Category Archives: Free Speech

In both cases the solution trans activists and their supporters have in mind is to have these women cancelled sacked, no-platformed, shunned and, most important of all, silenced. The ruin of an academic or journalist is a small price to pay for trans activists not to have to listen to opposing views that might upset them.

But in order for them to achieve their ends, two vital elements are necessary. The first is that language must be altered and manipulated so that words no longer mean what they used to mean. And so transphobe, which used to mean fear or hatred of trans people, now means anyone who believes in sex-based rights. If you believe in the biological fact of sex, that sex is not assigned at birth but is an inescapable physiological fact, then you are a transphobe.

Similarly, the term hate speech used to mean expressing views that encouraged violence against others, usually minorities. No longer. Feminists and others who question trans ideology but who do so while expressing solidarity with trans people and insist that they should never face discrimination in their professional or private lives, are guilty of hate crime because they believe that sex is more than a state of mind.

Excerpt from:
The Left would shamefully rather silence women than allow free speech on trans issues - Telegraph.co.uk

Contents

Freedom of speechthe right to express opinions without government restraintis a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece. In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees free speech, though the United States, like all modern democracies, places limits on this freedom. In a series of landmark cases, the U.S. Supreme Court over the years has helped to define what types of speech areand arentprotected under U.S. law.

The ancient Greeks pioneered free speech as a democratic principle. The ancient Greek word parrhesia means free speech, or to speak candidly. The term first appeared in Greek literature around the end of the fifth century B.C.

During the classical period, parrhesia became a fundamental part of the democracy of Athens. Leaders, philosophers, playwrights and everyday Athenians were free to openly discuss politics and religion and to criticize the government in some settings.

In the United States, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech.

The First Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rightsthe first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. The Bill of Rights provides constitutional protection for certain individual liberties, including freedoms of speech, assembly and worship.

The First Amendment doesnt specify what exactly is meant by freedom of speech. Defining what types of speech should and shouldnt be protected by law has fallen largely to the courts.

In general, the First Amendment guarantees the right to express ideas and information. On a basic level, it means that people can express an opinion (even an unpopular or unsavory one) without fear of government censorship.

It protects all forms of communication, from speeches to art and other media.

While freedom of speech pertains mostly to the spoken or written word, it also protects some forms of symbolic speech. Symbolic speech is an action that expresses an idea.

Flag burning is an example of symbolic speech that is protected under the First Amendment. Gregory Lee Johnson, a youth communist, burned a flag during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas to protest the Reagan administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1990, reversed a Texas courts conviction that Johnson broke the law by desecrating the flag. Texas v. Johnson invalidated statutes in Texas and 47 other states prohibiting flag burning.

Not all speech is protected under the First Amendment.

Forms of speech that arent protected include:

Speech inciting illegal actions or soliciting others to commit crimes arent protected under the First Amendment, either.

The Supreme Court decided a series of cases in 1919 that helped to define the limitations of free speech. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, shortly after the United States entered into World War I. The law prohibited interference in military operations or recruitment.

Socialist Party activist Charles Schenck was arrested under the Espionage Act after he distributed fliers urging young men to dodge the draft. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction by creating the clear and present danger standard, explaining when the government is allowed to limit free speech. In this case, they viewed draft resistant as dangerous to national security.

American labor leader and Socialist Party activist Eugene Debs also was arrested under the Espionage Act after giving a speech in 1918 encouraging others not to join the military. Debs argued that he was exercising his right to free speech and that the Espionage Act of 1917 was unconstitutional. In Debs v. United States the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act.

The Supreme Court has interpreted artistic freedom broadly as a form of free speech.

In most cases, freedom of expression may be restricted only if it will cause direct and imminent harm. Shouting fire! in a crowded theater and causing a stampede would be an example of direct and imminent harm.

In deciding cases involving artistic freedom of expression the Supreme Court leans on a principle called content neutrality. Content neutrality means the government cant censor or restrict expression just because some segment of the population finds the content offensive.

In 1965, students at a public high school in Des Moines, Iowa, organized a silent protest against the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to protest the fighting. The students were suspended from school. The principal argued that the armbands were a distraction and could possibly lead to danger for the students.

