Category Archives: Free Speech

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Comedy, Free Speech and Navigating the Culture Wars - TheTyee.ca

The Duchess of Sussexs complaint against The Mail on Sunday was upheld by the Court of Appeal

MICHELE SPATARI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Only in a mythical utopia are all good things compatible with each other. A free society needs to judge how to trade them off. There is no obvious right answer on how best to arbitrate between both free speech and personal privacy. It should be the prerogative of parliament to resolve the conflict and make laws setting out the protection of each. There are worrying signs that the law is instead being made by judges. The dangers are illustrated in a ruling by the Court of Appeal last week upholding a complaint by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, against The Mail on Sunday.

The duchess complained that the newspaper had breached her privacy in publishing parts of a letter she had written to her estranged

Originally posted here:
The Times view on free speech: Privacy and the Press - The Times

A Minnesota man is accused of intimidating the judge and interfering with the judicial process in the manslaughter trial of former police officer Kim Potter. The activist was arrested and charged with harassing the court official, and now his past relationship with the judge could have an effect on his new case.

A group of protesters assembled outside of an apartment building thought to be the residence of Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu on Nov. 6. They gathered to express their objections to Potters trial not being televised or streamed live. Local activist Cortez Rice participated in the action to persuade the judge to reconsider letting cameras in the courtroom.

Potter is a white female former police officer in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center who is charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Black motorist Daunte Wright in April. The former officer claims she mistook her handgun for a taser and fatally shot Wright during a traffic stop.

In August Chu ruled that the media would not be allowed to record, broadcast, or livestream the trial because Potter and her legal team did not want the cameras inside of the court. Under Minnesota law, either the defendant or the prosecutors can withhold consent for a trial to be broadcast. Chu further believed the additional people would elevate COVID-19 risks.

She did, however, afford the press (and others from the public) an opportunity to view the trial from a designated overflow room.

Chu ruled at the time that while concerned citizens and media have a right to access public trials, Potters right to ban TV cameras trumped the public interest value of any telecast.

By October a coalition of media outlets had filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider. One precedent the group could point to was this years murder trial of Derek Chauvin in the same county, where the judge in the case ruled that the proceedings could be telecast despite the objections of lawyers representing the former Minneapolis police officer.

Rice as well chose to press the case for televising the Potter trial, and the route he took was demonstration.

At some point in the Nov. 6 protest, Rice streamed himself not only going into the building but making his way up to the 12th floor to an apartment where he believed the judge lived.

As he approaches a door that he believes is Chus apartment, he shouts to others, I think this is her crib right here. After leaving what he thought was her doorstep, he went to the lobby with the other protestors, informing them, Thats her window on the 12th floor.

A criminal complaint was filed in Hennepin County citing Rices alleged harassment.

The document stated, The Defendant live-streamed on YouTube while doing so.

The complaint quotes Rice, who says he was also a friend of George Floyd, in the video as saying, We on her heels We want cameras. The people deserve to know.

Later in the video, according to the complaint, he shouts, We demand transparency. Wed hate you to get kicked out of your apartment.

A version of the now-deleted video cited in the filing can be seenhere.

In the complaint, Chu expresses that she believed she was the target of the Defendant and the other protesters and further stated that it was her belief the intention was to intimidate her and to interfere with the judicial process.

Rice was been arrested. He was picked up in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, transferred on Tuesday, Dec. 7, to the state of Minnesota, and is now in the custody of the Hennepin County Sheriffs Office. He is charged with a felony count of harassment involving retaliation against a judicial officer, according to WCCOTV.

Originally, a judge named Bill Kochin considered the prosecutions suggestion of setting his bond at$50,000 without conditions and the $30,000 with conditions on charges related to Chu. After appearing in a Hennepin County court, his bond was set at $20,000 and a court hearing was set for Dec. 20. That was later rescinded and bond was denied once more after information about Rices previous legal troubles emerged.

Three days after the protest, Judge Chu reversed herself and agreed to allow cameras in thecourtroom.

Chus history with Rice extends before the Nov. 6 protest. The 32-year-old Black man appeared in her courtroom in October to answer charges of probation violation for a 2017 weapons conviction. The Star Tribune reports that Chu continued his probation rather than send him to prison that day.

Judge Gary Bastian has ruled that because Rice traveled to Wisconsin he violated for the third time his probation, complicating his current charge.Because of this, he denied the Black Lives Matter activist bond on this new charge.

