Category Archives: Free Speech

Updated (5/15/2017, 4:57 p.m.) with information on legislation under consideration in Louisiana.

A wave of proposed legislation on campus free speech is making its way through statehouses across the nation. Last week Tennessees governor, Bill Haslam, signed into law a measure that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called the most comprehensive state legislation protecting free speech on college campuses that weve seen passed anywhere in the country.

That new law, among other things, bars public colleges from establishing free-speech zones and requires them to adopt broad statements of support for free expression. Read more about the new law.

The new crop of bills is broadly based on a model designed by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank. The American Association of University Professors said in a statement on Thursday that it opposes any legislation that interferes with the institutional autonomy of colleges and universities by undermining the role of faculty, administration, and governing board in institutional decision-making and the role of students in the formulation and application of institutional policies affecting student affairs.

Heres a rundown of similar measures across the country that The Chronicle could find, and where they stand. Did we miss one? Send it to chris.quintana@chronicle.com.

A lawmaker this month introduced a bill that would prevent people on Californias college campuses from disinviting speakers and would remove existing free-speech codes. It is very similar to the Wisconsin bill (see below).

The states governor signed into law in April a measure that bars free-speech zones on public campuses throughout the state. According to The Denver Post, the University of Colorado system voiced opposition to an early version of the bill, but eventually supported it.

The Illinois House of Representatives is considering a bill that would require public colleges and universities to suspend or expel students who twice infringe on the expressive rights of others. It was introduced in February.

The Louisiana House of Representatives is considering a bill that would require the Board of Regents to create a committee on free expression and a freshman orientation focused on free-speech issues. Those who violate free-speech policies twice would face expulsion or suspension. Violators could also be open to legal action.

Lawmakers this month introduced a bill in the states Senate that would require public universities and colleges to punish students who twice prevent others from speaking on a campus.

Lawmakers are considering a measure very similar to the one in Wisconsin (see below). The legislation is intended to ensure the fullest degree of intellectual freedom and free expression. The bill cleared the North Carolina House of Representatives and is now bound for the State Senate.

The Texas Senate approved a bill last week that bars free-speech zones on public campuses.

The governor signed a bill in March that outlines a free-speech policy and states that those who violate it can face legal action, including fines.

Lawmakers approved and the governor signed into law a measure that states: No public institution of higher education shall abridge the constitutional freedom of any individual, including enrolled students, faculty, and other employees and invited guests to speak on campus.

The law does not have the prescriptive provisions featured in bills modeled on the Goldwater legislation.

A bill modeled on the Goldwater Institutes proposal would prohibit students at public colleges from interfering with the free-speech rights of others, and would require an orientation on free-speech issues for freshmen, among other things.

Critics said at a public hearing last week that the bill contains unnecessary provisions that actually would infringe on the rights of students.

Chris Quintana is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com. Andy Thomason oversees breaking-news coverage. Send him a tip at andy.thomason@chronicle.com. And follow him on Twitter @arthomason.

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The States Where Campus Free-Speech Bills Are Being Born: A ... - The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription)

I was so pleased to see President Trump sign the Executive Order promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty on the National Day of Prayer this year. What a drastic and welcome change from the Obama Administration.

This new Executive Order order effectively protects the pulpits voices on the legislative and political issues our nation and world are facing. Previously, during the Obama Administration, we saw regular hostile targeting of non-profit organizations that opposed its specific agenda. After all, who can forget the Obama Administration going after The Little Sisters of the Poor for opposing abortion?

During Obamas presidency, numerous faith based or conservative based 501-C3s were bullied, harassed and had exemption statuses purposely withheld by the IRS. Not to mention the regular yearly letter issued by the IRS, threatening houses of worship with being sued, fined and retaliated against if they dare participate in any political rhetoric.

Thank God, our First Amendment Rights have been fully restored by President Trump. No longer will pastors, ministers, priests, rabbis, or faith based organizations be constrained by government overreach and intrusion- just as it should have been all along, as written in the Bill of Rights.

Faith based churches, synagogues and organizations have their liberties restored and can now freely talk about everything going on in culture, and how it relates to their specific beliefs.

This new Executive Order prohibits government from policing the pulpit or public officials from demanding copies of sermons from pastors.

Its wonderful that on the National Day of Prayer 2017, Americas pulpits are once again fully protected and free to speak!

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Finally, a President That Respects Free Speech at the Pulpit - Albany Times Union (blog)

PostedMay 15, 2017 1:41 PM

In campus clashes from California to Vermont, many defenders of the First Amendment say they see signs that free speech, once a bedrock value in academia, is losing ground as a priority at U.S. colleges.