The Supreme Court didnt bitethey ruled in favor of the students right to wear the armbands as a form of free speech in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. The case set the standard for free speech in schools. However, First Amendment rights typically dont apply in private schools.

What does free speech mean?; United States Courts.Tinker v. Des Moines; United States Courts.Freedom of expression in the arts and entertainment; ACLU.

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Freedom of Speech - HISTORY

Federal law imposes criminal penalties on any person who "encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law." On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that asked whether that federal law should be struck down for restricting speech that is protected by the First Amendment.

The case is United States v. Sineneng-Smith. Evelyn Sineneng-Smith, the operator of an immigration consulting firm in San Jose, California, was convicted in 2010 on several counts of illegal "encouragement." Her lawyer, Mark Fleming, told the justices that the federal law itself should be wiped from the books.

"This is a statute that uses very broad words. It uses them in the context in which all they can do is ban free speech," Fleming argued. "The result is that vast amounts of truthful and accurate and heartfelt speech that's in no way related and much less integral to any actual crime is subject to five years in federal prison. I would submit that the First Amendment is wisely designed to protect us from just this kind of law."

Several justices seemed potentially open to the merits of that argument.

"What about a charity?" Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin. "A charity provides food to someone who's in the country unlawfullyit's designed to provide food for people who can't get it elsewhere and they know that the people taking advantage of that are here unlawfully?"

Feigin conceded that such a charity might find itself on the receiving end of unwanted federal attention. "To the extent that a charity were doing something that violated the plain terms of the statute," Feigin answered, "that amounted to givingeffectively giving money to people toor something that is the equivalent of money to people with the purpose that those people reside in the United States unlawfully, that might violate the statute."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a point similar to Kavanaugh's. "I read 'encourage or induce an alien to come, enter, or reside in the U.S., knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law,'" Sotomayor told the deputy solicitor general, and it "seems to me" that all sorts of constitutionally protected speech and activity would be in trouble. "The hospital that's treatingan illegally present child with a disease, the church who provides worship to illegal aliens," both of these real-world examples, Sotomayor pointed out, "would be a violation of the statute."

Justice Neil Gorsuch raised another First Amendment concern with the government lawyer. "What do we do about the fact that most applications, maybe not all, but most applications here of the underlying conduct would be civilly punished?" Gorsuch asked. "And here you wish to criminally punish the speech."

In other words, while it is merely a civil offense to be unlawfully present in the United States, the federal law at issue makes it a criminal offense to encourage or induce such unlawful presence. "I could be reckless in my speech in encouraging somebody [to remain in the country illegally] and wind up a federal criminal even though the underlying violation is merely civil. Isis that the gist of the government's position here?" Gorsuch demanded. "Normally, in the criminal law," Gorsuch observed, we "don't allow punishment for speech greater than the underlying conduct itself. That would seem to be a basic First Amendment value."

A decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith is expected by June.

Excerpt from:
Supreme Court Weighs Free Speech and the Right to Encourage Illegal Immigration - Reason

How does the First Amendment right to free speech apply to speakers who have been invited by student groups to speak on campus?

As a public institution of higher education, NC State is committed to fostering free speech and the open debate of ideas. NC State is prohibited from banning or punishing an invited speaker based on the content or viewpoint of his or her speech. University policy permits student groups to invite speakers to campus, and the university provides access to certain campus venues for that purpose. NC State cannot take away that right or withdraw those resources based on the views of the invited speaker. Only under extraordinary circumstances, as described on this page, can an event featuring an invited speaker be canceled.

Once a student group has invited a speaker to campus, NC State will act reasonably to ensure that the speaker is able to safely and effectively address his or her audience, free from violence or disruption.

Although NC State cannot restrict or cancel the speech based on the content or viewpoint of the speech, the university is allowed to place certain content- and viewpoint-neutral limits on how the speech can take place. These limits can be based on the time, place and manner of the speech.

What are time, place and manner restrictions?