Rices attorney Jordan Kushner states that his client was attending a funeral. He attempted to contact his probation agent but was unable to, opting to go without permission. Kushner also rejects the claim that Rice harassed Judge Chu, saying Rices action First Amendment-protected free speech.

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Man Accused of Harassing Judge In Trial of Cop Who Killed Daunte Wright Says He Was Exercising Free Speech When Protesting at Her Home - Atlanta Black...

The First Amendment protects the right to speak freely, but there are limits. Sometimes, citizens go too far, but sometimes so does the government.

Deborah Fisher| Guest Columnist

Tennessee Voices: A conversation with Deborah Fisher

Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, spoke with Tennessean opinion editor David Plazas.

Nashville Tennessean

I was recently on a panel that discussed where free speech ends and dangerous speech begins.

The topic is a recurring one in U.S. history and plays out in debates about hate speech, about burning crosses in peoples yards, about burning American flags, and about what is uttered by teachers in public schools.

Most Americans know that the First Amendment protects the right of speech in the United States that the government cant make laws controlling or punishing what you say.

Of course, there are limits to this liberty.

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If you publish something untrue that damages a persons reputation, you could be sued for libel.

We also have laws that punish threats, harassment, fraud, conspiracy to commit crimes and incitement of lawless action.

In all of these laws, the right of free speech and free expression is balanced against the need for public health and safety and other state interests, such as national security and respect for fundamental rights.

One place this has played out is in public meetings where the governing body is permitted to make rules to maintain the safety and orderly proceeding of the meeting.

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In Ohio, a school board, in its efforts to control its meetings, adopted a policy limiting what citizens could say during the public comment period.

The policy allowed the school board presiding officer to terminate a persons right to participate in public comments if the persons comments were too lengthy, personally directed, abusive, off-topic, antagonistic, obscene, or irrelevant.

The school boards president used the policy to remove a resident who he said was being basically unruly, not following the rules, being hostile in his demeanor.

Billy Ison, whose children and grandchildren had graduated from local schools, had been upset about the school boards actions after a school shooting that injured four students. During the the public comment period, he criticized the school board for suppressing opposition to pro-gun views.

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After Ison was kicked out for his comments, he sued the school board, saying his removal violated his constitutional First Amendment rights to free speech.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and said a citizen cannot be thrown out of a public meeting simply because he or she offends, antagonizes or harshly criticizes a governing body or members of a governing body during a public comment period.

The court, whose jurisdiction includes Tennessee, said that the school boards policy prohibiting personally directed, abusive and antagonistic comments violated free speech rights.

The government cannot prohibit speech purely because it disparages or offends, the court said. Doing so would be discriminating based upon a particular persons viewpoint.

The ruling was a victory for citizens who have felt muzzled by government for speaking out at public meetings. The court noted that Ison spoke calmly, used measured tones, and refrained from personal attacks or vitriol, focusing instead on his stringent opposition to the Boards policy and his belief the Board was not being honest about its motives.

Is it any surprise that our most contentious public debates somehow end up at school board meetings?

Here in Tennessee, weve recently seen impassioned and fiery comments in school board meetings over COVID-19 masks and about how to teach children about American history, particularly history involving racism and slavery.

Sometimes parents show up in large groups and carry signs.

As these debates continue, parents would do well to balance their shouting with listening, and school boards to separate the disagreeable comments and criticism from the type of behavior that truly threatens others or disrupts a meeting in such a way that it cannot be continued.

As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1927, fear breeds repression; ...repression breeds hate; ...hate menaces stable government; ...the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.

Deborah Fisher is executive director of Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. This column is part of a series that explores transparency in government in Tennessee. More information at http://www.tcog.info.

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How government regulations controlling what people say can be dangerous | Opinion - The Tennessean

On Nov. 23, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute selected its new president to take the helm from outgoing president Shirley Ann Jackson: Martin A. Schmidt, currently the provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As Schmidt comes into office, it is time for him to speak up for free speech and for RPI to put freedom of expression front and center the important soul searching that Jacksons administration didnt have the character to undertake because it was too busy censoring its critics.

RPI has a long history of illiberalism under Jacksons 22-year watch, dating back to its suppression of faculty criticism of the Iraq war and censorship of student critics. Even today, the institute is facing allegations that it suppressed negative faculty and staff feedback in an employee climate survey the latest in RPIs depressingly long line of failures to uphold principles of free expression.