As protests have derailed speeches by controversial figures, including an event with Ann Coulter last month at the University of California, Berkeley, some fear students have come to see the right to free expression less as an enshrined measure of protection for all voices and more as a political weapon used against them by provocateurs.

I think minority groups and those who feel alienated are especially skeptical about free speech these days, said Jeffrey Herbst, leader of the Newseum, a Washington, D.C., group that defends the First Amendment.

But the powerful can get their message across any number of ways. Its those who feel powerless or alienated who really benefit from enshrined rights, Herbst said.

Last Wednesday, students at the historically black Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla., tried to shout down a commencement address by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who said during her speech, Lets choose to hear one another out.

Students and alumni had previously petitioned to rescind her invitation, saying she doesnt understand the importance of historically black schools.

While some cast the debate as a political battle, pitting protesters on the left against conservative speakers on the right, First Amendment advocates warn the line marking acceptable speech could slip if more college students adopt less-than-absolute views on free speech.

When UC Berkeley canceled Coulters April 27 speech amid threats of violence, it was only the latest example of a speaker with controversial views being blocked from talking. Since the beginning of 2016, nearly 30 campus speeches have been derailed amid controversy, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

In many cases, speakers have been targeted for their views on race and sexual identity.

At Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., author Charles Murray was shouted down by students who accused him of espousing racist views. An event featuring Milo Yiannopoulos at Berkeley was called off after protests over his views on race and transgender people turned violent.

In the past year, other speeches have been disrupted or canceled amid student protests at the University of Wisconsin, UC Davis, Brown University, New York University and DePaul University, among others.

Todays students have developed a new understanding of free speech that doesnt protect language seen as offensive to minorities or others thought to be disenfranchised, said Herbst, also a former president of Colgate University, a liberal arts school in Hamilton, N.Y.

He sees it as a generational divide, a notion thats supported by some polling data. A 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center, for example, found that 40 percent of people ages 18 to 34 supported government censorship of statements offensive to minorities. Only 24 percent of people ages 51 to 69 agreed.

The literary group PEN America has also warned free speech is being threatened at colleges.

As students and administrators strive to make campuses more hospitable to diverse student bodies, some have wrongly silenced speech that makes certain students feel uncomfortable, said Suzanne Nossel, the groups director.

The university has dual imperatives. It has to be a place that is welcoming and open to students of all backgrounds, cognizant of the barriers that impede students from marginalized groups, she said. But that cannot and must not come at the expense of being an open environment for speech.

The events at Berkeley and Middlebury have drawn scorn from observers across the political spectrum, including some founders of the free speech movement that took root at Berkeley in the 1960s. Jack Weinberg, who was arrested on campus in 1964 for violating school codes on activism and sparked a wave of protests to change them, said he found the whole thing despicable.

When you suppress ideas, you also increase interest in those ideas, Weinberg said. Its understandable that people want to stop it, but it doesnt work.

Still, some students dont see a problem with disrupting provocative speakers. Some say theyre simply invoking their own First Amendment rights, while others say theyre appealing to higher principles that take priority over free expression.

If your goal is to come onto university campuses and put communities at risk, and your goal is to bash and spew hateful, racist rhetoric, then we dont want that, said Richard Alvarado, a junior at Berkeley who protested both recent speeches. We as a community have a moral obligation to hold you accountable for it.

Colleges need to take a harder stance against students who disrupt speeches, some say. Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin are pushing a bill that would force state universities to suspend or expel students who repeatedly interfere with others free speech.

Similar legislation was recently approved in Virginia and Colorado and is being considered in California, Michigan and North Carolina. The bills are modeled after a proposal by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank in Arizona.

Others are calling for colleges to adopt stronger policies in support of free expression and for primary schools to bolster lessons on the First Amendment.

We are seeing things on an all-too-regular basis which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, said Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment attorney in New York City. One can only hope that tempers will cool and people will come to accept the virtues of living in a society where even offensive speech is fully protected by the First Amendment.

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Is free speech fading at colleges? - Chicago Law Bulletin - Chicago Daily Law Bulletin

Lexington, Ky., May 16, 2017 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Backers of a print shop owner who declined to print gay pride T-shirts because of his religious beliefs praised a Kentucky courts decision that his free speech rights protect him from a discrimination complaint.

