.

While the president likely knows little about constitutional interpretation, he once again displayed his considerable skill in showmanship. He artfully staged his attack against the background of an event which is, as the president himself loves to say, fake: WrestleMania is entertainment based on the performance of violence, rather than an actual violent fight. This fact, no doubt, would help Trump defend himself, if his tweet in fact precipitates violence against a reporter.

Still, it reveals plainly the nature of the presidents fantasies about what should be done to journalists who oppose him, even if it does not reveal a plan to carry out a physical assault. The video is inspired by the violent control over media critics exercised by authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin (surely one reason Trump so admires him).

It also exposes the deep hypocrisy of what the president said after the shooting of Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise and others mere weeks ago: We are strongest when we are unified and when we work for the common good, he said.

Trump has never been a voice for unity. Sundays tweet reminds us all too well of the presidents history of calling for violence against those who protested at his campaign rallies. In one instance, he proclaimed that he would beat the crap out of a protester. In another, he praised people using physical force at his rallies as appropriate. In still another, he spoke glowingly about times when a protester would be carried out on a stretcher.

Trumps defenders will say that such rhetoric was all in the past, or that the video is a distraction, perhaps an amusing parody. Or they will want us to believe what deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Thursday: The president in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary.

Even if Americans were to ignore what Trump said repeatedly during the campaign and give credence to Sanders assertion, no one can have confidence that all of the videos viewers will understand the distinction between the real and the staged, the fantasy and the reality. To protect reporters and the press which Trump has likened to the enemy of the people news outlets that hold credibility with the presidents most fervent supporters must now show what Kateb called civil courage and denounce Trumps latest outrage.

Let them rise to the defense of their fellow journalists. Let them, as CNN has promised, do their job.The danger to freedom of the press is real, and the danger to democracy is undeniable. We should be weary of those who pretend that Trumps tweets and the video are all just for show.

Previously published by USNews, July 3, 2017

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Trump's Strain On Free Speech - HuffPost

When Donald Trump began to block a growing number of Americans from seeing his tweets, the Knight First Amendment Institute shot back. The organization warned the President in June that the Twitter account is a public forum, and that excluding citizens (novelist Stephen King is among those blocked ) violates the Constitution.

The argument is novel and not every legal scholar thinks it will succeed. But whatever the outcome, the dispute over Trump's tweets reflects how free speech fights are changing in the digital age. Today, many of the legal battles turn on technology, surveillance and who should control powerful communications platforms, like Facebook and Twitter.

Fortune spoke to the Knight Institute's first director, Jameel Jaffer , and staff attorney, Alex Abdo , to learn more about free speech flash pointsand how they intend to stand up for the First Amendment in the time of Trump.

Free Speech on Facebook's Public Square

Jaffer is an affable, ardent 40-something with a sparkling legal resume: Harvard Law Review, clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada and, most recently, deputy legal director of the ACLU. Now, he has the biggest job of his life leading the Knight Institute.

The goal of the center, which opened this year as a $60 million joint initiative of the Knight Foundation and Columbia University, is to defend free speech through research, lawsuits and education. It will pay close attention to technology.

New technology has transformed the landscape. A lot what used to take place in the public square now takes place on proprietary networks," Jaffer says, pointing to the influence of Facebook and other social media companies on politics.

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Today, these companies have more influence than traditional news outlets. Yet they are less willing to take up the torch when it comes to fighting for the First Amendment in court. Unlike the newspapers that foughtand wonmany landmark First Amendment cases at the Supreme Court in the 1970s and 80s, tech firms are absent from many big free speech fights.

What's more, Jaffer worries the likes of Twitter and Facebook possess too much power over what people can hear and say in the first place. And when it comes to challenging them, it's an uphill legal fight since they are private companies , which are not subject to the First Amendment.

But that doesnt mean its not a free speech issue. Its probably the most important free speech issue of our agethe power of social media companies over the speech we are allowed to hear, says Jaffer.

This why controversies like the one over Donald Trump blocking citizens from seeing his tweets are so important. They involve traditional free speech concernsthe President could never block people from seeing a government web siteand new social media technology.

In July, following another social media rant by the President, the Knight Institute's case that social media is subject to the First Amendment got a little stronger:

Speech in the age of Surveillance

While social media companies control over public discourse is a major threat to free speech, its hardly the Institute's only concern. Another worry is creeping surveillance technology and the government's ability to obtain enormous amounts of informationincluding our location right from the devices in our pockets.

Jaffer fears that increased ability of governments to spy produces a chilling effect. If people know their phones can be tracked, or their contents seized and extracted, they may be less willing to speak freely or criticize the government.