Courts have long recognized that public educational institutions have the right to impose certain restrictions on the use of their campuses for free-speech purposes. Content- and viewpoint-neutral restrictions on the times and modes of communication, often referred to as time-place-manner restrictions, are common features universities implement to ensure that they can continue to fulfill their mission while allowing free expression to occur. Simply put, this means that the when, where and how of free-speech activity may be reasonably regulated if such regulation (1) is scrupulously neutral (in other words, it must apply to all speech, no matter how favored or disfavored) and (2) leaves ample opportunity for speech in alternative areas or forums. The right to speak on campus is not a right to speak at any time, at any place and in any manner that a person wishes. The university can regulate where, when and how speech occurs to ensure the functioning of the campus and to achieve important goals, such as protecting public safety.

Examples of acceptable time-place-manner restrictions include permit requirements for outside speakers, notice periods, sponsorship requirements for outside speakers, limiting the duration and frequency of the speech and restricting speech during final-exam periods.

The need to consider time, place and manner regulations is the reason the university requires students to work with the administration when setting up certain events, as opposed to students scheduling and creating the events on their own without university input.

Can NC State cancel a student-sponsored event if the administration or the campus community disagrees with the speakers views?

No, NC State is prohibited from canceling an event based on the viewpoint of the speaker.

If it is known that an event with a speaker may lead to physical violence, is that legal grounds for the university to cancel the event?

In general, NC State cannot prevent speech on the grounds that it is likely to provoke a hostile response. Stopping speech before it occurs due to the potential reaction to the speech is often referred to by courts as the hecklers veto and is a form of prior restraint. Prior restraints of speech are almost never allowed.

The university is required to do what it can to protect speakers and prevent disruption or violence. Although the university is committed to fulfilling these obligations, if despite all efforts by the university there is a serious threat to public safety and no other alternative, an event can be canceled. NC States primary concern is to protect the safety of its students, faculty and staff. NC States Police Department makes security assessments with input from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

How does NC State respond to hate speech?

NC State is dedicated to fostering free speech in an environment where members of our community can learn from one another and where all are treated with dignity and respect. The university vigorously opposes and denounces all forms of hateful speech. The university encourages faculty, staff and students to use their free-speech rights, consistent with federal and state laws, to condemn hateful speech and to help create opportunities for the campus community to understand and learn from these actions. Students who encounter hurtful or offensive speech are encouraged to reach out to university administrators, including the Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity (OIED), or to make a report to the universitys Bias Impact Response Team (BIRT). More information about responding to acts of intolerance may be found at the OIED and BIRT websites.

How does NC State ensure the safety of the campus community in light of freedom of speech?

NC State balances its commitment to free speech with a commitment to safety. Individuals who threaten or commit acts of violence or other violations of law may be subject to arrest and prosecution by law enforcement, as well as disciplinary sanctions imposed by the university.

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Free Speech | NC State University

The UK government recently announced a new plan to regulate social media companies such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The proposals give the governments media regulator, Ofcom, extensive powers to tell tech giants what speech they must suppress and to punish them if they dont.

These proposals seem long overdue. Just consider the case of YouTube. Once celebrated for its videos of wedding engagements, graduation speeches and cute cats, its darker corners have been used to display televised beheadings, white supremacist rallies and terrorist incitement. Facebook and Twitter have been similarly abused for nefarious ends.

Surely, the argument goes, it is fitting and proper to hold profiteering social media firms partly accountable for the harms caused by the content they platform. Simply relying on these firms to self-regulate is not enough.

But unless the governments proposals are dramatically revised, they pose a significant risk to two fundamental political values: freedom of speech and democracy.

Start with the risks to free speech. The current proposal stems from an Online Harms White Paper published in April 2019, which unhelpfully outlines two kinds of speech to be regulated: harms with a clear definition and harms with a less clear definition.

The former category focuses on speech that is mostly already illegal offline and online. So, for example, extreme pornography (for example, videos depicting rape) and speech which incites terrorism fall into this category. Yet the second category is nebulous precisely because it concerns speech that is mostly already legal such as so-called trolling, disinformation and other extremist content (though the white paper offers few examples).

Under the proposal, social media companies will be tasked with a duty of care requiring it to restrict the distribution of both kinds of content with Ofcom to serve as judge, jury and executioner.

It is the second, more nebulous category that should trouble the defenders of free speech. If it is perfectly legal to post certain speech online if there is good reason to permit citizens to engage in, and access, certain expression without fear of penalty why should such speech then be subject to suppression (whether in the form of outright censorship or reduced dissemination)?