Americans should always have the freedom to believe, the freedom to express those beliefs, and the freedom to not express ideas that would violate their conscience, said Jim Campbell, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. Todays decision is a victory for printers and other creative professionals who serve all people but cannot promote all messages.

The case concerned Blaine Adamson, owner of Hands On Originals, a small print shop in Lexington, Ky.

I want God to find joy in what we do and how we work, how we treat our employees, and the messages we print, said Adamson. So if someone walks in and says, Hey, I want you to help promote something, I cant promote something that I know goes against what pleases Him.

Adamson has declined to create T-shirts that promote strip clubs, violence, and sexually explicit videos. He has served other clients regardless of sexual orientation.

In 2012 the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization asked him to print shirts for the local gay pride festival. He said he could not support the event and referred the organization to other printers.

The group filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban Country Human Rights Commission. The commission ruled that Blaine had violated a local anti-discrimination ordinance and ordered him to attend diversity training.

Blaines legal challenge to the commission won a favorable decision in Fayette Circuit Court, a ruling which was upheld by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision May 12.

The right of free speech does not guarantee to any person the right to use someone elses property, said appellate courts Chief Judge Joy Kramer, UPI reports.

The judge said the shop offers the service of promoting messages but its decision not to promote certain conduct was pure speech.

Judge Jeff Taylor, writing in a dissent, said the ruling would make the anti-discrimination ordinance meaningless.

Other backers of Blaine included the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed an amicus brief in the case.

It doesnt matter what the speech is pro-gay, anti-gay, pro-immigration, anti-immigration the government cant force you to print it, Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund, said May 12.

Free speech is most important on the most divisive issues, he said. That is the last place the government should ever be allowed to demand conformity.

Some anti-discrimination laws have placed heavy fines on some businesses involved in weddings, including florists and cake bakers, if they declined to aid in same-sex ceremonies.

Such laws have also shut down Catholic adoption agencies.

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Free speech protects printer from promoting gay pride fest, Ky. court ... - Catholic News Agency

Back in the 1930s, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously referred to states as laboratories of democracy.

But these days, those labs are looking less Albert Einstein and more Dr. Frankenstein.

Enraged by the hundreds of thousands of women who peacefully took to the street in Washington in January, and the activists who camped out to block the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, lawmakers in 20 states are debating or voting on more than 30 bills aimed at criminalizing or otherwise cracking down on the protest movements spawned by President Donald Trumps administration.

But critics say that, in their haste, these lawmakers are shredding the Constitution and stomping on free speech rights as they shovel the proposals into the legislative maw.

According to The Guardian, these efforts include measures banning protesters from wearing masks; boosting the fines for protesting in large groups, and immunizing drivers who hit protesters inconveniently cluttering up the roadway as they exercise a constitutionally protected right to free speech.

The flood of bills represents an unprecedented level of hostility toward protesters in the 21st century, the American Civil Liberties Unions Lee Rowland and Vera Eidelman wrote in a Feb. 17 blog post on this alarming trend.

Is this spate of anti-protest bills a coincidence? We think not, Eidelmand and Rowland wrote of the timing and prevalence of proposals in states where protests have been the most frequent.

Indeed, its little wonder that some state lawmakers have felt emboldened to act.

With an unsettling affection for despots and tweets dismissing his critics as losers who wont accept election results or by saying hed like to punch a protester in the face, as he did during the campaign last year, the guy at the top has made his feelings about dissent pretty clear.

In Oklahoma, for instance, the state House and Senate passed legislation imposing stiff penalties on anyone who trespasses on such critical infrastructure as a power plant or oil refinery, The Guardian reported.

If Republican Gov. Mary Fallin signs it into law, violators who trespass and damage such facilities would face a minimum of $10,000 in fines and/or at least a year in jail, according to OpenStates, which tracks legislation in all 50 states.

In Tennessee, meanwhile, lawmakers are debating a bill providing civil immunity to the driver of an automobile who injures a protester who is blocking traffic in a public right-of-way if the driver was exercising due care.

In North Dakota, Gov. Doug Burgum signed that mask ban into law, along with a bill raising the stakes for a riot that involves 100 or more persons, doubling the maximum prison sentence to 10 years, The Guardian reported.

And while Trumps supporters, might be cheering these measures and sneeringly dismissing his critics, its worth noting that theyre absolutely agnostic when it comes to the political persuasion of the protester.

That means the American right could just as easily find themselves at the business end of laws passed by their own party if, as progressives hope, theres a shift in the political winds in 2018.

It was only seven short years ago, after all that critics of then-President Barack Obama, some shouldering semi-automatic rifles, congregated at constitutionally-protected rallies themselves.