Meanwhile, even as the government expands its surveillance powers, it is getting more adapt at using laws to silence journalism and cover up its own activities.

According to Abdo, the staff attorney at the Knight Institute, the Justice Department has been particularly aggressive in invoking the Espionage Age to threaten reporters. In doing so, he says, it is using unproven legal theories to undermine the ability of journalists to talk to sources and conduct important reporting.

No court has decided how broadly that statute reaches or if it reaches as broadly as the government says it does, and if it violates the First Amendment, says Abdo.

In response, the Knight Amendment intends to advance the legal cause of whistleblowers. Specifically, Abdo says it will make a case that the First Amendment offers a shield for journalists and others who reveal information in the public interest.

Jaffer adds that the Institute will also focus on so-called structural litigation, which aims to reform government practices that stymie free speech and access to documents.

One such example is the growing number of current and former government workers who are subject to security clearance, which bars them from speaking without prior permission. The restraints may be sensible in the context of sensitive intelligence or military operations. But today more than 5 million Americansmany of whom possess little in the way of classified informationare subject to this censorship.

Its the largest system of prior restraints still in place in the United States. We think its unconstitutional, says Jaffer.

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Fighting for Free Speech in the Age of Trump and Twitter - Fortune

After a century of building free speech rights into our laws and culture, Americans are backing away from one of the countrys defining principals.

Set off by the nations increasingly short fuse, students, politicians, teachers and parents are not just refusing to hear each other out, were coming up with all sorts of ways of blocking ideas we dont agree with.

In high schools across the country, teachers say they stay away from hot topics such as immigration and health care because so many parents complain when their kids encounter emotional issues in class.

At colleges from Berkeley to Middlebury, a year of protests, many aimed at blocking controversial speakers, led to Congressional hearings last week that could end up in sanctions against some of the schools.

On the internet, scores of anonymous posters are drumming targets into silence. In one case, actress Leslie Jones temporarily fled Twitter, feeling like she was in a personal hell from an onslaught of hacks and hateful posts. In another, a congressional candidate in Iowa quit the race in early June after receiving calls and emails that included death threats.

The American concept of free speech was built into the Bill of Rights in 1789 and forged into laws over the last 100 years to become a global icon of freedom. Those who study history and the Constitution worry that in the past year, weve done real damage to a notion at the heart of democracy.

I do think the First Amendment tradition is under siege, said Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Pamela Geller, a firebrand commentator and founder of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, added, Freedom of speech has never before been so poorly regarded by such large numbers of Americans.

Where will this country be if its speech tradition falters? We can already see an awkward dynamic taking shape. In social settings, when we come face to face, were hesitant to say what we think, while online in mostly anonymous exchanges all manner of spite and bitterness pours forth.

This raises a question worth thinking about as we celebrate Americas birthday this week: What are the chances of resolving the countrys differences if we no longer talk or listen to one another?

We cant lose sight of the fact that the ability to speak our minds is one of the fundamental freedoms in self government, said Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C.

A mix of developments, incidents and trends put us on this path.

At many colleges and universities, students say they shouldnt have to put up with views they find offensive, racially insensitive or wrongheaded. The thinking arose over time, and then gained momentum with the Black Lives Matter movement and the stormy politics of the year.

The sometimes-violent protests have drawn lots of reaction, condemnations and solutions but not much consensus.

I find this really hard, said Edward Wasserman, dean of the graduate journalism school at Berkeley, where protests earlier this year blocked conservatives Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking. But I dont think the world is a worse place because Ann Coulter doesnt get to say something shes already said a thousand times.

Others see a fundamental failing at work.

Its hard not to conclude that too many of our students havent had a civics course in junior high school, said Floyd Abrams, the pre-eminent First Amendment lawyer who handled cases from the Pentagon Papers to Citizens United and just published a new book, The Soul of the First Amendment.

If the high school curriculum is part of the problem, that may be because teachers are hesitant about their roles. David Bobb, head of the Bill of Rights Institute, funded by industrialist Charles Koch to provide training to schools, said he hears regularly from teachers who avoid topics for fear of backlash.

They have to wonder, If I get into this controversial topic, am I going to be backed up by my department chair, or the principal? he said. Or are the parents going to come after me and say its not your place to talk about this?

The internet is helping fuel whats happening by creating a mob mentality and adding enormous speed and reach to what people say. Its become so much more chaotic, said Lee Rainie, who directs Pew Research work on technology, science and the internet.

Almost every conversation on the state of free speech ends up on the question of what can be done.