The Times Union obtained an internal email purporting to show RPI officials trying to suppress the results of the survey, which found a general fear-based, unhealthy, stifling culture across the RPI campus. A conversation between a school official and the alumnus who conducted the survey saw the official repeatedly stress how the survey findings needed to be presented in a positive manner, the alumnus wrote in the email, which was sent to RPI faculty.

The surveys findings, and the schools conduct in trying to spin them dishonestly, both track with the work of my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a campus rights group, regarding RPI. As a private institution, RPI is not bound by the First Amendment, but it still makes strong promises of freedom of expression to its students promises the school has repeatedly failed to uphold, leading to disturbing effects.

RPI has earned itself a red light rating FIREs worst rating for its speech policies. This, as well as the fact that the school placed 149th out of 154th nationally in FIREs 2021 College Free Speech Rankings, reflects a hostile environment for the expressive rights of students and faculty alike.

That chill has come from the top of RPIs administration, which has gone to absurd lengths to censor student critics. In 2018, school security officers blocked students outside a hockey game from passing out buttons and literature related to an initiative to preserve a student-run union on campus. When the students argued that they were on a public sidewalk and not on RPIs property, the officers cited eminent domain. (Thats not how eminent domain works.)

The incident was one of a number of conflicts over a movement on campus for the preservation of a student-governed union that saw students who advocated for its independence subjected to extreme censorship measures. Students filmed school employees tearing down pro-student union flyers, and RPI hired Troy police to film student demonstrators all while building a fence through a significant part of campus to keep student demonstrations away from Jacksons black-tie fundraiser.

When civil liberties advocates raised questions, RPI did worse than ignore their advice; it actively made things worse. After the institute suppressed student speech under a solicitation policy, FIRE and the New York Civil Liberties Union pointed out that RPI had no such policy and that, even if it did, it would imperil the freedom of speech RPI promises its students. So, told that they were enforcing a non-existent policy, RPIs administration told students in public, on video that administrators need a controlled environment for speech. Then they set out to write the policy, requiring students to get administrators express permission to hand out anything in writing on campus.

Repeated suppression of student speech has consequences for the campus climate, as demonstrated by the responses of RPI students surveyed for FIREs rankings about the campus environment.

I feel that the administration at RPI actively fights against its student's [sic] rights to free speech, one student said.

I have never felt unable to express myself but I know those who have had campaign posters or articles in the newspaper taken down, said another.

FIRE has been on RPIs case for years. Early last year, FIRE traveled to the schools campus to give RPI a Lifetime Censorship Award for pervasively censoring its students, and also named the school one of the worst 10 colleges for free speech in the country.

How the institute will fare under Schmidt remains to be seen. He recently faced a controversy over academic freedom at MIT when he defended the disinvitation of Dorian Abbott, a geophysicist who has criticised aspects of affirmative action.

There is no point to having promises of free expression if the school will not uphold them. Repeated violations of free expression have real chilling effects on both faculty and students alike. Its time for RPI to live up to its promises and make itself a better place for free speech.

Graham Piro is a program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Educations Individual Rights Defense Program (FIRE). https://thefire.org/alarm

More:
RPI needs to live up to the promise of free speech - Times Union

Gun owners are responsible for their weapons

About school shootings where do the guns come from? I suspect from the parents or a friend or relative, or stolen, or bought on the street. So, in part, I blame the gun owners. If you own a gun that is used, you are part of the reason and hold some blame for the deaths and injuries. Thus, as a gun owner, it is your responsibility to make sure no oneexcept you can gain access to it.

I understand teenagers are clever about stealing and figuring out where you might keep it, but it is your responsibility to find a way to be ahead of them, or dont own a gun.

This is true even if you dont have kids because a stranger or neighbor kid could and would be willing to steal your gun. Everyone who owns a gun is responsible, period.If your gun is used in a shooting, or a crime or ends up in the wrong hands you, as the owner with rare exceptions are a large part of the blame.

No matter how safe you think your gun is, please make it safer today.I am not against gun ownership or hunting, but I insist on much better responsibility

Kathy E Wilson,Brunswick

Free speech pushes US into divisiveness

Maybe Freedom of Speech and of the Press in our time has become a liability and danger to our very Democracy. How ironic that it may be our Achilles heel.