There may be rare cases in which an asymmetry can be justified for example, we wouldnt want to punish troubled teenagers posting videos of their own self-harm, even though we would want to limit the circulation of these videos. But with respect to content propounded by accountable adults the majority of the speech at issue here symmetry should be the norm.

If certain speech is rightly protected by the law if we have decided that adults should be free to express and access it we cannot then demand that social media companies suppress it. Otherwise we are simply restricting free speech through the backdoor.

For example, take the category of extremist content content judged to be harmful despite it being legal. Suppose Ofcom were to follow the definition used in the governments Prevent strategy, whereby speech critical of British values such as democracy counts as extremist. Would social media companies be violating their duty of care, then, if they failed to limit distribution of philosophical arguments challenging the wisdom of democratic rule? We would hope not. But based on what we know now, its simply up to Ofcom to decide.

Recent reporting suggests that, with regard to legal speech, the final proposal may simply insist that social media companies enforce their own terms and conditions. But this passes the hard choices to the private companies, and indeed simply incentivises them to write extremely lax terms.

This leads to my final concern, with democracy. As a society, we have hard choices to make about the limits of freedom of expression. There is reasonable disagreement about this issue, with different democracies taking different stands. Hate speech, for example, is illegal in Britain but broadly legal in the US. Likewise, speech advocating terrorism is a crime in Britain, but is legal in the US so long as it doesnt pose a high risk of causing imminent violence.

It is instructive that these decisions have been made in the US by its Supreme Court, which gets the final say on what counts as protected speech. But in Britain, the rules are different: the legislature, not the judiciary, decides.

The decision to restrict harmful expression requires us to judge what speech is of sufficiently low value to society that its suppression is acceptable. It requires a moral judgement that must carry legitimacy for all over whom it is enforced. This is a job for democracy. It is not a job for Ofcom. If the UK decides that some speech that is presently legal is sufficiently harmful that the power of the state should be used to suppress it, parliament must specify with precision what exactly this comprises, rather than leaving it to be worked out later by Ofcom regulators.

Parliament could do this, most obviously, by enacting criminal statutes banning whatever speech it desires Ofcom to suppress (incorporating the relevant loopholes to protect children and other vulnerable speakers from prosecution). On this model, social media companies would be tasked with suppressing precisely specified speech that is independently illegal, and no more. If the government is not prepared to criminalise certain speech, then it should not be prepared to punish social media companies for giving it a platform.

The government is right to hold social media firms accountable. A duty of care model could still work. But to protect free speech, and ensure that decisions of the greatest consequence have legitimacy, the fundamental rules about what speech may be suppressed must be clearly specified, and authorised, by the people. Thats what parliament is for.

Original post:
Free speech in the UK: it's the business of parliament, not Ofcom, to judge what is ok to publish - The Conversation UK

The beautiful thing about the mad reaction to Toby Youngs Free Speech Union (FSU) is that it proves why the union is so necessary. No sooner had Young unveiled his censorship-busting union than the illiberal liberals were out in force to mock it and ridicule it and to insist that, actually, there is no free-speech crisis in the UK. Its a right-wing myth, they claim. There is no widespread censorship. People arent being shipped off to gulags for expressing an opinion. Apparently, the free-speech grift God, I hate the word grift is just a bunch of pale, male and stale blokes pissed off that they can no longer say the N-word or talk openly about womens boobs. Freedom of speech is not under threat, the Young-bashers claim, and anyone who says it is is probably just an Islamophobe, transphobe or some other breed of phobe itching to spout bile with no consequences.

This rank denialism, this blinkered insistence that free speech is not in danger in 21st-century Britain, is exactly why we need the FSU and as broad a discussion as possible about the importance of the liberty to express oneself. Because the fact that so many inhabitants of the chattering-class bubble cant even see that free speech is dying right now confirms how naturalised and uncontroversial the new censorship has become. They dont even see it as censorship. They see it as perfectly normal, and good, in fact, that certain views cannot be expressed in public life or on social media. Thats how cavalier the new war on heretical opinion has become. At least in the past, from Torquemada to the McCarthyites, authoritarians were honest about being censors. Todays self-elected moral guardians of correct opinion are so hubristic, so taken with their own mortal rectitude, that they dont even see themselves as enemies of freedom, but rather as decent, unimpeachable maintainers of a natural intellectual order.

