Category Archives: Free Speech

Counterprotesters during Saturdays march from Roxbury to Boston Common.

Boston Common was the scene of two rallies Saturday. One was joyous and boisterous, the other minuscule and impotent. One triumphed, one fizzled.

There was supposed to be a free speech rally at which self-described libertarians were supposed to make some kind of statement about their rights, with the help of a few speakers from the far right. It started late, ended early, and its headliners were fortunate to make it out of the area unscathed.

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The so-called counterprotest was the days true main event a resounding display of unity and harmony.

The crowd for the counterprotest began gathering early in Roxbury. By the time they began marching from Malcolm X Boulevard to the Common, the crowd was an estimated 15,000 strong, far larger than anticipated. It was a mix of Black Lives Matter activists, suburban Womens March veterans, organized labor stalwarts, and regular citizens intent on refusing to let intolerance carry the day. There was a visible, through unobtrusive, police presence, bolstered by a significant cadre of undercover officers and a SWAT team.

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As the crowd grew, Superintendent in Chief Willie Gross of the Boston Police Department worked the crowd. He thanked marcher after marcher, individually, for coming out to make their voices heard. He complimented people on their creative signs. He took dozens of pictures with marchers who looked relieved to discover that the police werent there to give them a hard time.

This is how we do it in Boston, he said. We exercise our right to free speech, but we do it peacefully. If anyone starts anything [at the Common] well get them right out.

Gross was also monitoring events around town by radio. And something unexpected was happening or not happening downtown: right-wing troublemakers, who so many feared would trigger violence, were barely showing up.

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By the time, the counterprotesters, fortified by a brass band, began their march down Columbus Avenue, the it was clear that the other side was likely to be drowned out.

After the counterprotesters were on their way, Gross stopped into the command center at Boston Police headquarters. There, a group of officers from agencies across the area watched both the Common and the counterprotesters on a bank of television monitors. Commissioner William Evans was in charge.

To my surprise, Governor Charlie Baker was there too. True to form, he was immersed in the details. He said he was there because hed been nervous. But by early afternoon, everyone in the room was breathing a tentative sigh of relief. As planned, the protesters and counterprotesters were far enough apart to have little opportunity for direct confrontation. The major concern of the free speech group seemed to be getting out of the area.

One of them was followed down Charles Street South by a group of counterprotesters chanting Shame! as police led him away. Others, on the Tremont Street side, were taken out by police in riot gear. A small number were held voluntarily, police said in a building on Boylston Street across from the Common, until after the crowd thinned out.

In effect, the free speech rally became a giant peace rally. The were a few tense encounters between police and demonstrators, but nothing out of the ordinary for an event like this.

To be smug about that would be silly. Theres doesnt seem to be much doubt, in this unstable time, that those who harbor bigotry and hate feel more free to express, and act on, those feelings than they have in years. Theres no question that a president who cannot bring himself to condemn evil has emboldened it.

But Boston resisted, emphatically. Thats no small thing.

Toward the end of the day, Gross stared over at an empty Boston Common bandstand, abandoned ahead of schedule by the free speech provocateurs.

I wont say they were driven out, but they decided to leave, Gross said. I think they were influenced by love. They couldnt stand any more.

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As a 'free speech' rally fizzled, a march for unity triumphed - The Boston Globe

Boston police said 27 people were arrested during day-long demonstrations to protest hate speech a week after a woman was killed at a Virginia white supremacist rally. (Reuters)

BOSTON Tens of thousands of counterprotesters crammed Boston Common and marched through city streets Saturday morning in efforts to drown out the planned free speech rally that many feared would be attended by white-supremacist groups.

By 1 p.m., the handful of rally attendees had left the Boston Common pavillion, concluding their event without planned speeches. A victorious cheer went up among the counterprotesters, as many began to leave. Hundreds of othersdancedin circles andsang, Hey hey, ho ho. White supremacy has got to go.

City officials said that at least 40,000 people participated in the counter protest, 20,000 of whom participated in a march across town.Tensions flared as police escorted some rally attendees out of the Common, prompting several physical altercations between police and counterprotesters.

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said there were 27 arrests, primarily for disorderly conduct. He said no officers or protesters were injured and there was no property damage. Evans added that three individuals were wearing ballistics vests, one of whom was later found to be armed. It is unclear if those three are among the arrests.

Evans said there were three groups of people in attendance: attendees of the free speech rally, counter protesters, and a small group of people who showed up to cause trouble.

Overall everyone did a good job, Evans said. 99.9 percent of people were here for the right reason, and thats to fight bigotry.