Second Amendment supporters like to argue that states dont need new guns laws because existing statutes, vigorously enforced, are more than equal to the task.

The same principle is applicable here. Existing law should be more than enough to ensure that both the public and property are protected when large-scale rallies, such as the Womens March or the March for Life take place.

And instead of celebrating the kind of vibrant civic engagement that we tell our children is vital to the health of the republic, these measures are intended to quash dissent and chill free speech.

And in our laboratories of democracy - thats not a monster we want to bring to life.

An award-winning political journalist, Micek is the opinion editor and political columnist for PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. Readers may follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek and email him at jmicek@pennlive.com.

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State lawmakers launch crackdown on free speech - Times-Enterprise

Update: The Swedish Institute has agreed to remove their block list for the @Sweden account and apologized to those mistakenly blocked.

Included in the block list wasHeat Streetwriter Ian Miles Cheong (who, to be fair, is kind of an asshole) and YouTubers Pewdiepie and JonTron.Others blocked on the account were actualSwedish citizens, who claimed on Twitter they were blocked for their views against Swedens immigration policies.

Wow, so brave.

Sweden is standing up for the principle of free speech, the only way they know how: by cowering in fear of opposingopinions on social media.

The Swedish Institute, the section of government responsible for promoting Sweden around the world, will undergo an aggressive blocking campaign for their Twitter account @Swedenin order to promote free speech. They have instituted a block list thatalready includes 12,000international and Swedish accounts dedicated to the drive, threat, hatred and incitement against migrants, women and LGBT people, but also against organizations involved in human rights. The other 2,000 accounts blocked are spam and porn bots.

The @Sweden accountis run by a random Swede each week. These curators are allowed to share their opinions and talk about Sweden through the official account. This weeks curator is Tobias, and he says boring shit about hockey, but apparently some of these civilians get harassed.

We have seen that Internet hate primarily affects women, minorities and those who express strong opinions, says Jenny Ljung, Head of Communications at Swedish Institute in a press release. If a curator represents all three variables, we know that it will be a tough week on @ Sweden account.

So uh, yeah.If up is down, and freedom is slavery, and free speech means blocking people on Twitter, then Sweden is clearly a shining standard we should all strive to live up to.

Yay for post-modern democratic socialism!

Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks

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Sweden to 'Protect Free Speech' by Blocking 14000 People on Twitter - Heat Street

This article first appeared on the Verdict site.

In 1963, George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama on a segregationist platform.

At his gubernatorial inaugural address, he famously said that he supported segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

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He went on to serve two non-consecutive terms (1963-1967, 1983-1987) and two consecutive terms (1971-79). In all, he was governor a little over 16 years in total, becoming the third longest serving governor in post-Constitutional U.S. history.

In 1963, the Harvard-Radcliffe Democratic Club invited Wallace to speak at the University. Harvard students then as now rejected George Wallaces views, but allowed him to speakno protests, no threats of violence.

Some people argued that he should not be invited, while others said, in the words of one member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Democratic Club, We should have a chance to see for ourselves the dancing bear. Those who did not want to attend the speech did not do so, but they did not block the entrance of those who wanted to see for themselves.

Wallace spoke in Memorial Hall, the very building that Harvard, nearly a century earlier, had dedicated to honor its alums who fought and died for the Union during the Civil War. On October 6, 1870, at the laying of the cornerstone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. composed a hymn for the occasion, which concluded with:

Emblem and legend may fade from the portal,

Keystone may crumble and portal may fall;

They were the builders whose work is immortal,

Crowned with the dome that is over us all.

Memorial Hall was one of the largest halls at Harvard at the time and the place was packed with studentshundreds and hundreds of students. Wallace took questions from the audience. He called on a black student, who spoke in a crisp British accent.

What country are you from, asked Wallace.

Ethiopia, the student said.

Why, you people have slavery there, he claimed.

The student, I recall, shot back, Slavery is punishable by death in Ethiopia, and the audience cheered.

The event ended and we all went home. No one claimed that the Wallaces speech was a microaggression. No one asserted that inviting Wallace created a hostile educational environment, nor that the university was not a safe place. We were all exposed to a different viewpoint, and no one listening risked the fear that they would be so enthralled as to become racists. Later in life, Wallace said he recanted his racist views and asked black Americans to forgive him.