We have gone, over the decades, from newspapers, radio and three television networks that reported the news to a multitude of cable outlets, Facebook and social media that make, spin and sensationalize the news. Foreign actors and our enemies are even involved. Bad news is everywhere and good news is marginalized. We no longer know what is true or false. Conspiracy theories abound and are believed by many.

Recent polls show President Bidens popularity is falling. Even mainstream liberal news downplays his efforts to pass positive legislation through a divided Senate with two Democrats seemingly in the wrong party. Take over of both houses by the Republicans in the mid-terms is already predicted.

Homelessness and drug addiction is rampant in our country. Child hunger, affordable housing and the environment need immediate solutions. Wealth inequality continues to expand as the middle class disappears. Doing anything about these issues is assailed by the right as socialism. Voters complain that nothing is getting done yet they dont want taxes raised, even on the wealthy, to pay for anything.

Are polls suggesting that voters want a repeat of 2017-2020 and the end of our Democracy? Trump promised many things like improved infrastructure and medical care and delivered on neither. He cut taxes, strengthened the Plutocracy and alienated us with our allies. Then there was the attempted coup. Biden is trying to remedy those mistakes, around the Republican Blockade with his popularity dropping even though he has been in office for less than a year.

America is in a State of Information Confusion where black is white and white is black and grey no longer exists. Our free speech rights, pervasive free press and media sources are continually pushing this country into a divisive state of bewilderment and irrationality. As we fracture and disintegrate, our adversaries rejoice and wait for our Democracy to collapse.

Jeffrey Runyon,Brunswick

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Letters: Gun owners are responsible for their weapons; Free speech pushes US into divisiveness - pressherald.com

Unless we stop corporate greed, we are going to see continue to see new COVID variants. Vaccine producers are blocking underdeveloped countries from using their vaccine so Pfizer and Moderna can make super profits.

Lori Wallach is the Executive Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. She joins Thom Hartmann to discuss how the greed of Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers and distributors are leading to wave after wave of new, more contagious COVID variants.

--

The Thom Hartmann Program covers diverse topics including immigration reform, government intrusion, privacy, foreign policy, and domestic issues. More people listen to or watch the TH program than any other progressive talk show in the world! Join them. #MorefromThom

The Thom Hartmann Program is on Free Speech TV every weekday from 12-3 pm EST.

Missed an episode? Check out Thom Hartmann Playlist on our Youtube channel or visit the show page for the latest clips.

#FreeSpeechTV is one of the last standing national, independent news networks committed to advancing progressive social change.

#FSTV is available on Dish, DirectTV, AppleTV, Roku, Sling and online at freespeech.org

Big Pharma Corporate Greed Corporations Moderna Omicron Pfizer Public Health The Thom Hartmann Program Thom Hartmann Vaccine

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Will Corporate Greed Kill Another 800000 Americans? - Free Speech TV

Proposed legislation to protect free speech on campus could have prevented the harassment that drove Kathleen Stock to leave UK academia, the former University of Sussex professor has claimed.

Asked if the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which iscurrently passing through the House of Commons, would have affected her situation at Sussex if it was already in place, Professor Stock insisted that it would have made a real difference because there is a real lack of understanding of the value of free speech and academic freedom on British university campuses.

It may sound draconian but [legislation] is needed because universities have failed to grasp this problem, Professor Stock told an audience at the Legatum Institute in London on 30 November.

Professor Stock announced on 28October that shewas leaving her post as professor of philosophyafter being targeted by protesters, who accused her of transphobia which she denies over her insistence that individuals cannot change their biological sex. The author ofMaterial Girlshas sincespoken outabout the exhaustion she felt after years of negative treatment by colleagues that she believed amounted to reputation trashing, claiming some academics at Sussex have publiclysupported student effortsto have her fired for her views.

Speaking to an event organised by the right-leaning thinktank in London, Professor Stock stated that the proposed legislation to strengthen existing free speech duties at English universities and extend them to student unions would have made students and peers feel less emboldened to act against her.

If my detractors at Sussex had been warned about [the importance] of academic freedom and knew what it was for, it is possible they would not have been emboldened as they did, said Professor Stock, who spoke alongside Niall Ferguson, the Stanford University historian. Both have joined the University of Austin, a private liberal arts institution in the US, in response to what he called the growing illiberalism on campuses.