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh met up with the counterprotesters at themarch.

I think its clear today that Boston stood for peace and love, not bigotry and hate, he said.

[Donald Trump brought me here today: Counterprotesters rout neo-Nazi rally in Berlin]

President Donald Trump praised law enforcement and Mayor Marty Walsh via tweet Saturday afternoon for their handling of the crowds, saying that there appeared to be many anti-police agitators in Boston. More than an hour later, he tweeted support for protesters.

The showdown between right-wing ralliers and the far larger group of counterprotesters in the heart of downtown Boston comes just one week after a chaotic gathering of far-right political groups including neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan members left dozens injured and one woman dead in Charlottesville aftera reported neo-Naziallegedly plowed his carinto a crowd of counterprotesters.

In anticipation of potential violence, city officials corralled more than 500 police officers onto the Common, installed security cameras and constructed elaborate barriers to separate the free-speech rally from the massive demonstration in opposition to it. The handful of rally attendees gathered beneath a pavilion near the center of the Common, surrounded by metal barriers and dozens of police. Several hundred feet away, thousands of counterprotesters surrounding them carrying signs declaring Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home In Boston, while mockingly chanting we cant hear you when it appeared the ralliers had begun to speak.

One moment of tension came when rally attendees ventured outside of the barriersand were promptly confronted by counterprotesters. One man, draped in a Donald Trump flag, was immediately surrounded by media, while demonstrators chanted at him to go home.

[Shame!: Part of Bostons protest looked eerily like a scene from Game of Thrones]

One rally attendee, Luke St. Onge,a young man wearing a red Make America Great Again hat and GOP T-shirt, saidhe came even though he knew it might be attended by white-supremacist groups, whose views he said he does not agree with.

I definitely wouldnt associate myself with the KKK or any white supremacist. I dont stand with them at all, said St. Onge, who is from Las Vegas. I do support their right to an opinion, he added. Free speech is definitely something I stand for.

Plans for the Boston rally, which organizers said was not about white supremacy or Confederate monuments, were nearly scrapped following the violence in Charlottesville. Several speakerspulled out of or were uninvited from the event, but John Medlar, a Boston-area college student and the rallys lead organizer, said that the rally would go on.

Among those who were scheduled to speak were Joe Biggs, formerly a writer for the conspiracy-theory website Infowars, and Kyle Chapman, a far-right activistcharged with beating counterdemonstratorswith a wooden pole during a clash at the University of California in Berkeley earlier this year, though it is unclear if either man attended. Members of the KKKtold the Boston Heraldthat they expected several of the groups members to attend, but there was little, if any, visible KKK presence at the rally.

There have been questions about why we granted a permit for the rally, Walsh said on Friday. The courts have made it abundantly clear. They have the right to gather, no matter how repugnant their views are. But they dont have the right to create unsafe conditions. They have the right to free speech. In return, they have to respect our city.

Wewill not be offering our platform to racism or bigotry, organizers said in aFacebook postearlier this week. We denounce the politics of supremacy and violence.

Last weeks gathering in Virginia was ostensibly in protest of the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. In the days since, cities across the nation have announced the removal of dozens of Confederate monuments, sparking anew the long-heated debate over what, if anything, should be done with the hundreds of statutes, streets, and schoolhouses named after or in honor of those who fought to maintain slavery.

[Deconstructing the symbols and slogans spotted in Charlottesville]

Thousands of protesters are expected to attend rallies calling for the removal of Confederate monuments at cities across the country this weekend, including Dallas and New Orleans. Meanwhile, supporters of the Confederate monuments are also organizing, with a rally plannedin Hot Springs, Ark.

Organizers in Boston said todays gathering is not in solidarity with white nationalists, but few of those who attended the massive counterprotest believed them.Across town, thousands began gathering before 10 a.m. on Malcolm X Boulevard for a march to the Common.

Were not standing for it. Were not standing (for) white supremacy. Were not going to have it in our city, not in Boston, said Boston activist Monica Cannon, who was among those who organized the counterprotest. We want to send a clear message that you dont get to come to the city of Boston with your hatred.

Thousands of people demonstrated against a rally featuring right-wing political figures in downtown Boston on Aug. 19. (Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Rebecca Koskinen stood in front of her brick rowhouse on Tremont Street, awaiting the marchers, with her daughters Elle, 5, and Liv, 1. The older daughters sign read Im only five and even I know Black Lives Matter.

Koskinen said she and her husband, who are white, had taken the girls to the several other marches earlier this year and felt that it was important to show support for an event that was particularly important to people of color especially because Elle will soon start kindergarten at a private school that is less diverse than the South End neighborhood where they live.