An American Nazi party member salutes during a rally at Valley Forge National Park September 25, 2004 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Ronald Rotunda writes that the American Nazis had the right to march in Skokie, Illinois, for the same reason that Martin Luther King Jr. had the right to march in Selma, Alabama. William Thomas Cain/Getty

In 1977, members of the American Nazi Party, dressed in military garb and wearing swastikas, wanted to march in Skokie, Illinois. The Nazis did not pick that city by accident. It was home to a large number of survivors of the Nazi death camps, and four out of every seven residents were Jewish. Nonetheless, the federal courts invalidated laws that prevented the Nazis march in the case ofCollin & National Socialist Party v. Smith.

The Skokie ordinance prohibiting dissemination of materials that would promote hatred toward persons on basis of their heritage was unconstitutional. Similarly, the ordinance prohibiting members of a political party from assembling while wearing military-style uniforms was unconstitutional.

Finally, an ordinance requiring those seeking to parade or assemble in the village to obtain liability insurance of at least $300,000 and property damage insurance of at least $50,000 could not constitutionally be applied to prohibit the proposed demonstration.

The Nazis had the right to march in Skokie for the same reason that Martin Luther King Jr. had the right to march in Selma, Alabama. The Nazis marched without incident.

That is not the world we live in today. Now, college students often claim that the slogan Make America Great Again is a microaggression and that it is the job of universities to protect them from that attack.

North Carolina State University is one of many universities that advises faculty to avoid expressions such as America is the land of opportunity because that is yet another microaggression. It becomes harder to attack students for silliness when the grownups, the college administration, support their eccentricities by policing everyday language.

The aggression and bullying behavior of those who oppose microaggressions goes behind the ivy halls of higher education. Portland, Oregon, for the last decade has hosted an annual Rose Festival and 82nd Avenue of the Roses Parade and Carnival. It bills the parade as a family-friendly parade meant to attract crowds to its diverse neighborhood. Apparently, it should not be too diverse.

This year, the city cancelled the parade because the parades 67th spot would be occupied by the Multnomah County Republican Party. Yes, the Republican Party! That outraged two self-described anti-fascist groups who threatened physical violence.

One anonymous email made clear that the threat was not to boycott; it was not to protest peacefully; it was to cause violence. This email recalled fondly the 2016 violent riots that Portland hosted after the November election. The Avenue of Roses cancelled the event, following threats of violence during the Parade by multiple groups planning to disrupt the event.

On April 26, Tucker Carlson on Fox News interviewed Professor Aaron Hanlon of Colby College who said that Ann Coulter, who was asked to speak at UC Berkeley, does not meet the standards for speakers that should be invited to campus.

That argument, however, only says that Professor Hanlon would not invite Coulter. That was not the issue. Legitimate university-recognized student groups at Berkeley did invite Coulter. The issue was whether other students or outsiders should be able to threaten violence to prevent her from speaking to those who wanted to hear her.

Carlson asked the professor if he would support expulsion of those students who violently prevent other students from listening to Ann Coulter. Professor Hanlon claimed he was very speech-permissive, but he refused to answer that simple question.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in contrast, supported the free speech rights of the American Nazi Party back in 1977 and bemoaned Berkeleys cancellation of Ann Coulters speech now. It tweeted, The hecklers veto of Coulters Berkeley speech is a loss for the 1st Amendment. We must protect speech on campus, even when hateful.

Every generation must relearn the lessons of free speech. It is no accident that Eastern European Communists suppressed speech and art as well as politics and religion. And when the people overturned the Communist dictators of Eastern Europe, they regarded freedom of expression as a premier right. The Czech revolution began in the theatres, and that countrys first freely elected president since World War II was a playwright.

Salmon Rushdie told us in his Herbert Read Memorial Lecture, of February 6, 1990, Peoples spiritual needs, more than their material needs, have driven the commissars from power.

Young people today may not know of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. After its 1989 publication, the spiritual head of Iran announced to the world that Mr. Rushdie must die because his book was, in his view, offensive to Muslim beliefs. It was hate speech.

Mr. Rushdie, a British subject, went into hiding, protected by the British government that he often criticized. Iran has never lifted its death sentence on Rushdie. That is how they react to microaggressions.

In this country, there are those who argue that microaggressions should be crimes, like hate crimes. These people often forget that hate crimes are not mere words, but crimes of action (e.g., assault or vandalism) accompanied by words. For example, vandalism of a synagogue with anti-Semitic words is a hate crime. Mouthing an anti-Semitic epithet, while crude, tasteless and offensive, is not a crime if divorced from action.