Things have come to such a pass that these people will literally seek to censor you in one breath and then express alarm at being called censors in the next breath. Hence the Guardian could publish a piece last week claiming that the idea that there is a culture of censorship in British universities is a right-wing myth while simultaneously defending censorship on campus. In an act of extraordinary moral contortionism, Evan Smith mocked the idea that there is a free-speech crisis at British universities and then, without missing a beat, he defended the policy of No Platform and the creation of safe spaces because the university cannot be a place where racism and fascism as well as sexism, homophobia and transphobia are allowed to be expressed. The Orwellianism is staggering. There is no censorship on campus. Except the censorship I approve of. Which is not really censorship. That is what is being said here. The intellectual dishonesty is almost impressive.

This Orwellian denialism of the existence of censorship by people who actually support and enact censorship cuts to the heart of the free-speech crisis in the UK. The reason the illiberal liberals and woke McCarthyites and Twittermobs dont consider themselves to be censors even as they gleefully agitate for the censorship of feminists, secularists worried about Islamist extremism, and right-wing people opposed to mass immigration is because they have convinced themselves that certain forms of speech are not free speech. That certain beliefs should not be afforded the liberty of expression. You hear it in their telling, baleful mantra that Hate speech is not free speech. And if hate speech is not free speech, but rather some kind of toxin, a pox on public life, then crushing it is not censorship. It is more like an act of public health: cleansing the public realm of diseased thoughts that are liable to harm certain groups. These people see themselves not as censors, but as public-health activists delousing the community of germs spread by evil men and women.

This is why they balk and protest when the words free speech are used against them. They detest the idea that they are enemies of liberty. But of course that is precisely what they are. Just consider that nonsensical chant Hate speech is not free speech. There are two profound moral problems with this idiotic tautology. The first is that, actually, even genuinely hateful speech, including racist gibberish and misogynistic blather, should be free speech. By its very definition freedom of speech should extend to all speech, even speech we detest. And secondly, hate speech has become a slippery, amorphous category that now covers not only foul old nonsense like Holocaust denial, but also trans-sceptical feminism, criticism of Islam, opposition to mass immigration, and so on. Hate speech really means thoughtcrime. It is an utterly ideological category used by the cultural and intellectual elites to demonise and censor ideas, beliefs and moral convictions they disapprove of. The war on hate speech is the new war on heresy, on free-thinking, on minority opinion, on challenging beliefs. It is blatant censorship.

The illiberal liberals conflation of genuine hatred with moral opinion, all of which then gets cynically collapsed under the name of hate speech, was beautifully captured in an exchange on the BBCs Politics Live yesterday. Pushing back against the FSUs Inaya Folarin Iman, Baroness Kennedy arrogantly predicted that the FSU would be embraced by racists people who hate homosexuals, who hate trans people, [and] people who have hostile views towards Islam. Hold on. One of these things is not like the others. What is wrong with having hostile views on Islam? Is hostility towards a powerful world religion now a form of hate speech? Yes, it is. Kennedys conflation of criticism of Islam with racism and homophobia perfectly encapsulated the way in which hate speech is now used to police not only genuinely hateful ideas, but also blasphemy against religious ideas. Even that key freedom human beings fought so hard for the right to mock gods and prophets and religious ideology is now threatened by the censorious ideology of hate speech.

The cynical category of hate speech is openly used to police the parameters of acceptable thought and to punish those who are considered to hold heretical views that the guardians of moral correctness oppose. So not only are critics of Islam denounced as hate speakers so are feminists who question the cult of transgenderism, Christians who disapprove of same-sex marriage, right-wing people who want stricter immigration controls, etc. These are all entirely legitimate political or moral opinions. The branding of them as hate speech and therefore undeserving of the protections of freedom of speech is really a way of calling these views heresy. And of course heretics must be cast out. Feminists, Catholics, critics of Islam hound them off campus, get them off the airwaves, report them to the police for their crimes of hatred. This is an intolerant assault on heresy of the kind that has appeared many times throughout history. Those who say It isnt censorship protest far too much. Deep down they know it is. Deep down they know they are to the 2020s what Joe McCarthy was to the 1950s.