Because shes not going to public school, it felt really important to me to talk about this with her and how different groups are treated, Koskinen said.

Joel Moran, a Boston resident who attended the march with his partner and a friend, said he was moved to have my voice heard against white supremacists, against people who think that, for some reason, they have more rights than other people have.

Moran said they were absolutely influenced to participate today after the tragedy in Charlottesville.

It wasnt even on my radar until last weekend, he said. After seeing that and having a very emotional and disturbing response to that, I feel like its basically my responsibility.

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Boston free speech rally ends early amid flood of ...

Last Saturday, my adopted home was invaded by a throng of white nationalistsmany heavily armed. They were opposed primarily by area residents, like myself. The results of that protestthe violence, injuries, and deathare by now well known.

I have called Charlottesville home for six years. When I got an offer to join the faculty of the University of Virginia Law School, I was hesitant to leave my native country, the Netherlands, to move to a small town in the American South. But I am glad I did; Charlottesville has been a wonderful place to live: a friendly, cosmopolitan, and welcoming college town.

As images of armed militias and others waving and wearing swastikas made their way across the globe, many of my European friends and family messaged me to ask why the government was allowing this to happen. After all, events would not have unfolded as they did if Charlottesville were in my native country, or for that matter, in any European country. Europeans reject and criminalize certain types of expression they define as hate speech. Much of the speech that we witnessed in Charlottesville would have qualified as such.

This trans-Atlantic difference is largely the product of Europes own history with Nazism. Many Europeans share complicated histories of Nazism that current generations are still grappling with. My own family history illustrates this.

On the eve of WWII, my working-class great-grandparents, like a large number of Dutch, joined the National Socialist Movement (NSB), a Nazi-aligned Dutch party. My family was poor, and joining the NSB improved my great-grandfathers prospects for getting a factory job. Those who knew them insist that anti-Semitism did not motivate their decision to join the party. Still, they gradually started to buy into the partys sinister ideology. After the war my great-grandparents were imprisoned for their NSB affiliation.

My grandfather made a different choice from his parents: during the German occupation he joined the Dutch resistance. He was soon arrested and sent to a labor camp in Germany. He escaped the camp and ended up between enemy lines, where German soldiers executed his travel companions but spared him because of his blond hair and blue eyes. A German mayor helped him after he escaped the labor camp. After the war, he traveled back from Russia to the Netherlands with a girl named Stella who had survived Auschwitz but died giving birth to her first child. These stories were revealed to us in bits and pieces. My grandfather was an amateur poet and prolific writer, but the memories remained raw and painful, and it took him six decades to finally tell his story in a (still unpublished) book.

One ordinary working-class family ended up on different sides of one of the worst atrocities in human history. Our family never overcame those divides.

After WWII, western Europeansand decades later joined by their eastern compatriotsbuilt one of the strongest human-rights systems in the world. Within the framework of the Council of Europe they adopted the European Convention of Human Rights, which would be enforced by both national courts and the newly established European Court of Human Rights. This system protects free speech to an extent. European free-speech doctrine is based on the idea that free speech is important but not absolute, and must be balanced against other important values, such as human dignity.

As a result, freedom of expression can be restricted proportionally when it serves to spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international human rights treaty, reflects similar principles. This balancing of free speech against other values led Germany to ban parties with Nazi ideologies and recently, to prosecute Chinese tourists who performed a Hitler salute in front of the Reichstag. It led France to outlaw the sale of Nazi paraphernalia on eBay, led Austria to jail a discredited historian who denies the holocaust, and caused the Netherlands to criminalize the selling of Mein Kampf. It is for this same reason that many Europeans could not believe the open display of swastika flags in Charlottesville.

Since WWII, the United States has taken a different tack, exceptional from a global perspective. American free-speech doctrine protects a panoply of viewpoints, even when they target ethnic or religious groups, cause deep offense, or are false by consensus. One underlying theory for doing so is that bad ideas will eventually lose out in a well-functioning marketplace. Some go so far as to argue that it is valuable in itself for a society to tolerate even the most extreme viewpoints. Hence, speech can almost never be restricted on the basis of viewpoint. Most famously, that approach protected the rights of neo-Nazis to march through heavily Jewish parts of Skokie in a 1977 Supreme Court case. It is the approach that allowed neo-Nazis and other white supremacists to demonstrate in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Americans are generally proud of their free speech tradition, and many argue that the European approach is unprincipled or ineffective. Why is denying the Holocaust forbidden, but depicting the prophet Muhammedwhich is blasphemous to many Muslimscondoned? Many of these lines reflect majority opinion and national experience rather than neutral principles. And policing speech can embolden those being censored. When the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders was convicted for inciting discrimination, he became even more popular among some groups.

