Category Archives: Free Speech

The president of Evergreen State College, the site of heatedstudentprotests at the end of May, initially defended safe spaces and trigger warnings in 2016.

George Bridges, president of Evergreen State College in Washington state, championedconcepts that many see as threatening to free speech and academic inquiry in an op-ed for The Seattle Times.

Trigger warnings can alert students to genuinely distressing content that could otherwise cripple their learning, Bridges said in the op-ed. Colleges and universities must change as the society changes.

The Evergreen president introduced victims of sexual assault and veterans returning from combat as two groups of people who could benefit from trigger warnings.

These students can make critically important contributions to their classrooms, but if we refuse to acknowledge that they also have unique barriers to participating in that discussion, we send the message that they are not welcome, Bridges said.

Bridges asserts that 90 percent of Evergreens students are traditionally underserved, meaning that they are low-income, first-generation college students, students of color, disabled students, veterans, and students that do not fall within the usual college age demographic.

The president proceeds to define safe spaces as places and contexts in which they [underserved students] can reflect on and address these unfamiliar issues without fear of failure or rejection by others.

This desire to prevent students from feeling failure or rejection may explain Evergreens use of narrative evaluations administered by faculty instead of standard letter or numerical grades. However,the qualitative grading system may be indicative of less academic rigor, as Evergreen has a 97 percent acceptance rate and only 20 percent of applicants have a grade point average over 3.50, according to The Princeton Review. Fifty-sixpercent of the colleges students graduate within six years.

Despite Bridges attempt to make Evergreen State as accommodating as possible, students do not seem to appreciate his orotherfaculty members efforts.

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The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Bridges for comment, but received none in time for publication.

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Evergreen State President Doesn't Seem To Understand Free Speech - The Daily Caller

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On May 17, while delivering a graduation speech to cadets at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, a scandal-plagued President Donald Trump took the opportunity to complain, yet again, about the news media. No leader in history, he said, has been treated as unfairly as he has been. Shortly thereafter, when the graduates presented Trump with a ceremonial sword, a live mic picked up Homeland Security chief John F. Kelly telling the president, "Use that on the press, sir!"

Kelly was presumably joking, but the press isn't laughing. Presidents have complained bitterly about reporters since George Washington ("infamous scribblers"), but Trump has gone after the media with a venom unmatched by any modern presidentincluding Richard Nixon. At campaign rallies, Trump herded reporters into pens, where they served as rhetorical cannon fodder, and things only got worse after the election. Prior to November 8, the media were "scum" and "disgusting." Afterward, they became the "enemy of the American people." (Even Nixon never went that far, noted reporter Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. Nixon did refer to the press as "the enemy," but only in private and without "the American people" partan important distinction for students of authoritarianism.)

Trump has called for the loosening of libel laws and jailing of journalists: "Very dishonest people!"

On April 29, the same day as this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner (which Trump boycotted), the president held a rally in Pennsylvania to commemorate his first 100 days. He spent his first 10 minutes or so attacking the media: CNN and MSNBC were "fake news." The "totally failing New York Times" was getting "smaller and smaller," now operating out of "a very ugly office building in a very crummy location." Trump went on: "If the media's job is to be honest and tell the truth, then I think we would all agree the media deserves a very, very big, fat failing grade. [Cheers.] Very dishonest people!"

Trump's animosity toward the press isn't limited to rhetoric. His administration has excluded from press briefings reporters who wrote critical stories, and it famously barred American media from his Oval Office meeting with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to the United States while inviting in Russia's state-controlled news service.

Before firing FBI Director James Comey, Trump reportedly urged Comey to jail journalists who published classified information. As a litigious businessman, the president has expressed his desire to "open up" libel laws. In April, White House chief of staff Reince Preibus acknowledged that the administration had indeed examined its options on that front.

This behavior seems to be having a ripple effect: On May 9, a journalist was arrested in West Virginia for repeatedly asking a question that Tom Price, Trump's health secretary, refused to answer. Nine days later, a veteran reporter was manhandled and roughly escorted out of a federal building after he tried (politely) to question an FCC commissioner. Montana Republican Greg Gianforte won a seat in the House of Representatives last week, one day after he was charged with assaulting a reporter who had pressed Gianforte for his take on the House health care bill. And over the long weekend, although it could be a coincidence, someone fired a gun of some sort at the offices of the Lexington Herald-Leader, a paper singled out days earlier by Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who likened journalists to "cicadas" who "don't actually seem to care about Kentucky."

Where is all of this headed? It's hard to know for sure, but as a lawyer (and former newspaper reporter) who has spent years defending press freedoms in America, I can say with some confidence that the First Amendment will soon be tested in ways we haven't seen before. Let's look at three key areas that First Amendment watchdogs are monitoring with trepidation.

The First Amendment offers limited protections when a prosecutor or a civil litigant subpoenas a journalist in the hope of obtaining confidential notes and sources. In the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not shield reporters from the obligation of complying with a grand jury subpoena. But the decision left room for the protection of journalists who refuse to burn a source in other contextsin civil cases, for instance, or in criminal cases that don't involve a grand jury. Some lower courts have ruled that the First Amendment indeed provides such protections.

Unlike most states, Congress has refused to pass a law protecting journalists who won't burn their confidential sources.