And what has been wrought by their rebranding of moral opinion as hatred? A new and vast system of censure, speech control, and intolerance. No free-speech crisis in the UK? This is now a country in which the police will visit you if you question transgenderism on the internet. In which Scottish police have created a database of people who make un-PC jokes online. In which feminist academics who believe in biological sex need security guards on campus. In which nine people a day are arrested for things they say online. In which you can be sacked from your job for taking the piss out of Islam in your own time. In which university after university has a policy outlawing transphobia or Islamophobia, severely limiting the expression of feminist and secuarlist ideas. In which the state, corporations and intolerant mobs the dire troika of the new intolerance enforce increasingly strict rules on what we can and cannot say.

It is essential we dont buy the myth that this new censorship is about protecting minorities. Leaving aside the extraordinary paternalism contained in the idea that minority groups require self-elected moral authoritarians to save them from offence, the far more important truth is that this new censorship is about guarding a new political order from heretical dissent. It is about ringfencing the ideology of multiculturalism, the ideology of genderfluidity and the ideology of political correctness from the pesky questions and barbs of dissenting thinkers. These are the new ideologies of the ruling class. These ideologies increasingly govern social life, the educational sphere, and the workplace. The phoney defenders of minorities are really defending new power structures and ideological orthodoxies from public questioning.

The FSU is a very good thing. We need more individuals and groups who are willing to defend freedom of speech and the rights of heresy. It is worth recalling the wisdom of Robert G Ingersoll, the 19th-century American political orator, Civil War veteran and, in his words, American infidel. He argued that progress is impossible without heresy, without the freedom to blaspheme against religion and to question political power and moral orthodoxy. Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress. Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought. Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.

Good on Toby Young for widening the space for heresy, for seeking to defend the rights of heretics (today defamed as hate speakers). Because heresy is essential to progress, freedom of speech is essential to democracy, and liberty of thought is essential to the good life. Society always, but always, benefits from the free, unfettered expression of ideas.

Brendan ONeill is editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan ONeill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy

Picture by: YouTube.

To enquire about republishing spikeds content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.

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Why we must win the fight for free speech - Spiked

Former NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat for the national anthem for the first time in August 2016. It took a few months for any outrage to begin, but once people noticed it, the outrage started pouring in against him and the NFL. It sparked a debate around racial injustice in the United States and whether kneeling during the national anthem is an acceptable form of protest.

What Kaeprnick was kneeling for is an important issue in itself. Set aside whether he should be able to kneel, his reasons for doing so represent ideas that need to be discussed relating to police prejudice against minorities in many areas of the country.

These issues are vitally important to be able to openly debate, but in this piece, I want to talk directly about the act of his kneeling in protest and why it is absurd to suggest anyone does not have the right to protest in such a way.

Kneeling during the national anthem is, by definition, a peaceful protest. No violence is being incited, no one is put in harms way and the person kneeling is able to make clear they disagree with an injustice in the United States.

Despite this fact, many people still feel even this peaceful form of protest should not be allowed, as it disrespects the people who have died fighting for this country. But even if that is true, it is completely irrelevant. Free speech is still free, whether it offends you or not. As long as it is not directly inciting violence, such as if someone in an angry mob of people yelled lets go flip a police car, it is legal and allowed under the First Amendment.

There is also precedent for this. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that it is illegal to prohibit the burning of an American flag, as such an act is considered to be protected free speech. So, theoretically, Colin Kaepernick could kneel for the national anthem while dragging an American flag across the ground with one hand and holding a lighter in the other trying to set it on fire, and legally he is perfectly justified and you cannot stop him unless it poses a physical danger to anyone.

Now all this does not mean you are unjustified in being offended. In fact, if the scenario I mentioned of Kaepernick aggressively burning the flag during the national anthem were real, I may be quite offended myself. But I wouldnt be able to do anything about it, because he can protest in whatever manner he desires as long as he is not harming anyone.

Kaepernick said it well himself in a statement to the media in August 2017: I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. Thats not happening. People are dying in vain because this country isnt holding their end of the bargain up, as far as giving freedom and justice, liberty to everybody.