Whatever its merits, the European position is rooted in its experiences that the free market of ideas can faildisastrously. Dangerous ideas can catch on quickly, especially when people holding power or influence endorse them. My great-grandparents were not like the protestors in Charlottesville last weekend; they were ordinary citizens who saw their economic lot improve and stayed silent because they benefited from, what some knew thenand nearly everyone knows nowwere toxic ideas.

America today is different from Europe in the 1940s. But Europes history raises the question: Can we count on the market of ideas to succeed? Is it possible for white supremacy and related ideologies to spread beyond the relatively small number of Unite-the-Right fanatics and their brethren? Some suggest that Donald Trumps election is one piece of evidence thats its already happened.

There are no easy answer to these questions. But I believe that in a system where government does not police vile ideas, as in the United States, a larger burden falls on ordinary citizens and other private actors. It is my (admittedly anecdotal) observation that, to some extent, Americans are already doing this. Americans who express objectionable views face harsher community judgement than Europeans who do so.

My American fiance has often expressed shock that the Dutch still commonly use the term neger (negro) although its usage is increasingly controversial. A team of all-black-faced helpers officially accompany the Dutch Santa before Christmas each year. And I have occasionally found myself surprised to learn that there are some things that I absolutely cannot say here, or that people can lose their jobs for what they say off-hours.

Americans long have been caught up in debates over whether there is too much political correctness. Though they are starting to emerge, there are many fewer such debates in Europe. To some extent that is understandable; when the government polices speech, ordinary citizens do not have to concern themselves with all the subtle ramifications of speech. What we may be seeing is a substitution effect: Ordinary citizens in the U.S. take it upon themselves to do what governments are doing elsewhere.

A minority of Americans believe that Donald Trump got elected in part because political correctness has gone too far. They believe that Trump is a healthy corrective in a society in which people are policing each other too much.

But the Charlottesville events, viewed through the lens of European history and its response in law, may teach us that we private citizens and residents in the U.S. need to work even harder to expose the rotten ideas being peddled in the marketplace. When leaders condone hate speech (as Trumps condemnation of both sides and his insistence that the alt-right protestors included some very fine people arguably did) and ordinary people acquiesce, the market can break down quickly. European history has shown this. In an unregulated marketplace of ideas, private citizens need to take up the burden of holding the line against racist extremism.

Kevin Cope, University of Virginia School of Law and Department of Politics, contributed to this article.

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What Europe Can Teach America About Free Speech - The Atlantic

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Boston rally touting free speech: Live updates CNN (CNN) Thousands of counterprotesters gathered Saturday in downtown Boston in response to a self-described free speech rally at Boston Common. The demonstrations come a week after protests over race and national identity in Charlottesville, Virginia, ...

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Boston rally touting free speech: Live updates - CNN

Photo Credit Hanna Barczyk

Even before violence erupted in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, city residents and the police anxiously watched the arrival of self-styled militias swaggering gangs of armed civilians in combat fatigues standing guard over the protest by white supremacists and other racist agitators against the removal of a Confederate statue.

Who were these men, counterprotesters asked as the riflemen took up watchful positions around the protest site. Police? National Guard? The Virginia National Guard had to send out an alert that its members wore a distinctive MP patch. This was so people could tell government-sanctioned protectors from unauthorized militias that have been posing as law-and-order squads at right-wing rallies.

In brandishing weapons in Charlottesville, the militiamen added an edge of intimidation to a protest that was ostensibly called as an exercise in free speech. By flaunting their right to bear arms, they made a stark statement in a looming public confrontation. You would have thought they were an army, noted Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, one of 45 states that allow the open carrying of rifles in public to some degree, most without a permit required.

The limits of that freedom are being increasingly tested by jury-rigged militias at demonstrations, public meetings and other political flash points around the nation. These strutting vigilantes have become such a threatening presence that government should rein them in to allow for a truly free exchange of ideas. State and federal laws would seem to allow their curtailment, provided that political leaders and the courts face up to the risks of mob rule.

No shots were fired in the Charlottesville violence, but with more alt-right rallies planned the danger that these militia members loaded weapons might be used increases. The armed groups mostly back up right-wing protests, although there was one militia in Charlottesville claiming to protect peaceful counterdemonstrators at a church. (The protest also drew antifa anti-fascist counterprotesters on the political left, ready to brawl with fists and sticks against those on the other side.)