The Constitution, of course, is merely a baseline for civil liberties. Recognizing the gap left by the Branzburg ruling, a majority of the states have enacted shield laws that give journalists protections that Branzburg held were not granted by the Constitution. Yet Congress, despite repeated efforts, has refused to pass such a law. This gives litigants in federal court, including prosecutors, significant leverage to force journalists into compliance. (In 2005, Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal her secret source to a federal grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The source, Miller eventually admitted, was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.)

Trump will almost certainly take advantage of his leverage. He and his innermost circle have already demonstrated that they either fail to understand or fail to respect (or both) America's long-standing tradition of restraint when it comes to a free press. During the campaign, Trump tweeted that Americans who burn the flaga free-speech act explicitly protected by the Supreme Courtshould be locked up or stripped of citizenship "perhaps." In December, after the New York Times published a portion of Trump's tax returns, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski declared that executive editor Dean Baquet "should be in jail."

Trump took over the reins from an executive branch that was arguably harder on the press than any administration in recent history. President Barack Obama oversaw more prosecutions of leakers under the vaguely worded Espionage Act of 1917 than all other presidents combined, and he was more aggressive than most in wrenching confidential information from journalists.

Over the course of two months in 2012, Obama's Justice Department secretly subpoenaed and seized phone records from more than 100 Associated Press reporters, potentially in violation of the department's own policies. Thanks to the rampant overclassification of government documents, Obama's pursuit of whistleblowers meant that even relatively mundane disclosures could have serious, even criminal, consequences for the leaker. Under Obama, McClatchy noted in 2013, "leaks to media are equated with espionage."

The Obama administration went after leakers with zeal. One can only assume Trump will up the ante.

One can only assume Trump will up the ante. His administration's calls to find and prosecute leakers grow more strident by the day. He and his surrogates in Congress have repeatedly tried to divert public discussion away from White House-Russia connections and in the direction of the leaks that brought those connections to light. It stands to reason that Trump's Justice Department will try to obtain the sources, notes, and communication records of journalists on the receiving end of the leaks.

This could already be happening without our knowledge, and that would be a dangerous thing. Under current guidelines, the Justice Department is generally barred from deploying secret subpoenas for journalists' recordssubpoenas whose existence is not revealed to those whose records are sought. But there are exceptions: The attorney general or another "senior official" may approve no-notice subpoenas when alerting the subject would "pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."

The guidelines are not legally binding, in any case, so there may be little to prevent Jeff Sessions' Justice Department from ignoring them or scrapping them entirely. Team Trump has already jettisoned the policies of its predecessors in other departments, and it's pretty clear how Trump feels about the press.

The use of secret subpoenas against journalists is deeply problematic in a democracy. Their targets lack the knowledge to consult with a lawyer or to contest the subpoena in court. The public, also in the dark, is unable to pressure government officials to prevent them from subjecting reporters to what could be abusive fishing expeditions.

As president, Trump sets the tone for executives, lawmakers, and prosecutors at all levels. We have already seen a "Trump effect" in the abusive treatment of a reporter in the halls of the Federal Communications Commission, the arrest of the reporter in West Virginia, and the attack by Congressman-elect Gianforte.

We are also seeing the Trump effect in state legislatures, where the president's rants may have contributed to a spate of legislative proposals deeply hostile to free speech, including bills that would essentially authorize police brutality or "unintentional" civilian violence against protesters and make some forms of lawful protest a felony. A leader who normalizes the use of overly broad or abusive subpoenas against journalists could cause damage all across the land.

A second area of concern is the Espionage Act of 1917, a law that has been used for nearly a century to prosecute leakers of classified informationfrom Daniel Ellsburg and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. The government hasn't ever tried to use it to prosecute the journalists or media organizations that publish the offending leakspossibly because it was seen as a bad move in a nation that enshrines press protections in its founding document. But free-speech advocates have long been wary of the possibility.

The successful prosecution of a journalist under the Espionage Act seems unlikelya long string of Supreme Court decisions supports the notion that reporters and news outlets are immune from civil or criminal liability when they publish information of legitimate public interest that was obtained unlawfully by an outside source. "A stranger's illegal conduct," the court's majority opined in the 2001 Bartnicki v. Vopper case, "does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield about a matter of public concern." But like any appellate decision, the Bartnicki ruling is based on a specific set of facts. So there are no guarantees here.

Very, very rich people with grievances against the press are as old as the press itself. But the number of megawealthy Americans has exploded in recent years, as has the number of small, nonprofit, or independent media outletsmany of which lack ready access to legal counsel. In short, billionaires who wish to exact vengeance for unflattering coverage enjoy a target-rich environment.

Win or lose, a billionaire with an ax to grind and a fleet of expensive lawyers can cause enormous damage to a media outlet.

Trump did not create this environment. But from his presidential bully pulpit, he has pushed a narrative that can only fuel the fire. The Trumpian worldview holds that the media deserves to be put in its place; the press is venal, dishonest, and "fake" most of the time. It should be more subject to legal liability so that, in his words, "we can sue them and win lots of money."

Win or lose, a billionaire with an ax to grind and a fleet of expensive lawyers can cause enormous damage to a media outlet, particularly one with limited means (which, these days, is most media outlets). Some lawsuits by deep-pocketed plaintiffs, like the one filed against Mother Jones by Idaho billionaire Frank VanderSloot (a case I helped defend), are ultimately dismissed by the courts. Others, such as Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Mediafunded by Silicon Valley billionaire and Trump adviser Peter Thielsucceed and put the media outlet out of business. Another recent suit, filed by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson against a Wall Street Journal reporter, ultimately settled.