Professor Stock also criticised a raft of national higher education frameworks and policies including the National Student Survey, teaching excellence framework and the research excellence framework for worsening the general fear of speaking out, against the grain, in controversial areas.

Student satisfaction is a big measure of what universities are, said Professor Stock, who said the importance of these scores in the NSS and TEF had created expectations among students that their views on certain academic matters would be accommodated.

Students had also been encouraged to become involved with the co-creation of curricula, which was a reimagining of the pedagogic relationship, and it is giving students a lot more power, she continued.

The Office for Students [the English regulator] is very supportive of this but you have to think how this impacts on the ability of staff to say things that people might not like, Professor Stock said.

The REFs growing emphasis on impact and research that found an audience outside universities may also be detrimental to scholars wishing to challenge long-held beliefs, she added.

Its quite conservative because universities prioritise work which will have impact and promote research that will find a receptive audience, said Professor Stock.

Universities massively increased focus on equality, diversity and inclusion a concept that was construed very narrowly also had implications for free speech and academic freedom because those who did not subscribe to a specific interpretation were treated as heretics, she added.

Universities have been told they have to go beyond the law and actively embody EDI which creates an intensely moralising atmosphere, said Professor Stock, who said this agendas inclusion into promotion structures incentivises people to become very moralised.

On the need for legislation, she concluded that it was a shame that we have to use such a big stick to get universities to recognise the value of academic freedom which should be seen as an end in itself.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com

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Kathleen Stock: free speech bill could have saved my Sussex career - Times Higher Education

To her eternal credit, Meghan Markle stands up for what she believes in. But when she joined the Royal Family, there were certain expectations of her that she seemed to believe she could dodgewhich simply was not the case, a royal expert has claimed.

In the second episode of the BBC's controversial documentary The Princes and the Press, which aired on Nov. 29, host Amol Rajan asked Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell, "In so many ways, Meghan is a welcome breath of fresh air but the last thing Britain needs is an over-confident, virtue-signaling American actress using her position in the Royal Family to promote her right-on views. What did you mean when you said the issue was that she's over-confident and virtue-signaling?" (via Express).

Platell answered, "I think that it shows the utmost navet of any intelligent woman, which she is, to think that you'd join an organization like the Royal Family and have free rein and free speech."

It's cool that women can't have opinions, I guess? Very 21st century of everyone involved.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

In the same documentary, columnist and broadcaster Rachel Johnson reinforced this sentiment, implying that Markle was too opinionated for the "patriarchal" culture of not only the royals but the United Kingdom, too. She explained that, by contrast, Kate Middleton exemplified the "perfect" female royal in the eyes of the press.

"There are women journalists, who basically say, 'Kate is perfect, she's our English rose,'" Johnson said (via Express). "They have a perfect template of what they want a royal female to be: not political, doesn't open her mouth very much in public, who makes very short, scripted speeches on very safe subjects.

"Whereas Meghan Markle will talk about period poverty. She will talk about racism. She will talk about female empowerment.

"These are trigger subjects in this country, where the Royal Family, despite being led by the Queen for 70 odd years is still a very patriarchal, hierarchical country." Ugh.

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Meghan Markle Was "Naive" to Expect "Free Reign and Free Speech" in the Royal Family, Expert Claims - MarieClaire.com

Dec 4th 2021

TO UNDERSTAND THE culture wars, it is worth considering what happened between Jordan Peterson and a large red lobster in Cambridge University on a recent evening. Namely, nothing. Which doesnt mean it wasnt important. On the contrary: how it came to pass that nothing was allowed to happen between Mr Peterson and a student dressed as a lobster matters a lot.

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First, the lobster. For those (non-lobsters) who have been living under a rock for the past five years, a primer. Mr Peterson is a Canadian academic who, depending on your viewpoint, is either monstrous or magnificent, but who is, all agree, a phenomenon. His book, 12 Rules for Life, has sold over 5m copies and is an intriguing read. It passes briskly from the biology of lobsters to Eden, original sin, Buddhism and the suffering soul. It is peppered with admonitions to stand up straight with your shoulders back and tell the truth. The effect is as if St Augustine had been reincarnated as a life coach, with added input from your mum.