Police officials have warned that gun-packing vigilantes only compound the risks in confrontations. Charlottesville officials, citing public safety, had sought to move the protest to a different site but were rebuffed in federal court. The American Civil Liberties Union defended the protesters free speech rights, though lawyers concede that the issue is becoming more complex as the potential for violence grows. Some critics think that the intrusive militias in Charlottesville could have contributed to the initial hesitation by the police to break up the violence.

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The Gunmen at 'Free Speech' Rallies - New York Times

August 19, 2017 11:53 PM

BERKELEY (KPIX) Conservative writer Milo Yiannapoulos was in the Bay Area Saturday talking about his plan to return to UC Berkeley.

Yiannapoulos says there will be a so-called Free Speech Week on campus. Its a four-day event on Sproul Plaza from September 24th to 27th.

About six months ago, Milo came to Cal to speak at the invitation of college Republicans, but riots broke out on campus prompting administrators to call off the talk on short notice.

He says the upcoming event will cover a wide ideological spectrum.

We are going to bring all the people that leftist campus censors hate the most, he said. But we are also sending invitations to liberals, too. We want debates on stage, we want battles of ideas. We want to really have a live demonstration of the value of classical liberalism, of an open marketplace of ideas.

He says he fully expects protests but is urging non-violence on all sides.

I want the violence to be verbal, and I want it to be on stage. And I want the audience to be comprised of people who dont agree, who come along not knowing what to expect, not knowing what they are going to see and hopefully some of them will have their minds changed. I hope they have their minds changed in my direction. Maybe the other guy will be better. Who knows?

Yiannopoulos says school officials have been cooperative so far and he hopes that continues.

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Conservative Provacateur Yiannopoulos Attending 'Free Speech ... - CBS San Francisco Bay Area

Student Council President Sarah Kenny poses for a portrait by her room on the Lawn of the University of Virginia campus, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va., a week after a white nationalist rally took place on campus. Kenny is among the students who have since posted signs on their rooms denouncing hatred. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Student Council President Sarah Kenny poses for a portrait by her room on the Lawn of the University of Virginia campus, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va., a week after a white nationalist rally took place on campus. Kenny is among the students who have since posted signs on their rooms denouncing hatred. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) When Carl Valentine dropped off his daughter at the University of Virginia, he had some important advice for the college freshman: Dont forget that you are a minority.

She has to be vigilant of that and be concerned about that, always know her surroundings, just be cautious, just be extremely cautious, said Valentine, 57, who is African-American. A retired military officer, he now works at the Defense Department.

As classes begin at colleges and universities across the country, some parents are questioning if their children will be safe on campus in the wake of last weekends violent white nationalist protest here. School administrators, meanwhile, are grappling with how to balance students physical safety with free speech.

Friday was move-in day at the University of Virginia, and students and their parents unloaded cars and carried suitcases, blankets, lamps, fans and other belongings into freshmen dormitories. Student volunteers, wearing orange university T-shirts, distributed water bottles and led freshmen on short tours of the university grounds.

But along with the usual moving-in scene, there were signs of the tragic events of last weekend, when white nationalists staged a nighttime march through campus holding torches and shouting racist slogans. Things got worse the following day, when a man said to harbor admiration for Nazis drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring 19 others.

Flags flew at half-staff outside the universitys Rotunda, and a nearby statue of founder Thomas Jefferson was stained with wax from a candlelight vigil by thousands of students and city residents in a bid to unite and heal. Some student dormitories had signs on doors reading, No Home for Hate Here.

In an address to students and families on Friday, UVA President Teresa Sullivan welcomed every person of every race, every gender, every national origin, every religious belief, every orientation and every other human variation. Afterward, parents asked university administrators tough questions about the gun policy on campus, white supremacists and the likelihood of similar violence in the future.

For Valentine, of Yorktown, Virginia, the unrest brought back painful memories of when, as a young boy, he couldnt enter government buildings or movie theaters through the front door because of racial discrimination. Weve come a long way, but still a long way to go for equality, he said.

His daughter Malia Valentine, an 18-year-old pre-med student, is more optimistic.

It was scary what happened, but I think that we as a community will stand together in unity and well be fine, she said.

Christopher Dodd, 18, said he was shocked by the violence and initially wondered if it would be safe at UVA.

Wow, I am going to be in this place, it looks like a war zone, Dodd, a cheerful redhead, remembered thinking. But I do think that we are going to be all right, there is nothing they can do to intimidate us. I am not going to let them control my time here.

Others feel less confident.