Embarrassed by whats happened, universities are writing new student codes and rules of engagement for visiting lecturers. Were working hard to get our act together, said Wisconsin political science professor Donald Downs, who has led a push for civility.

Organizations such as the Constitution Center and the Bill of Rights Institute see solutions in education programs and better curriculum for schools. In 18 states, legislatures think the problem rests in the unruly protests and are preparing laws that would limit mass gatherings.

Still, more than a dozen observers from every perspective interviewed for this piece said we should expect more rocky times ahead.

They cite a political climate with a historic level of rancor, a president whos been mostly on the attack since his inauguration and a media thats embraced the conflict with a fervor that has brought record viewership and readership.

When people quit listening to each other, theres that lack of discussion and a lack of understanding, said Bradley A. Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio. Thats when theres a growing tendency to think the other side shouldnt be able to say what they think.

If America becomes torn against itself, I think free speech sort of goes out with it, said Downs, the Wisconsin professor.

Sometimes Im genuinely anguished over the kind of society were going to have if this keeps going, said Christina Hoff Sommers, an author and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. Its easy to take it for granted and not recognize that were jeopardizing these freedoms.

Summing up: Its worth remembering that free speech rights were built over decades of conflict. Theyve been tested in every generation, through wartime, civil rights, the rise of new technologies and the threat of terrorism, and have been solidly supported by U.S. Supreme Court rulings as recently as last week.

Todays conflicts are the most complicated yet and show no sign of easing. But as more than one scholar has pointed out, free speech is the starting place for all our other rights. We shouldnt lose sight of whats at stake: Without the free flow of ideas, the American experiment cannot succeed.

NOTE: Anders Gyllenhaal is a senior editor at McClatchy and former editor at The Miami Herald, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. You can reach him at Agyllenhaal@McClatchy.com.

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Do we still believe in free speech? Only until we disagree - Sierra Star

This article originally appeared on The Conversation.

Around the country, state lawmakers have been talking aboutand legislatingways intended to protect free speech on college campuses.

The Wisconsin State Assembly, for example, recentlypassed a campus speech billthat would require public colleges and universities to punish students who disrupt campus speakers. The legislation is now heading to the State Senate for consideration.

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As a higher education law researcher and campus free speech supporter, I view some requirements in these new campus speech laws as positively reinforcing legal protections for student free speech. However, I believe language in several pending state bills,including the punitive legislation proposed in Wisconsin, does more to impede free speech than protect it.

College students at the University California San Diego demonstrate against President Donald Trump's current immigration orders in La Jolla, California. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Free Speech Zones

In an effort to keep campuses safe and avoid disruption, some universities have restricted student speech and expressive activitysuch as handing out leaflets or gathering signatures for petitionsto special speech zones.

These free speech zones have been subject tocriticism and legal challenges. In one illustrative case, a federal court invalidated aUniversity of Cincinnati policythat limited student demonstrations, picketing and rallies to one small portion of campus.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has not ruled definitively on the legality of designated student speech zones. Consequently, legal battles over their constitutionality continue, as shown bypending litigationinvolving a Los Angeles community college student who claims he was allowed to distribute copies of the U.S. Constitution only in a designated campus speech zone.

Some states have recently enacted laws that prohibit public colleges and universities from enforcing such free speech zones against students. At least seven states have passed anti-speech zone laws:Virginia, Missouri, Arizona,Colorado,Tennessee,UtahandKentucky.

Public institutions in these states may impose reasonable rules to avoid disruption, but officials cannot relegate student free speech and expression to only small or remote areas on campus. Instead, they must permit free speech in most open campus locations, such as courtyards and sidewalks.

Along with the pending legislation in Wisconsin, which also wouldban speech zones,North Carolina,Michigan,TexasandLouisianaare considering similar legislation.

Striking down these free speech zones seems a sensible way to promote student free speech: In my opinion, institutions shouldnt seek to restrict students First Amendment speech rights to strict borders on campus.

Punishing Protesters

If the Wisconsin bill passes in its current form, the state would do more than ban designated free speech zones. It would also become the first state requiring institutions to punish student protesters. The North Carolina House of Representatives has passed a similarbill, now under review in the State Senate, but this legislation seems to leave institutions morediscretionover dealing with students disrupting speakers than the Wisconsin legislation.

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter is No. 13 on Right Wing News's list of the "20 Hottest Conservative Women in New Media." (Mark Mainz / Getty Images)

Much of the push for campus speech bills has come from lawmakers who believe that college campuses arehostile to conservative speakers. They point to incidents such as those involvingAnn CoulterandMilo Yiannopoulosat the University of California at Berkeley as indicative of an overall resistance to conservative speakers on campus.

