Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

Students encircling the brawl said a Spencer supporter began jawing with an antifa, or anti-fascist, protester over Spencer's right to speak. A punch was thrown. The men spun through the crowd, swinging fists and grasping for headlocks before thudding to the ground.

It was over in seconds with both men in cuffs -- one of them bloodied -- and carted off to jail.

Auburn had tried four days earlier to cancel Spencer's speech Tuesday night. But a federal judge forced the public university to let him exercise his First Amendment rights.

The episode comes amid what critics say is a growing intolerance for the exchange of ideas at American colleges and universities. In recent months battles over free speech on campuses have descended into violence across the nation.

And students say the middle ground on campuses is in danger of becoming quicksand, a place where neither side dares tread.

"There's no test, just an escalation of hostilities on both sides," said Tyler Zelinger, 21, a senior studying political science and business at Atlanta's Emory University. "When there's no more argument, there's no more progress."

Assaults on college free speech have been waged for decades, but they used to be top-down, originating with government or school administrators.

Today, experts say, students and faculty stifle speech themselves, especially if it involves conservative causes.

Harvey Klehr, who helped bring controversial speakers to Emory during his 40 years as a politics and history professor, said the issues college students rally around today come "embarrassingly from the left."

Oppose affirmative action or same-sex marriage and you're branded a bigot, he said. Where debate once elevated the best idea, student bodies are now presented slanted worldviews, denying them lessons in critical thinking, he said.

"History is full of very, very upsetting things. ... Grow up. The world is a nasty place," he said. "If you want to confront it, change it, you have to understand the arguments of nasty people."

Berkeley political science professor Jack Citrin began attending UCB in 1964 during the advent of the free speech movement, when Berkeley students "viewed ourselves as a beacon of the ability to handle all points of view."

Universities expose young people to ideas and challenge what they believe about science, politics, religion or whatever. But many students today exist only in the bubble of what they believe, he said.

"It's an indicator of the erosion of the commitment to open exchange and a retreat into psychobabble," Citrin said.

Twitter dubbed it #TheChalkening. Last year at Emory, someone used chalk to scrawl "Build the wall" and other pro-Trump messages near Emory's Black Student Union and CentroLatino.

Some Emory students were livid and let the administration know it. One sophomore declared, according to the school newspaper, that protesters were "in pain."

As Emory sophomore Maya Valderrama, 20, left a February protest denouncing Trump's policy on sanctuary campuses, she said the outcry over the chalkings was overblown. She wasn't threatened by them, she said, but she understood the concern.

This wasn't about politics, she said. Pro-Mitt Romney messages on campus hadn't threatened anybody, but Trump is hostile to segments of the student body. The chalkings represented "a visual affirmation of his hatred," Valderrama said.

Many students and their professors worry that when it comes to issues on campus, emotion rather than logic is driving the debate.

Nathan Korne, a sophomore at Marshall University in West Virginia, welcomes Trump's attacks on political correctness because he's "tired of not being able to discuss open ideas."

But Yasmine Ramachandra, a 19-year-old at Ohio's Oberlin College, sees no silver lining. Trump is validating right-wingers who always wanted to snuff out certain speech, and his rhetoric has emboldened hatemongers, she said.

Two days after Trump's election, she walked through a campus racial profiling protest where a group of counter-protesting bikers called her a terrorist and demanded she leave the country, Ramachandra said.

"The bigger repercussion is (Trump) validating these other people," she said.

The anger cuts both ways, said University of New Mexico sophomore Alexus Horttor. She recently saw the Arab owner of a hookah shop kick a student out of his store over a Trump bumper sticker.

"People feel their way is the right way, and it's only their way," Horttor said.

Meanwhile, left-leaning speakers routinely appear on university campuses without fuss.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education maintains an incomprehensive database of more than 300 attempts to disinvite campus speakers since 2000. About three-quarters of the attempts involved pressure from liberals.

Evolution and Israel are among the most controversial topics. But more often the disinvitation attempt stems from disagreements over immigration, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or abortion.

Yiannopoulos ticks several of those boxes.

The former Breitbart editor made free speech a buzzphrase when Berkeley protests turned violent during his appearance. The demonstrations made Yiannopoulos -- now persona non grata after appearing to condone pederasty -- a free speech martyr at the time.

UC Berkeley's Citrin said that was the point. Yiannopoulos' speech was staged to challenge the school's commitment to free speech, he said.

"There were a variety of calls for it not to be permitted to occur by a group of faculty who, frankly, didn't seem to understand the First Amendment very well," the professor said. "Free speech at Berkeley took a hit when it was all said and done."