Whether you agree with his form of protest, or whether or not you believe there is injustice in our police force and our country, and even if you feel highly offended and feel he is disrespecting every man and woman who has died for this country, he is allowed to exercise his freedom of speech by kneeling and you have no right to stop him.

What disturbs me most is that we seem to have forgotten Kaepernicks whole story and are somehow still debating the legality of his kneeling. Conservatives like President Trump seem to use this example as proof liberals are unpatriotic and hate the United States. But in reality, this form of protest shows liberals love this country enough to want it to change for the better, and wont settle for what we have now, which is a system that unjustly oppresses many minority populations both socially and economically. The protest is an acknowledgement that our country can still do better for the people it forgets.

What will the United States become if we start being forced by the state to stand while our anthem plays? How has kneeling against injustice become equated to treason?

The story of Kaeprnicks protest needs to be remembered, both as an example of free speech being exercised despite outrage, and as a reminder that not everyone in the United States enjoys the freedom from injustice some of us take for granted.

Patrick Doyle is a freshman studying journalism and political science. Follow him @PatrickDoyle100.

Continued here:
Kaepernick's protest is a utilization of free speech - Daily Aztec

I could not ignore the hypocrisy of Northwestern University College Republicans (NUCR) Vice President Dominic Bayers comments in a February 19 story Northwestern community shares perspectives on free speech ahead of the 2020 election. Bayer is quoted in the story as saying, I do believe its appropriate to have protests outside the buildings or take advantage of the Q&A section during events to express disagreement with a speaker.

However, in November, when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at a NUCR event, ushers distributed index cards before the event and encouraged audience members to write questions for the speaker. I and many others submitted questions. Bayer prohibited the audience from taking advantage of the Q&A section by visibly and vigorously shuffling through the many notecards submitted by angry onlookers to lob softball question after softball question to Sessions. He was the only one who asked questions.

Bayers hypocrisy is emblematic of NUCRs behavior. Its one thing to invite a sexist, racist, homophobic and xenophobic man to our campus under the guise of free speech. Its another to promise a question and answer section before cherry-picking questions and refusing to allow a portion of the audience the ability to question the speaker.

Free speech is a two-way street. The speaker can say what they wish to, but listeners should be given the chance to respond. Thats dialogue which is what I assume NUCR, which loves to praise unfettered free speech, was looking to facilitate. Its not what they got.

Sessions wasnt asked about the kids who died in cages under U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody under his watch. He wasnt asked about his support for banning certain Muslims from immigrating to the United States. He wasnt asked about the time he was denied a federal judgeship for being too racist. He wasnt asked about his long history of support for mass incarceration. Its naive to think Northwestern students didnt plaster questions on those issues all over the notecards.

When Sessions was asked about LGBTQ+ policy under the Trump administration, he said the administration did not roll back any protections. Thats a lie. Bayer did not correct or challenge Sessions on this falsehood.

This wasnt free speech; it was a carefully orchestrated echo chamber serving NUCR and the man at the lectern. Bayers words are out of line with his actions and the actions of his organization. In the future, NUCR and Bayer should stand by their public statements and let students question speakers.

After all, a grown man should be able to defend his ideas in front of a bunch of college students.

Jacob Jordan, SESP junior

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Letter to the Editor: NUCR is hypocritical on free speech - Daily Northwestern

This is preposterous and illogical. Trans people make an effort to pass as the gender they identify as, so forcing a trans man who is on testosterone and had top surgery into the women's restroomor a trans woman who is on estrogen into the men's restroom makes no sense. Even with her harmful views about trans people,I still think throwing drinksand swearing at her is unjustified.

I dont getBennetts whole shtick. Bennett, who rose to fame as The Gun Girl, first gained traction at Kent State University, walking around with a gunwith police for backup. A recent graduate, her activisms emphasis was to protest the campusrulewhichprohibitsstudents from open-carrying. Now, Ifor one, am definitely someone for SecondAmendmentrights.However, asking police from the same district as those who historically murdered students makes no sense to me. The police force at Kent State University may be comprised of different people than in 1970, but it doesnt erase history.

Her methodology is also abrasive.

Do you guys think we should abolish the death penalty? Bennet asked while dressed as her alter-ego, Jenna, at the Womens March in January.