Regardless of the outcome of such cases, the message to the media is clear: Don't offend people who have vast resources. Even a frivolous lawsuit can stifle free speech by hitting publishers where it hurts (the wallet) and subjecting them to legal harassment. This is especially so in the 22 states that lack anti-SLAPP statuteslaws that facilitate the rapid dismissal of libel claims without merit.

The VanderSloot lawsuit is instructive. Although a court in Idaho ultimately threw out all the billionaire's claims against Mother Jones, the process took almost two years. During that time, VanderSloot and Mother Jones engaged in a grueling regimen of coast-to-coast depositions and extensive and costly discovery and legal motions. Along the way, VanderSloot sued a former small-town newspaper reporter and subjected him to 10 hours of depositions, which resulted in the reporter breaking down in tears while VanderSloot, who had flown to Portland for the occasion, looked on. VanderSloot also deposed the journalist's ex-boyfriend and threatened to sue him until he agreed to recant statements he had made online.

Trump has not brought any libel lawsuits as presidentbut his wife has.

Victory did not come cheap for Mother Jones: The final tab was about $2.5 million, only part of which was covered by insurance. And because Idaho lacks an anti-SLAPP statute, none of the magazine's legal costs could be recovered from VanderSloot.

Despite his threats, Trump has not brought any libel lawsuits as presidentbut his wife has. First lady Melania Trump sued the Daily Mail in February over a story she said portrayed her falsely "as a prostitute." The Daily Mail retracted the offending article with a statement explaining (a) that the paper did not "intend to state or suggest that Mrs. Trump ever worked as an 'escort' or in the sex business," (b) that the article "stated that there was no support for the allegations," and (c) that "the point of the article was that these allegations could impact the U.S. presidential election even if they are untrue."

So which billionaire will be next to sue, and who will the target be? The question looms over America's media organizations like a dark cloud. That is an unacceptable situation in a nation whose Constitution guarantees "robust, uninhibited and wide-open" discussion of public issues, as Supreme Court Justice William Brennan wrote in the landmark First Amendment case New York Times v. Sullivan.

Trump has yet to act on his most outrageous rhetorical attacks on the media and free speech, but it's likely only a matter of time. When he does act, it will be important to remember that constitutional protections are quite broad, and that there's only so much any White House can do to the press without the backing of Congress or the courts. Such cooperation is hardly out of the question, though. Stranger things have already happened in this strangest of political times.

The author's views do not necessarily reflect those of the First Amendment Coalition's board of directors.

Read more:
How Trump's War on Free Speech Threatens the Republic | Mother ... - Mother Jones

(CNN)Let's get one thing out of the way: Hateful, nasty, vitriolic speech, even when it's bigoted or homophobic, is often protected.

But for the most part, telling people to go back to their country or that their race is inferior or that they're less human because they are gay, Latino, female, whatever -- that's legal, not that it should be encouraged in civil society.

Whether it should be legal is another question, and while we won't wander too far down that path, it's important to remember the US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that it's the most offensive idea -- and not the notion with which everyone generally agrees -- that deserves protection.

In the words of Justice William Brennan in 1989: "A principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger."

Added Chief Justice John Roberts 22 years later: "Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and ... inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course -- to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

Think you understand what's protected? Take our quiz and see how well you know your speech:

See more here:
Quiz: Is hate speech free speech? - CNN

In the city known for launching the Free Speech Movement, protesters on the right and the left have clashed on the streetsPaul KurodaZuma Press

Julia, a writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, talks about the street-protest scene in Berkeley, Calif., this spring as if she had entered a war zone. "There are explosions happening everywhere. People are fighting. You're not entirely sure who is an ally, who isn't," she says.

That's part of the reason she won't give her last name, since she fears that she will be targeted, harassed or doxxed like so many others who have had their identities attached to the blowups here. For a few days, the city's mayor, Jesse Arreguin, even had to get himself security because of the threats he was receiving. "Our city is not going to be turned into a fight club," he says defiantly, though no one is quite sure in this city of 121,000 long known as a test bed for the First Amendment.

As the far right and far left have clashed here over what kind of speech is permissible, Julia has tried to stake out new space created by the recurring violence. She helped found a group called Pastel Bloc, whose members wear disarming pinks in the streets as they provide water and support to other "antifascist" activists who might be engaged in more disruptive actions. Think of it as sort of a medic crew with fairy-dust slogans like "Resistance is Magic." Anything to fight the growing sense of dread. "It's getting scarier to protest," she says.

The mosh pit started months ago at the city's famous university campus, where militant left-wing activists "shut down" conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February, setting fires, breaking windows, causing a campus-wide "shelter in place" order. Invited to speak by the Berkeley College Republicans--who have since filed a lawsuit against the school--the professional troll and self-described "dangerous faggot" never made it onto the stage. And as the story became national news, Berkeley again became a theater where a bigger battle over the rights and limits on free speech, dissent and respect all played out.

At their worst, the scrums have been belittling and violent, as grown men and women shout, punch and taunt one another or destroy property. But the questions many are fighting over cut to the core of the American democratic system. In a time when politics have turned toxic, are there ideas so repugnant and dangerous that they shouldn't be allowed to be uttered in public? Do certain words amount to attacks and therefore justify violence in return? Or must all communities endure the speech they hate most, even when the point of the speech is to make others angry?