Weston Gobar, president of the Black Student Alliance at UVA, says hell warn incoming black students not to take their safety for granted. The message is to work through it and to recognize that the world isnt safe, that white supremacy is real, that we have to find ways to deal with that, he said.

Terry Hartle, president of the American Council on Education, said colleges are reassessing their safety procedures. The possibility of violence will now be seen as much more real than it was a week ago and every institution has to be much more careful.

Such work is already under way at UVA.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sullivan said the university will be revamping its emergency protocols, increasing the number of security officers patrolling the grounds and hiring an outside safety consultant.

This isnt a matter where we are going to spare expense, Sullivan said.

Hartle said some universities may end up making the uneasy decision to limit protests and rallies on campus and not to invite controversial speakers if they are likely to create protests. There is an overarching priority to protect the physical safety of students and the campus community, he said.

Student body presidents from over 120 schools in 34 states and Washington, D.C., signed a statement denouncing the Charlottesville violence and saying college campuses should be safe spaces free of violence and hate.

Jordan Jomsky, a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley, said his parents had advice he plans to follow: They told me to stay safe, and dont go to protests.

I wish people would just leave this place alone. Its become this epicenter. Were just here to study, said Jomsky, an 18-year-old from a Los Angeles suburb.

The school has become a target of far-right speakers and nationalist groups because of its reputation as a liberal bastion. In September, former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro is scheduled to speak on campus. Right-wing firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos has vowed to return for a Free Speech Week in response to violent protests that shut down his planned appearance last February.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ told incoming freshmen last week that Berkeleys Free Speech Movement in the 1960s was a product of liberals and conservatives working together to win the right to hold political protests on campus.

Particularly now, it is critical for the Berkeley community to protect this right; it is who we are, Christ said. That protection involves not just defending your right to speak, or the right of those you agree with, but also defending the right to speak by those you disagree with. Even of those whose views you find abhorrent.

We respond to hate speech with more speech, Christ said to loud applause.

At the same time, though, she said, theres also an obligation to keep the campus safe. We now know we have to have a far higher number of police officers ready, she said.

Concerns for safety are compounded for international students, many of whom have spent months reading headlines about the tense U.S. political situation and arrived wondering if their accents or the color of their skin will make them targets.

It was scary taking the risk of coming here, said Turkish international student Naz Dundar.

Dundar, 18, who considered going to university in Canada but felt relief after attending orientation at Berkeley. So far, no one hated me for being not American.

She plans to stay away from protests. Especially as a person of another race I dont want to get stoned, she said.

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Colleges grappling with balancing free speech, campus safety - wreg.com

It was 1934 and fascism was on the march not only in Europe but in America. People who admired Adolf Hitler, who had taken power in Germany, formed Nazi organizations in the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union, represented by lawyers who were Jewish, faced an existential question: Should the freedoms it stood for since its founding in 1920 apply even to racist groups that would like nothing more than to strip them away?

Ultimately, after much internal dissent, the ACLU decided: Yes, the principles were what mattered most. The ACLU would stand up for the free-speech rights of Nazis.

We do not choose our clients, the ACLUs board of directors wrote in an October 1934 pamphlet called Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis In America? Lawless authorities denying their rights choose them for us. To those who support suppressing propaganda they hate, we ask where do you draw the line?

Once again, the ACLU is wrestling with how to respond to a far-right movement in the U.S. whose rising visibility is prompting concerns from elected officials and activists.

In response to the deadly violence at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend, the ACLUs three California affiliates released a statement Wednesday declaring that white supremacist violence is not free speech.

The national organization said Thursday that it would not represent white supremacist groups that want to demonstrate with guns. That stance is a new interpretation of the ACLUs official position that reasonable gun regulation does not violate the 2nd Amendment.

Officials in Charlottesville had initially denied organizers of the Unite the Right rally a permit to hold the event at the site of a Robert E. Lee statue. But the ACLU filed a lawsuit defending protesters rights to gather there. The rally ended with one woman killed and dozens of people injured as neo-Nazis and other far-right groups that had come armed with shields, helmets and even guns clashed violently with counter-protesters.

Now, with more far-right events scheduled in California, the states ACLU affiliates are warning that there are limits to what they will defend.

We review each request for help on a case-by-case basis, but take the clear position that the 1st Amendment does not protect people who incite or engage in violence, said the statement, which was signed by the executive directors of the ACLU affiliates of Southern California, Northern California, and of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution, the statement continued. The 1st Amendment should never be used as a shield or sword to justify violence.