For those who like this sort of stuff (mainly young men), it is wonderful: bracing; inspiring; manly. For critics (of whom there are many) Mr Peterson is propping up the patriarchy with cod biology about lobsters. (At one point he uses lobster hierarchies to explain why men should walk tall.) While the sides bickered, Mr Peterson became a sensation. He speaks in arenas, appears on talk shows and news programmes and almost always manages to annoy. His interviews (one in 2018 with Cathy Newman, a news anchor for Channel 4, was particularly excruciating) are tense, taut and watched by millions.

In 2018 Mr Peterson happened to sit opposite Douglas Hedley, a Cambridge professor of the philosophy of religion, at dinner. Mr Hedley invited him to take up a visiting fellowship. It seems likely that neither quite knew what they were getting themselves into: the invitation was prompted not by lobsters or talk shows but a shared interest in Jung and Biblical symbolism. What happened next was a textbook cancellation.

Not many complaints are needed to constitute the quorum of a controversy today. Earlier this year a podcaster criticised Brian Wong, Who was Never, Ever Wrong, a story by David Walliams, a comedian turned childrens author, for reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Chinese people. His publisher, HarperCollins, said it would remove the story from reprints. Mr Walliamss series has sold 2m copies, and that book had 6,691 reviews on Amazon, almost all five-star. Yet a single complaint ended in censorship.

In Cambridge, problems began when some students complained about Mr Peterson. The faculty reneged on the invitation in an inept Twitter announcement before Mr Peterson had even been told. The pretext was that he had been photographed next to someone wearing a T-shirt reading Im a proud Islamophobe. When asked to clarify, the divinity faculty remained silent; a press officer for the university explained that they dont wish to be interviewed about events that happened nearly three years ago. The department is home to students of Thomas Aquinas, original sin and early Judaism. Perhaps three years ago was just too fresh.

Little of this is surprising. British universities are, as is clear from the treatment of Kathleen Stock, hardly distinguishing themselves as bastions of free speech. Ms Stock recently resigned from a professorship in philosophy at Sussex University after a years-long campaign of harassment by students and faculty. But in Cambridge there are signs of a pushback. In 2020 a group of academics led by Arif Ahmed, a philosophy professor, rejected an amendment to university regulations that would have restricted their free speech. They forced the university to accept that academics should not have to respect everyones views, but merely tolerate them. More recently they kicked an attempt to set up an anonymous online-reporting tool into the long grass.

Then a handful of academicsincluding Mr Ahmed and James Orr, a divinity lecturerturned their attention to Mr Peterson. Not because they are diehard fans (they arent) but because, as Mr Ahmed says, there had been a grotesque violation of academic freedom and a stain on our reputation. Bureaucratic cogs started to turn. Committees were dealt with, halls booked, security organised and invitations issued. The vote to ensure tolerance helped: now critics had to put up with Mr Peterson. Nonetheless, says Mr Orr, it took an awful lot of time.

The bloody history of the 20th century can lead to a misapprehension about free speech. It is thought to be lost suddenly, to stormtroopers in the night. In fact, freedoms are almost always first removed bureaucratically, with processes made steadily more onerous, whisper campaigns started by colleagues, a word in the bosss ear. Bertrand Russellanother academic kicked out of Cambridge, in his case for pacifismwrote that the habit of considering morality and political opinion before offering a person a post is the modern form of persecution, and it is likely to become quite as efficient as the Inquisition ever was.

The academics persisted. The cogs turned. And on a cold, clear Tuesday evening, a talk took place. There were trestle tables and people ticking off names. Mr Peterson, slender and brittle as a blade in a sharp blue suit, spoke for over an hour to a satisfied audience. The lobster appeared, shouted something about feminism and scuttled through a side door. No one expired from offence. The sky did not fall in. Votes of thanks followed. Mr Peterson was thanked. The audience was thanked. The lobster was thanked.

It was all quite humdrumand that was the point. When people think of defending freedom of speech, they also turn to the dramatic: to Voltaire and defending to the death. But that is rarely necessary. Speech can be silenced by bureaucracyor saved by it: by cogs turning; by trestle tables and people with lists; by insisting on clearly stated rights. And by votes of thanks to lobsters.

Read more from Bagehot, our columnist on British politics:Boris Johnson should pick fights with conservative institutions (Nov 27th)Britains establishment has split into two, each convinced it is the underdog (Nov 20th)How Boris Johnsons failure to tackle sleaze among MPs could prove costly (Nov 10th)

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Jordan Peterson and the lobster"

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Jordan Peterson and the lobster - The Economist