These are centuries-old debates, and freethinking Berkeley has seen countless protests over the decades. Yet city and university officials also say there is something unprecedented happening now. While some locals have shown up with the standard placards and megaphones, others have traveled from afar, bringing smoke bombs and sticks, seemingly spoiling for a fight. In three big clashes this spring, dozens have been arrested and others have been sent to the hospital. "This level of political violence is something we have not seen before," says Arreguin. "This is a new situation."

And there are signs of it elsewhere. On May 29, the mayor of Portland, Ore., asked federal authorities to halt upcoming "alt-right demonstrations" after two men were stabbed and killed while trying to protect young women from a man yelling anti-Muslim slurs on a commuter train. The suspect in the stabbings entered the courtroom for his arraignment on May 30, casting himself as a champion of the Constitution. "Get out if you don't like free speech," he declared. The mayor had another message. "There is never a place for bigotry or hatred in our community," said Ted Wheeler, "and especially not now."

Many on the left say the words free speech are now being used as a cover for spreading hate in America. Many on the right say the left has been reacting violently to mere words. And in an era when Americans feel tense and divided, some groups have zeroed in on Berkeley as "a stage for open melee," as one conservative organizer put it, treating the town like a shrine to be captured or defended in a religious war.

Yiannopoulos, for his part, has promised to return to Berkeley for a "huge multiday" event later this year. "Free speech belongs to everyone, not just the spoilt brats of the academy," he wrote on Facebook, promising to dedicate each day of the event to a different "enemy of free speech, including feminism, Black Lives Matter and Islam."

There was a time when it appeared the spring confrontation could be avoided. Weeks before Yiannopoulos' planned appearance, scores of professors begged the university to cancel it, saying in a letter that he espouses views they find deplorable--"white supremacy, transphobia and misogyny"--and that he crosses a line by "actively inciting" his audience to harass people. At a previous stop on his campus tour, in Wisconsin, Yiannopoulos mocked a transgender woman who had once attended the school, while projecting her photo as she sat in the audience. And there were swirling fears that he would publicly target undocumented students at Berkeley, having promised to use the event to launch a campaign against "sanctuary campuses." (Yiannopoulos, who has said he'll "never stop making jokes about taboo subjects," says he was never going to single out students and describes the characterizations in the letter as "lies.") University officials criticized his "odious behavior" but said none of the concerns justified denying his right to speak.

Others in the community, however, disagreed. As dusk fell on Feb. 1, hundreds of protesters gathered peacefully on Sproul Plaza, where students launched a movement for free speech in 1964. Then things got hostile. "All of that changed, radically, when into the middle of the crowd marched--and I mean literally marched--100 to 150 individuals dressed in black from head to toe," says UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof, who was in the crowd.

It's not clear how many of them might have actually been students, but some marchers did identify as "antifa"--short for antifascist--activists known to use "black bloc" techniques to hide their identities as they protest en masse. With bandannas wrapped around their faces, the group tore down barricades, shot projectiles at police and lit a light stand on fire, causing more than $100,000 worth of damage. After the decision was made to cancel Yiannopoulos' event for safety reasons, some protesters spilled into nearby streets, crushing the front windows of bank chains, while other protesters cleaned up after them. Mogulof describes the black blockers as "highly disciplined," and says the display is "something we had simply never seen here."

Antifascist protesters have been showing up elsewhere. A woman allegedly shot one in Seattle while he was protesting another Yiannopoulos speech, and others hammered out limousine windows in Washington, D.C., on Donald Trump's Inauguration Day. While voices from all over the spectrum criticize the destructive methods that some of them use, antifascist groups also say that they've seen upticks in interest since the alt right has gained momentum, and people feel that "you have to take a side," says Shanta Driver, the national chair of the antifascist organization By Any Means Necessary.

Some antifascists who have been protesting in Berkeley--including many who embrace anarchist ideals of fighting government, capitalism and any form of hierarchy--say they have been unfairly labeled as agitators by the media. Many also defend methods like property damage as a lesser evil, justifiable in the face of "dehumanizing" speech. They contend that the "real violence" is spreading hateful ideologies and that shattered glass is "visual" protest. "That form of protest is not meant to look good. It's not meant to be diplomatic," says Louise Rosealma, an antifascist and anarchist who got clocked by a white nationalist protester, an incident that was recorded in a video that went viral. "It is meant to physically disrupt and shut down things that need to be shut down immediately."

Even for those who believe that broken windows or censorship can be justified, it's hard to decide which expressions can be reasonably called attacks and who deserves to be silenced. Some draw the line at advocating genocide or ethnic cleansing. Some draw the line at burning a cross on a front lawn. Some draw it at telling college students how to report their undocumented peers. Some simply say, "Free speech does not mean hate speech."

Others believe that the line drawing has gotten out of control, especially when people are demanding that a public university censor some speakers but not others. Naweed Tahmas, a Berkeley College Republican, says one of his liberal peers told him that the phrase build a wall is offensive hate speech. Another told him that hate speech should be banned from Berkeley. "Of course there's some courtesy you should take in speaking, but what they're trying to say is the government should restrict certain types of speech," Tahmas says, "and that's a slippery slope."

While many protesters on the left saw forcing Yiannopoulos from campus as a success, many on the right saw it as a call to action. Among them was Rich Black, a libertarian grant writer from the Los Angeles area who decided to organize a "comeback" in Berkeley, an event where right-wingers could "come and speak, from start to finish, without being physically shut down. That was the whole goal," he says. Then, at least in some ways, things spun out of his control.