That statement drew some criticism from former ACLU board member Samuel Walker, a history professor at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, who supports the ACLUs historical stance on far-right groups. He called the remarks irresponsible.

How is the 1st Amendment being a shield for violence? he said. They need to be clear on that, and this statement is not clear.

Ahilan Arulanantham, the legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said it was not the organizations perspective on civil liberties that had changed, but the nature of the far-right groups themselves a willingness to come to events ready for violence.

The factual context here is shifting, given the extent to which the particular marches were seeing in this historical moment are armed, Arulanantham said.

For decades, the ACLU has defended the speech rights of far-right groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan on the principle that if those groups rights are not upheld, the government will try to restrict the free-speech rights of other groups as well.

Most famously, the ACLU successfully defended the rights of neo-Nazis to march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., in 1978, which was home to many Holocaust survivors.

But the ACLUs stance was costly. The groups membership and donations which had soared during the Nixon administration declined sharply after the Skokie case, with thousands of supporters abandoning the group. A left-wing civil liberties counterpart, the National Lawyers Guild, accused the ACLU of "poisonous evenhandedness.

The group has seen its membership and its donations soar under the Trump administration as left-leaning Americans embrace the organization as a bulwark against the administration.

But some emerging factions of the left do not share the ACLUs values on free speech and assembly. Surveys have shown that young people are more likely than older Americans to support a government ban on hate speech, which is constitutionally protected.

Leftists who call themselves anti-facists and in many cases endorse illegal violence, viewing it as a morally just tactic to prevent neo-Nazis from gathering publicly, have also seen their numbers grow since Trumps election, which was supported by far-right groups.

The ACLUs decision this month to file a 1st Amendment lawsuit on behalf of right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos whose rhetoric about immigrants and minorities has made him a target of violent protests prompted a high-profile ACLU attorney to publicly object.

Though his ability to speak is protected by the 1st Amendment, I don't believe in protecting principle for the sake of principle in all cases, wrote Chase Strangio, who stressed he was speaking in a private capacity. His actions have consequences for people that I care about and for me."

The outcry from the ACLUs California affiliates prompted the groups national leader, Anthony D. Romero, to respond with a statement of his own.

We agree with every word in the statement from our colleagues in California, Romero said. The 1st Amendment absolutely does not protect white supremacists seeking to incite or engage in violence. We condemn the views of white supremacists, and fight against them every day.

But, Romero added: At the same time, we believe that even odious hate speech, with which we vehemently disagree, garners the protection of the 1st Amendment when expressed non-violently. We make decisions on whom we'll represent and in what context on a case-by-case basis. The horrible events in Charlottesville last weekend will certainly inform those decisions going forward.

See original here:
Tensions grow inside ACLU over defending free-speech rights for the far right - Los Angeles Times

The University of California at Berkeley is a place where right-wing provocateurs such as Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos know they can get a rise. But maybe less so, starting now: On Tuesday, the school's recently-appointed chancellor, Carol Christ, declared this year to be a "Free Speech Year" on campus, and marked that the school would be doubling down on not only protecting speech, but also teaching the value of discourse to college students that seem to have forgotten.

In February, campus protests became violent, shutting down a Milo Yiannopoulos appearance. This upcoming academic year, he's slated to speak again. A less controversial (but still somewhat cringe-worthy) Ben Shapiro will be speaking on campus later next month. This time, though, new policies will be in place to bolster security and event preparation, regardless of viewpoint. "We have not only an obligation to protect free speech but an obligation to keep our community safe," said Christ.

Other Berkeley events during this upcoming year will center around core constitutional issues, the school's history as the forefront of the student activism movement, and employ a "point-counterpoint" format for panels, where participants can practice civil exchange of ideas in a public forum.

In Christ's own words, Berkeley "would be providing you less of an education, preparing you less well for the world after you graduate, if we tried to protect you from ideas that you may find wrong, even noxious."

She's completely right, and it's wonderful to see a university administrator choosing not to mince words when it comes to defense of free speech, especially at a place such as Berkeley. If administrators were more fervently clear that hateful, offensive speech is protected under the First Amendment too, we might see more ideologically-tolerant college students.

Of course, Christ isn't claiming that every year can't be devoted to free speech rather, she's making it abundantly clear that there is, and will always be, immense value to civil discourse. And she is making it clear that the birthplace of the student free speech movement shouldn't be desecrated by violent protesters who don't understand the most challenging aspects of a liberal democracy that one should extend free speech rights to those you find abhorrent, lest your own be taken.

Perhaps Berkeley will, once again, lead the campus free speech movement.

Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is managing editor at Young Voices.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

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Free speech might be coming to Berkeley in a shocking turn of events - Washington Examiner

Reuters:

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook has joined a chorus of business leaders who have voiced their opposition to President Donald Trump after he blamed white nationalists and anti-racism activists equally for violence in Virginia over the weekend.

I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights. Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans, Cook wrote in a note late on Wednesday to employees, according to technology news website Recode.

Cook also said in the letter that Apple will donate $1 million apiece to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League and will match two-for-one their donations to the organizations and other human rights groups until Sept. 30.

Let me note first that I am not very impressed (to put it mildly) with the way that the president has responded to the events in Charlottesville.

That said, lets concentrate on this: Cook is spending $1m of shareholders money on a gift to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC has, shall we say, its issues. You can find some interesting commentaryover at that well-known bastion of the right, Harpers Magazine, here, here and here.

But Id like to focus on the SPLCs Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists, and two of the names included in that guide (something already discussed by Ericka Andersen on this very Corner back in June).

Firstly, theresMaajid Nawaz a British activist and part of the ex-radical circuit of former Islamists who use that experience to savage Islam.

Amongst the evidence of his extremism is this:

According to a Jan. 24, 2014, report in The Guardian, Nawaz tweeted out a cartoon of Jesus and Muhammad despite the fact that many Muslims see it as blasphemous to draw Muhammad. He said that he wanted to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge.

So Apple is funding an organization that deems taking a stand in favor of free speech as evidence of extremism. The company that once advertised itself as the antithesis of Big Brotheris now a de facto supporter of controlling blasphemy. Times change.

Doubtless this will play well in Apple (Saudi Arabia), so theres that.

Heres (part of) what The Atlantic had to say about Nawaz last year (my emphasis added):

Nawaz is a star in certain anti-terror circles, thanks to a compelling personal narrative: A self-described former extremist who spent four years in an Egyptian prison, he has changed approaches and now argues for a pluralistic and peaceful vision of Islam. He stood for Parliament as a Liberal Democrat in 2015, and advised Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron.

Nawazs work has earned him detractorscritics claim he has embellished or neatened his narrative, some attack him for opportunism, and others question his liberal bona fidesbut calling him an anti-Muslim extremist is a surprise. Unlike the likes of Gaffney and Geller, he doesnt espouse the view that Islam itself is a problem; unlike Ali, who now describes herself as an atheist, Nawaz identifies as a Muslim.

Ali? Ah yes: Someone else who is on the SPLC extremist list is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali knows a thing or two about Islam, having been brought up in thatfaith (at one point in her youth she was very devout) and then broken with it publicly and, yes, abrasively, something that put her life in danger (which goes some way to backing up what she has to say about Islam). Sometimes she has, in my view, overreached in her rhetoric (others will disagree), but to go from that to claiming that she is an extremist in the way that the SPLC use that word is absurd, no more than that, its sinister.

Another prominent atheist, Sam Harris, has described the labeling of Hirsi Ali and Nawaz as extremists as unbelievable. After Hirsi Ali was snubbed by Brandeis in 2014 (two years before the SPLCfield guide came out), Richard Dawkins referred toher as a hero of rationalism & feminism.

Over at Patheos,Hemant Mehta. the Friendly Atheist (and no rightist)called the SPLCs designation of Hirsi Ali and Nawaza f****** joke :

If criticizing religious beliefs makes them extremists, then it wont be long before other vocal atheists end up on that list, too. And make no mistake, thats what Nawaz and Hirsi Ali are doing. Thats all theyre doing. Theyre not anti-Muslim; they work with moderate Muslims. Theyre critical of the worst aspects of Islam. For goodness sake, theyre not attacking Malala Yousafzai.

Hell, Hirsi Alis foundation works to end faith-based honor killings and female genital mutilation. Who knew that would make her the Worst Person Ever?

Mehta added:

Essentially, while her words may have been harsh, they should be seen with the understanding that she has been personally affected by the worst aspects of the faith. As I wrote before, it takes a very uncharitable interpretation of Hirsi Alis words to think her goal of defeating Islam means we should commit violence against peaceful law-abiding Muslims or descends into hate speech. Her goal is full-scale reform of Islam, not genocide against all Muslims.

She has repeatedly said that her goal is to prevent the spread of Islamic radicalism, not to prevent peaceful Muslims from practicing their faith.

Yet sheand Nawaz have attracted the ire of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But all of thats fine with Apples Tim Cook, so fine that hes prepared to throw one million dollars of his shareholders money SPLCs way.

See original here:
Silicon Valley and Free Speech: Tim Cook Edition - National Review