Provisions in campus speech bills, including ones mandating penalties for students who disrupt speakers, can largely betracedtomodel legislationfrom the Goldwater Institute, based in Phoenix, Arizona. The group aims to correct what it views as a left-leaning bias in American higher education regarding campus free speech.

In my view, forcing colleges to take punitive action against all disruptive protesters is troublesome. Such a requirement would mean that institutions would be faced with devising overly cumbersome rules for when punishment should or should not occur. But what counts as a punishment-worthy disruption?

A more problematic outcome would be if free speech werechilled. Students might understandably refrain from speech and expressive activity based on fear of punishment, particularly if the rules around such punishment are necessarily vague and difficult to understand.

Based on such concerns, theFoundation for Individual Rights in Educationan influential group that promotes, among other things, student free speech in higher educationhascome out against this particular requirementin the Wisconsin bill. The American Civil Liberties Union has alsoexpressed concernover the similar provision under consideration in North Carolina.

Moving Forward

The Wisconsin bill isdescribed by supportersas intended to protect the right of campus speakers to be heard. However, it seeks to accomplish this goal in a way that undermines student free speech of all types.

Hopefully, lawmakers in Wisconsin and in other states considering legislation will stick to workable measures that actually promoteas opposed to hindercampus free speech.

Neal H. Hutchens is Professor of Higher Education, University of Mississippi.

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New Legislation Could End Free Speech on College Campuses - Newsweek

Last week, we saw first-hand that for some legislators, ignorance is bliss. During the Senate Judiciary Committee's free-speech hearing last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., remained blissfully unaware as she claimed, "I know of no effort at Berkeley, at the University of California, to stifle student efforts to speech." I guess the Democratic Party is more out-of-touch than we thought.

This hearing came less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court delivered a unanimous decision protecting all speech, even offensive speech. Yet, on college campuses across the country, students have increasingly begun lashing out against speakers and students groups whose message they deem distressing. The university response often protects these perpetrators by hindering the ability for dissenting opinions to flourish.

As university censorship has risen, so too has the polarization of their campuses. The most blatant example of this environment can be seen at Berkeley. This past February, 1,500 protesters stormed the campus with posters reading, "This is war," in response to Milo Yiannopoulos' speaking engagement. By the end of the night, the event was canceled, and the campus suffered $100,000 in damages. No arrests were made. Just a few months later, Berkeley officials stood by and watched as violent protests continued to erupt again, this time due to Ann Coulter's scheduled appearance.

If universities continue to allow students to violently protest against speakers they disagree with, they will be conditioned to believe this behavior is acceptable, and even noble. This was the exact point Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who participated in the panel before the Senate Judiciary Committee, made throughout his testimony last week.

"Administrators are not going to pay attention to what's legally right unless they are forced to do so," commented Isaac Smith, a former student of Ohio University also testifying at the hearing. Isaac, who shared his story of facing censorship from his campus for a message written on a t-shirt, didn't have his First Amendment rights reinstated until after partnering with Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and successfully winning a lawsuit against his school.

Unfortunately, Isaac's experience with administrative censorship is not unique. At Bunker Hill Community College, members of the campus Young Americans for Liberty chapter were forced to present their IDs to campus police, who then filed a disciplinary report against the students for distributing pocket-sized copies of the Constitution. Campus police justified their actions because the students had failed to obtain administrative approval beforehand. The very document the institution is bound by was not acceptable for distribution. On some public campuses, your rights come with terms and conditions.

While campus bureaucrats remain attached to their restrictive codes, communities are taking action. At YAL, our Fight for Free Speech campaign has mobilized students to successfully overturn 25 of these speech codes, restoring rights to 544,452 students. Increasingly, state legislatures have begun introducing legislation that places additional pressure on campus administrators to educate students on their free speech rights and require colleges to take disciplinary action against students who attempt to interfere with their peers' speech.

But free speech does not always have to be a fight. At the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, YAL chapter president Savannah Soto approached her administration with potential reforms for the current restrictive codes. Soto stressed the importance of free expression in higher education and presented a petition with 800 student signatures supporting these reforms. Within a few weeks, the campus revised their codes. Rather than forcefully clutching to these campus speech regulations that cast a wide net for censorship, her campus listened to its student body and protected its students' rights.

When campuses force students into suppression, resentments grow between the silencers and the silenced, and the results, as we've seen at Berkeley, are chaotic. As Justice Louise Brandeis put it in Whitney v. California, "The remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

Cliff Maloney (@LibertyCliff) is president of Young Americans for Liberty.

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Stifling free speech promotes polarization, not conversation - Washington Examiner