Black helped organize rallies in Berkeley's city center to defend free speech in March and April. And the optics of the setting--a deep blue town where the city council has, for example, called for Trump's impeachment and decided to boycott any companies that help build his proposed border wall--proved to be catnip. Groups spread the news on 4chan, Reddit and alt-right forums. While some conservatives came just to show support for Trump or to hear speeches, Black says, others showed up to provoke the left in real life.

"That's what's sad about these events. They really attract the worst of the worst," Black says. "There is a huge faction of the right that is just like the left. They deal in absolutes. They're outrageously angry. They need an excuse to relieve a lot of that pent up aggression."

At one rally in April, an anonymous donor paid to fly a sign behind a plane in the sky: "Don't take the bait! Rise above the hate!" And at least one assembly this spring ended with no one hurt. But multiple meet-ups turned ugly. Police confiscated knives and bats and pipes. Some were bloodied, some were trampled.

Mayor Arreguin insists that any people who came to fight were not from his town and feels the city has been unfairly tarred as a place where people can speak their minds only if they're liberal. He doesn't have kind words for the "extreme" groups on either side. "Words are different from fists and bats and large wooden sticks that are bloodying people," he says, "and I certainly understand that people think certain words are objectionable and abhorrent and should not be tolerated, but we live in a free society."

Such principles are often cast aside online, where disagreeable ideas are routinely met with anonymous blowback. Mayor Arreguin had to take on the security detail after he criticized Yiannopoulos on Twitter and received violent threats via social media, email and phone. Black, the right-wing organizer, says he's gotten so many promises of physical harm from the people at either end of the spectrum that his new advocacy group, Liberty Revival Alliance, has considered hosting events "against the alt right." After the video of her being punched went viral, Rosealma says not only her address but also the addresses of her parents have been spread on the web, along with pictures of her as a child. Threats of rape have poured in.

Back on campus, the Berkeley College Republicans tried to host other conservatives this spring--David Horowitz and Ann Coulter--but both events were canceled.

The club says there were too many administrative roadblocks and filed a lawsuit alleging that the university effectively acted "to restrict and stifle the speech of conservative students whose voices fall beyond the campus political orthodoxy." The university has responded that cancellations have been related not to political views but to safety concerns that arose in the wake of the Yiannopoulos event--leading to more complicated logistics. A spokesperson says the school will keep pursuing the "delicate balance" between keeping people safe and upholding the First Amendment. The suit remains ongoing.

The university does not deny that the College Republicans have been having a hard time on campus. Tahmas, a 20-year-old rising senior studying political science and a member of the club, says when he and other members have set up their tables to attract new recruits, students have repeatedly torn up their signs or spit on them. On one occasion, he says, students poured drinks down on them from a building above. "We're constantly harassed," he says. "They are projecting stereotypes onto us, which are not true, and they're also projecting their worst fears upon us. They believe we're oppressors."

Yet while some students may still be furious with the Berkeley College Republicans for inviting controversy to the campus, Tahmas says that their meetings were also better attended by the end of the semester. Newcomers "are not necessarily Republicans either," he says. "They're just interested in hearing us. Because the more you attack or attempt to silence a viewpoint, the more people are interested in it."

That is a truth that the nation's founders understood when they enshrined a protection for minority viewpoints in the Constitution. But there is growing confusion about where that protection now starts and stops. Tahmas says he'll be ready to put out the table again come fall. "We're going to keep going out there every day," he says, "fighting against political correctness." And others will be ready to literally battle over such ideas.

Read the original post:
Fighting Words: A Battle in Berkeley Over Free Speech - TIME

Retired police officer Kevin Cavanaugh is making the issue of free speech on college campuses a major focus of his campaign to represent Arizonas 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

CD 1 encompasses the City of Flagstaff, home of Northern Arizona University, which has lately become a hotbed of liberal bias. Within just the past year, NAU professors have told students that Trump voters think people of color are whats wrong with America, docked a students grade for using the word mankind in an English paper, and even demanded that another student stop reading his Bible before class.

"We cannot allow ourselves to be hindered by anyone in a black mask, weapons or no."

During a February forum put on by the Political Science Department, moreover, NAU student Melissa Miller claims that she was publicly called out by a professor for her membership in Turning Point USA. Miller had already filmed most of the event, during which professors labeled President Trump a neo-fascist and the rapist-in-chief, but alleges that the professor waited until she temporarily left the room and stopped recording to claim that she had only come to the event in order to film fodder for TPUSAs Professor Watchlist website.

[RELATED: Profs taunt conservative student in faculty-wide email chain]

Students have gotten into the act, as well, posting signs outside of on-campus restrooms calling attention to pee privilege, organizing a trip to the border to leave supplies for illegal immigrants crossing the desert, and indignantly insisting that the schools president resign because she refused to make an open-ended commitment to safe spaces to protect students from hate speech.

Concerned by the widespread hostility toward, or at least ignorance of, First Amendment rights at NAU, Cavanaugh hosted a Freedom Rally at the campus on April 22 to call attention to the issue.

While The Lumberjack reports that the event was lightly attended, the subject matter was apparently deemed sensitive enough to merit precautions against possible protests, with the result that there were as many campus police officers on scene as there were NAU students.