The woman she was interviewing responded, saying she believe[s] in the death penalty, actually, to which Bennett countered, Is that why youre pro-choice?

Now, regardless of what your views are on either abortion orthe death penalty, you can agree this framing is incredibly disrespectful. It doesnt give the interviewee the benefit of the doubt and automatically assumes she gravitates towards policies which support murder. Of course, there are other reasons for being both pro-choice and pro-death penalty, most of which dont support a consistent murder ethic. What Bennett is doing aims just to get a rise out of people, not to have a calm, level-headed discussion. If she wanted to have a level-headed discussion, she wouldnt paint her political opponent as a murderer.

Even so, despite Bennetts apparentlack of disrespect for people she disagrees with, the borderline violent behavior of students at Ohio University was uncalled for, and the police should have intervened. There is a difference between a heated debate and splashing someone with hot beverages while behaving in a manner that could be determined as a precursor to violence.

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I disagree with Kaitlin Bennet but I will protect her free speech - UConn Daily Campus

Liam Al-HindiCONTRIBUTOR

If I were to name the biggest accomplishment of the 21st century, it would be that we as a species have created so many new and powerful ways of communicating. I dont call it a gift or a privilege. I call the internet the natural evolution of our basic human right to express ourselves. We dont just have technology to thank for that: We also live in a country founded on the right to say what we mean without legal repercussions, the right to free speech. But this has also inevitably led to what I would call abuses of this freedom.

I think people are well-acquainted with their rights, but not well-acquainted with their responsibilities, said Hugh Reilly, director of the UNO School of Communication. The responsibilities are accuracy and the willingness to tolerate other points of view. I think its our responsibility [as a society] to be well-informed.

No one can conceivably spend even an hour on the internet and not come across an opinion that they oppose. This is how progress is made: An individual expresses an idea, the opposition voices their side and discourse ensues. But it is nave to expect this model. We, as a culture, have grown used to good and bad ideas getting equal exposure on the same platform. Because we see both sides in the same space, we assume that they both must have equal merit. But in my experience, this is far from the truth.

Everyone reading this can come up with plenty of benign examples that they have experienced. Maybe its within something related to popular culture, or entertainment, or art, where a dichotomy forms in the comment section of a movie review, and the battle lines are drawn. This exercise of free speech is, of course, without any real stakes. But things change when its no longer about whether or not The Last Jedi was good and is instead about medical decisions for newborns. I wont get into the specifics of Jenny McCarthy and her fear mongering campaign, but I do want to cite the effects. McCarthy is a widely known advocate for the anti-vaccination movement, which convinces parents that a dead child is better than an autistic one. Just last year, the United Nations Foundation named Vaccine Hesitancy a global threat. They cited a Center for Disease Control and Prevention tally that determined a quadrupling of unvaccinated children since 2001. Because Jenny McCarthy was given the same platform and arguably more exposure than actual medical professionals, the waters have been muddied.

There are people that are gonna want to believe that, Reilly said. Eventually she was discredited but the damage was done.

That is the true cost of free speech. A damn high price, Reilly said. The target [for persuasion] is the people in the middle that can have their mind changed one way or the other.

It is among those people in the middle that the damage is done. I am a Muslim, an Arab and the son of an immigrant, so when I see people online advocating for a mass deportation of Muslims, and the searching and seizing of people at our borders, I fear not for the opinions of the opposition, but for the opinions of those who still havent decided. Free speech is used not only as a tool to share ones opinion, but as a weapon to make people like me afraid. By no means do I want to restrict free speech. Conversely, I am asking those of you who share my fear to use your free speech. I see far more hate on the internet, taped to walls and handed out at booths than I do opposition to that hate.

The advantages are all to the people on the side of misinformation, Reilly said. This is unwaveringly true.

This is an opinion piece, and it is my opinion that the people with hateful, harmful and toxic ideas are far more vocal than those without. So, get vocal. Ignoring the opposition doesnt cut it the opposition has their platform.

Reilly said, Try to consider the other persons point of view, and I agree. Consider the oppositions point of view, so that we can fight it. As Reilly also said, we must use free speech to liberate and to inform.

Hateful people are using their free speech now its our turn.

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