There are Westerners who defended Irans death fatwah on Rushdie. He had it coming, they said; he knew he was insulting Muslims. Writers like John le Carr wrote in The Guardian, that no one has a God-given right to insult a great religion and be published with impunity. Rushdie recalled

On TV shows, studio audiences were asked for a show of hands on the question of whether I should live or die. [A] point of view grew up [that] held that I knew exactly what I was doing. I must have known what would happen . . .

I find myself wanting to ask questions: when Osip Mandelstam [the Russian poet] wrote his poem against Stalin, did he know what he was doing and so deserve his death? When the students filled Tiananmen Square to ask for freedom, were they not also, and knowingly, asking for the murderous repression that resulted?

Even if I were to concede (and I do not concede it) that what I did in The Satanic Verses was the literary equivalent of flaunting oneself shamelessly before the eyes of aroused men, is that really a justification for being, so to speak, gang-banged? Is any provocation a justification for rape?

Over a quarter of a century after the Salman Rushdie death sentence, he is still in hiding, his Norwegian publisher was shot, his Japanese editor was murdered and his Italian translator stabbed.

Meanwhile, Western European countries are now prosecuting their citizens for insulting Islam.

Ronald D. Rotunda is the Doy & Dee Henley chair and distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Chapman University, the Dale E. Fowler School of Law. He is co-author of the six-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure and Legal Ethics: The Lawyer's Deskbook on Professional Responsibility.

Excerpt from:
Free Speech Is Not, Repeat Not a Hate Crime - Newsweek

Jerusalem Post Israel News

Deputy AG to Regev: Your threatening cultural institutions harms free speech Jerusalem Post Israel News The accumulation of threats by Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev against cultural institutions that present themes she ideologically opposes harms free speech, Deputy Attorney-General for Legislative Affairs Dena Zilber recently told the minister. and more »

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Deputy AG to Regev: Your threatening cultural institutions harms free speech - Jerusalem Post Israel News

A conservative groups free speech rally on Boston Common Saturday triggered a counter-protest by a progressive anti-fascist group, with hundreds of screaming supporters separated by a line of police officers.

Boston Free Speech supporters promoted the afternoon rally as a gathering where Libertarians, conservatives, traditionalists, classical liberals, or anyone else who supports Trump or just hates leftists are encouraged to attend, according to an online posting.

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Boston Antifa a local chapter of the liberal anti-fascist group launched the counter-protest, calling on supporters to fight hatred in Boston, according to the announcement on Facebook.

Many attendees on the Antifa side, and some on the Boston Free Speech side, hid their faces with scarfs and masks. Both sides cited concern about harassment and doxxing, slang for posting personal information online.

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Some got into heated personal exchanges.

I suggest you get a job and then you move out to whatever country you want, since you dont like it [here] so much, said a man wearing a military uniform to a counter-protester who wore a black scarf over his face.

One person from each side was arrested after they got into a physical altercation, according to Officer Rachel McGuire, a police spokeswoman. They were identified only as a 19-year-old California woman and a 28-year-old New York man.

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A Boston Free Speech protester, who stood quietly with a free speech is how you stay free sign, said he was concerned about a slippery slope of opposing political views being labeled as hate speech.

Its a new definition of free speech where if you dont agree with that opinion, you start labeling it as hate speech, said the 29-year-old man, who would identify himself only as Mike of Boston. Thats not real free speech.

Morgan Coe, 42, of Allston said he does not believe conservative ideology is under attack.

Obviously, they will deny that, said Coe, who attended with friends.

A 50-year-old veteran, who identified himself only by his first name of Paul, commended Boston police for keeping the peace.

There are definitely clowns on both sides, he said.

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A free speech clash on the Common - The Boston Globe - The Boston Globe

At least two people have been detained after a Free Speech Rally on the Common sparked heated confrontations with counter-protesters.

Two people could be seen being taken away in handcuffs about 1:45 p.m. after one of the free speech demonstrators crossed a police barrier in an attempt to hand one of the counter-protesters a Pepsi a move that appeared to be an attempt to mock a recent commercial that depicted a protester handing a cop a soda.

The apparent attempt at a joke set off a scuffle between the man and one of the counter-protesters that eventually led to punches being thrown.

The man holding the Pepsi could be seen throwing at least one punch with the can of soda still in his hand.

The two groups have been demonstrating since late this morning and the protests have remained mostly peaceful, though both sides have been shouting insults at each other while a line of Hub cops works to maintain order.

Developing...

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Boston Common 'Free Speech Rally' sparks counter-protest - Boston Herald