[RELATED: Conservative students ARRESTED for handing out Constitutions]

Campus Reform recently sat down with Cavanaugh to learn more about some of the campus-related issues he plans to address during his campaign, which include campus carry legislation and the emergence of violent antifa protesters.

The first thing [Im campaigning on] is free speech, particularly on college campuses, but even at high schools, Cavanaugh began. Free speech on the part of conservatives, on the part of Christians, [and] on the part of moderates is being oppressed. If you identify yourself as a conservative, if you stand for pro-life, if you read your Bible before class like this young man did at NAU whom we discovered, youll be punished. And its wrong; it is not something that should happen in the United States of America.

[RELATED: NAU prez rejects safe spaces, students demand resignation]

Theres a reason the First Amendment is the first, and it involves free speech; our country was founded on free speech, he continued, noting that he chose to conduct his free speech rally at NAU because outside of Berkeley, its one of the most liberal, speech-suppressing, free thought-oppressing places in the country.

Cavanaugh vowed that, if elected, he will propose legislation that penalizes institutions that receive federal money if they limit free speech on campus, calling it a travesty of justice that so-called anti-fascist protesters were able to use violence to shut down speeches by Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley earlier this year.

Look, this is socialist-Marxist ideology at work, he asserted, recounting that those same people were at our little rally up at NAU, with black masks and black hats and black gloves, but declined the opportunity to speak when he invited them.

[RELATED: Prof arrested for bludgeoning Trump supporters with bike lock]

Cavanaugh also offered enthusiastic support for the campus carry laws that many states have passed recently, which allow individuals with concealed carry permits to exercise their Second Amendment rights on public college and university campuses.

The Second Amendment says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, he explained. My understanding of the Constitution is that it is a right-to-carry permit that extends from New York to California, from sea to shining sea.

Relating the story of a young woman who was going to quit NAU and go somewhere else because of the things that were happening, Cavanaugh said his advice was to stay and fight; stand and fight, an approach that he believes is necessary in order to effect change on any significant issue.

If you realize that good conservatives...are standing together to fight against liberalism, Marxism, [and] socialism on college campuses and throughout this country, he concluded, we can beat this scourge back.

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Former cop emphasizes free speech in congressional campaign - Campus Reform

OUR CITY is in mourning, our communitys anger is real, and the timing and subject of these events can only exacerbate an already difficult situation. So said Portland, Ore., Mayor Ted Wheeler in explaining why in the aftermath of the deaths of two good Samaritans controversial rallies planned for this month shouldnt be held. Mr. Wheelers concern for the raw feelings of his community is understandable, but he is completely off-base in trying to block the planned rallies and dangerously wrong in his reading of the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Wheeler unsuccessfully appealed to federal officials to revoke a permit granted to a group to hold a pro-Trump, free-speech rally Sunday at a downtown federal government plaza. His request that a permit not be granted for a June 10 anti-Muslim rally was made moot when organizers opted Wednesday to cancel the rally and encourage participants to attend a similar event in Seattle instead. The mayor characterized the rallies as alt-right and said hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Actually, as was pointed out by legal scholars and free-speech advocates, Mr. Wheeler is wrong about how constitutional protections of free speech have been interpreted by the courts. Speech, no matter how vile or distasteful, is protected in the United States. It can be banned only if it meets the legal threshold of threat or harassment.

It would have been far better for Mr. Wheeler to have followed the advice of the Oregon ACLU and reached out to rally organizers to explain why it might be in the communitys best interest to postpone the events. Not only are public passions still aroused about the deaths of two men who tried to protect two young women from anti-Muslim insults, but Portland has become the scene of rising tensions and clashes between extremists from both ends of the political spectrum.

Perhaps it is naive to think that organizers of Sundays rally might have actually listened to the mayor and allowed Portland to mourn the loss of those two fine men without further upset. Sadly, though, decency these days seems to be in short supply in Americas political debate. The most recent example was the stunt by comedian Kathy Griffin, who evidently thought it was humorous to portray the beheading of an American president. It was somewhat comforting that Ms. Griffin was widely condemned (including by some of the most ardent critics of President Trump) and that she responded with an abject apology. If only the provocateurs in Portland could be so moved.

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Portland's mayor is dangerously wrong about free speech - Washington Post

There is no room across our broad spectrum of political beliefs for those who stifle discourse and thwart First Amendment rights. The epidemic of outrageous student behavior on college campuses needs to stop. The most recent episode was at the University of Notre Dame where dozens of students walked out of Vice President Mike Pence's commencement speech while others booed him. Pence was in the midst of criticizing campuses for fostering "speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech." He called these practices "destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge," and he's right.

Earlier in May, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave a commencement address at historically black Bethune-Cookman University where she faced jeers, and some students stood and turned their backs to her. It is true that some of this behavior was a reaction to her earlier statement that founders of historically black colleges and universities were "real pioneers" of school choice, betraying an ignorance about a time when black students weren't permitted to attend white colleges in the South and elsewhere. Regardless, a cabinet member didn't deserve this kind of disrespect.

On April 27, the University of California at Berkeley canceled the planned speech of conservative commentator Ann Coulter because of fears of violence. Coulter has been a frequent guest on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," and their exchanges have enlightened political discourse. Maher defended Coulter's right to speak and reminded us that during the 1960s anti-Vietnam War and free speech movement, Berkeley "used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it's just the cradle for (expletive) babies." He then compared the cancellation of Coulter's talk to "the liberals' version of book burning."

Coulter's experience followed the February cancellation of a speech at Berkeley by conservative agitator and then-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Thugs wearing masks protested Yiannopoulos by breaking windows and setting fire to a propane tank, and officials canceled the event for reasons of public safety.

There is still a great deal of anger in the wake of President Donald Trump's election and the furtherance of his radical agenda, but that is no reason to trample on our tradition of free speech. We have many other avenues available for protest, including the pages of this newspaper, marches, attendance at town halls sponsored by our elected representatives, and letters to Congress. Of course, the ultimate means of protest will take place at polling booths in November 2018 when 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be up for grabs.

Aside from the discontent with Trump's administration, there is a deeper and much more troubling reason for recent campus protests. In 2016, McLaughlin & Associates surveyed 800 students at colleges across the country. The study was sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale and its subject was attitudes toward free speech on campus. An astounding 51 percent of students favored campus speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty. Sixty-three percent favored requiring professors to use "trigger warnings" to alert students to material that they might find uncomfortable. This would include references to rape, misogyny and racial prejudice even if found in classic literature.

The study dug deeper and found that one-third of the students polled could not even identify the First Amendment as the part of the Constitution that protected free speech. Thirty-five percent thought the First Amendment does not protect "hate speech," while 30 percent of those who identified as "liberal" said the First Amendment is outdated.

Where did this country go wrong? Are we no longer teaching civics and the principles of American government? Have colleges muzzled the free marketplace of ideas that has always been the cornerstone of academic freedom?

One of the purposes of education is to introduce students to uncomfortable ideas, to challenge their assumptions, and to forge critical thinking skills in the red hot coals of debate. If college administrators disagree with this, then they are anti-intellectual. I urge all educators from high school to college to get back to teaching the basic tenets of our republic. Ironically, an iconic quote from English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall sums up the key rationale behind this issue: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.

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Batavick: Colleges becoming threats to free speech - Carroll County Times

Common Dreams

'Destructive Fossil Fuel Puppet' Trump Ditches Climate Deal with Fact-Free Speech Common Dreams Long-debunked fossil fuel industry talking points about lost jobs and economic "suffering" peppered the speech that was said to be "literally wrong about every single thing." The real estate mogul said "we are getting out" of the non-binding accord but ... and more »

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'Destructive Fossil Fuel Puppet' Trump Ditches Climate Deal with Fact-Free Speech - Common Dreams

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The man police say fatally stabbed two other men who tried to shield young women from an anti-Muslim tirade on a Portland, Oregon, light-rail train is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Monday, and the city's mayor says he hopes the slayings will inspire "changes in the political dialogue in this country."

Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, faces two counts of felony aggravated murder and other charges.

The attack happened Friday, the first day of Ramadan, the holiest time of the year for Muslims. Authorities say Christian started verbally abusing two young women, including one wearing a hijab. Three other men on the train intervened before police say Christian attacked them, killing two and wounding one.

President Donald Trump condemned the stabbings, writing Monday on Twitter: "The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable. The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them."

Mayor Ted Wheeler said he appreciated Mr. Trump's words but stressed the need for action. Wheeler urged organizers to cancel a "Trump Free Speech Rally" in Portland and other similar events next weekend, saying they are inappropriate and could be dangerous.

"I hope we rise to the memory of these two gentlemen who lost their lives," the mayor told reporters. "Let's do them honor by standing with them and carrying on their legacy of standing up to hate and bigotry and violence."

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Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, and 53-year-old Army veteran Ricky John Best were killed in Portland over the weekend after helping two women ...

Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, 23, and Ricky John Best, 53, were killed as they tried to stop the harassment.

Christian's social media postings indicate an affinity for Nazis and political violence. He is accused of aggravated murder, intimidation - the state equivalent of a hate crime - and being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Christian served prison time after holding up employees at a convenience store with a gun in 2002, court records show. Telephone messages left at the home of Christian's mother Sunday and Monday were not returned. It was not clear if he had a lawyer yet.

Police Sgt. Pete Simpson told CBS News Christian attended a free speech march in April with a baseball bat to confront protesters but the bat was quickly confiscated by officers.

Christian went into a racist tirade on a train the night before the deadly attack, police confirmed toCBS affiliate KOIN. It was caught on video.

The Portland Mercury, one of the city's alternative weeklies, posted an article with video clips of a man wearing a metal chain around his neck and draped in an American flag. "He ranted how he was a nihilist. He'd soon yelled racial slurs ... and gave the Nazi salute throughout the day," the Portland Mercury says.

On what appears to be Christian's Facebook page he showed sympathy for Nazis and Timothy McVeigh, whobombed a federal building in Oklahoma Cityin 1995.Portland spent the holiday weekend memorializing the victims.

The mother of one of the targets of the rant said she was overwhelmed with gratitude and sadness for the strangers who died defending her daughter, 16-year-old Destinee Mangum.

Mangum told news station KPTV that she and her 17-year-old friend were riding the train when Christian started yelling at them. She said her friend is Muslim, but she's not.

"He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia, and he told us we shouldn't be here, to get out of his country," Mangum said. "He was just telling us that we basically weren't anything and that we should kill ourselves."

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The FBI is looking into possible hate crime charges against a man accused of stabbing two men to death on a Portland train. Police say the victim...

The teens moved toward the back of the train, preparing to get off at the next stop.

"And then we turned around while they were fighting, and he just started stabbing people, and it was just blood everywhere, and we just started running for our lives," Mangum said.

Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21, was stabbed in the neck. His girlfriend, Miranda Helm, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he was recovering his strength in the hospital.

A Facebook page for the Trump Free Speech Rally says there would be speakers and live music in "one of the most liberal areas on the West Coast." It says it will feature Kyle Chapman, who describes himself as an American nationalist and ardent supporter of Mr. Trump.

Chapman was arrested at a March 4 protest in Berkeley, the birthplace of the U.S. free speech movement in the 1960s that has become a flashpoint for the extreme left and right since Trump's election.

The University of California, Berkeley, has been criticized for canceling an appearance by conservative commentator Ann Coulter in April and another by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February. It canceled Coulter's speech amid threats of violence, fearing a repeat of rioting ahead of the Yiannopoulos event.

Wheeler's call for the rally to be canceled comes amid a wider debate in the U.S. about the First Amendment, often in liberal cities like Portland and Berkeley, California, and on college campuses, where violent protests between far-right and far-left protesters have derailed appearances by contentious figures.

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Portland mayor urges scrapping of pro-Trump free speech rally - CBS News

People are putting the NFL on notice over its treatment of Colin Kaepernick.

Former NBA player Etan Thomas shares his spoken word on a megaphone at a rally supporting Colin Kaepernick in Manhattan, New York, on May 24, 2017. (Brandon Jordan)

In 1967, Muhammad Ali could not find work as a boxer. It was because of his politics, primarily his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War and his uncompromising condemnation of racism and militarism. In response to this, his fans and allies were not merely disappointed or discouraged. They demonstrated in rallies that spanned the globe from Europe to the Middle East to Houston, Texas.

In 2017, Colin Kaepernick has, as of this writing, not been able to find work in the National Football League. Even though the Super Bowl quarterback is coming off a bounce-back season where he threw 16 touchdowns and four interceptions, even though his coaches swear by his character and work ethic, and even though he has made clear that he is not asking for a big contract of a starting job, he has been subject to a badly obvious political blackballing. His great sin was, of course, to take his politics to the field, kneeling during the national anthem to protest racist police violence.

As with Ali, the people inspired not so much by his play but his politics chose to speak out. On Wednesday, around 60 peoplealmost entirely Blackrallied at the National Football Leagues posh Park Avenue offices in New York to protest his pariah status. The event was called by 100 Suits for 100 Men, a community group that helps marginalized men and women with job opportunities, and people at the rally chanted No Justice! No Peace! as well as What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!

Not surprisingly, having such a protest was mocked on social mediapeople laughing about the idea that anyone would demonstrate for a football players job. But to the people presentpeople like William Bell, the father of Sean Bell who was killed by police the night before his wedding over a decade agothis had nothing to do with sports. Mr. Bell said, Im here, before anybody asks, to support that young man. He did something that a lot of people couldnt do, were afraid to do. He stood up. I lost my son 10 years ago. His birthday was last week. He would have been 34. My son, my baby son. He was a young man that had a lot of potential. Baseball, football, whatever he could do. But he couldnt make it. At 23. Thats why I support this young man. Im glad to see everyone out here. Im just one person, just trying to survive. Because I lost and I dont want to lose no more. Everyone here is young, and believe me, I want to see everyone survive past 23.

Also present were anti-police brutality activists, people from Black Lives Matter chapters, and students who had attended Kaepernicks Know Your Rights Camps, which aim to teach young people about health, financial literacy, and their legal rights when dealing with the policebasically how to navigate oppressive circumstances of poverty and segregation. Seventeen-year-old Nupol Kiazolu said to The Nation, Colin Kaepernick put his career on the line for the greater good. Its only right we all show up here to support him today. The fact that hes standing up for that is noble. For him to be criminalized for that is disgusting. I see what theyre trying to do, theyre trying to shut us up, theyre trying to shut the movement up. But we refuse to be silent. The NFL has so many black lives [on the field], but they dont value them. They look at us as dollar signs, they dont look us as human beings. Were worth more than a dollar sign. I like football, but Im not supporting any corporation or any league that doesnt value the lives of my people. Im for boycotting the NFL until Colin Kaepernick is put back on a team.

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Ten-year NBA veteran Etan Thomas was also present, reading a poem that took shots at institutionalized racism as well as black members of the sports mediaStephen A. Smith and Jason Whitlock were name-checkedwho use their position to conspire against us sending us back to the depths of failure where dreams dont glow in the dark. Thomas just returned from his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He spent the preceding days grieving over the absence of justice accorded to Terence Crutcher, who was killed with his hands raised on camera by officer Betty Shelby. A jury found Officer Shelby not guilty, and she is back on the job with back pay. Etan closed his statement by saying, Your desire to destroy us will never, ever stop us.

The most important takeaway from the rally is that for the people out there in the middle of this posh neighborhood, with signs and bullhorns, this was not about sports as much as it is about solidarity. This was not about Colin Kaepernick and his rights as much as it is about Black life in general, and whether or not its valued by the NFL or by this country. It was about football about as much as the 1967 protests for Muhammad Ali were about the desire to see him fight Joe Frazer. This was about something greater than one individual. In other words, it was exactly what Colin Kaepernicknot to mention Muhammad Aliwould have loved to see. It was about not only knowing your rights but exercising them to tear a measure of justice out of Trumps America.

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A Rally for Colin Kaepernickand Free Speech - The Nation.