Some students who attended protests against Yiannopoulos' planned speech at Berkeley told CNN they were relieved he couldn't share his message. But others who watched from the fringes were disappointed.

When the chalkings appeared at Emory, some minority students felt targeted, said Lolade Oshin, 21, who is African American.

Later, after students complained about feeling hurt, a national columnist wrote their parents should've whipped their "spoiled asses with a cat o'nine tails." National commentators chastised them as "snowflakes" -- people too vulnerable to face opposing views.

Oshin, a senior business major, feels such criticism is unfair.

"As a black woman in America, I have no choice but to hear the other side," she said. "But because those individuals are privileged, they don't have to hear my side. ... One side has grown up having to be sensitive and to navigate a white man's world."

Bigots hide behind free speech, she said, asking: How is it the Trump chalkings were free speech but student protests were not?

"Have whatever beliefs you want. Say whatever you want, but if I feel you're dehumanizing me, I'm going to use the same right you're using to fight your ideas," she said.

Oshin also sees hypocrisy in the reaction to the Yiannopoulos pederasty controversy.

Conservatives defended Yiannopoulos after Berkeley, she said, but when he appeared to condone pedophilia rather than Islamophobia and bigotry, there were crickets from the right.

"Is it what is offensive or who is being offended that matters? It is very interesting how conservatives are not screaming freedom of speech now," she said. "It seems to be a tactic used to quiet the marginalized and oppressed. But as soon as others feel threatened, it is not brought up."

University of Oregon law student Garrett Leatham, 29, believes hearing both sides is integral to understanding an issue.

"(Thomas) Jefferson did great things, but he owned slaves. We need to know both. Otherwise, we're stuck believing Columbus sailed the ocean blue and helped the Indians," he said.

Teens' brains are developing, and critical thinking is essential to maturity, so "being able to listen to disagreeable opinions when you're that young and understanding what they're saying and why" is important to higher education, he said.

Horttor, the University of New Mexico sophomore, says her own growth has been stunted by the testy atmosphere on campus.

Take religion. Horttor's mother is a Christian, but she knows many atheists.

The 19-year-old's own leanings? "I don't know what I believe in yet because I haven't seen the man."

But Horttor is reluctant to ask Christians why they believe and atheists why they don't, because she doesn't want to be ostracized.

She sees a similar reluctance to discuss partying on campus. University administrators and student leaders seem to avoid the topic, she said, for fear of appearing to condone it. Meanwhile, parties play host to fights, binge drinking, drugs and sexual assaults, she said.

Why not have forums on the dangers of binge drinking or on signs that a guy might be trying to victimize you?

"People don't talk about the dangers of partying and what to look out for," she said. "It's like sex education. These things need to be addressed so no one gets hurt."

Liam Ginn, a freshman at the University of Southern Maine, faced his classmates' fury this year when state Rep. Lawrence Lockman visited the Portland campus.

Students wanted Lockman disinvited, and as chair of the student senate, Ginn was part of a student government vote to remain neutral. He lost some friends over the decision, he said.

Ultimately, Lockman delivered his remarks on immigration -- or "the alien invasion" -- and students engaged him in heated debate, Ginn said.

Asked why he voted to remain neutral, Ginn, 24, said he'd never condone Lockman's rhetoric. But he did a stint in the US Navy before beginning college, and the experienced changed his views.

"After putting five years down for this country, you realize you're defending all the laws that we stand for," Ginn said. "Otherwise, the past five years were a waste of my time."

In 2015, liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke at Liberty University, the Christian school in Virginia founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell.

Senior Hannah Scherlacher, 22, said most of her classmates don't agree with Sanders' views.

But when he visited campus there were no protests, no raised hackles, she said. Attendance at his speech was compulsory.

Sanders made points students disagreed with, but he knew his audience, she said. He told the crowd of 12,000, "I want to support my arguments with what you believe -- your Bible, your Scripture," Scherlacher recalled.

His "unifying tone" made Scherlacher "reflective on my role as a Christian to alleviate poverty." She revisited her Bible to study Jesus' condemnation of wealth and power.

And Sanders spurred debates that carried on after he left, the public relations major said.

"Everyone I talked to was glad he came," she said. "It's important to communicate with those we disagree with."

Bob Richards, founding director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at Penn State, earned scorn himself when he brought porn publisher Larry Flynt to campus in 2001. Faculty and a Philadelphia radio station demanded a disinvitation.

Richards couldn't understand why intellectuals didn't jump at the chance to spar with Flynt. But he believes things may be worse now.

"We see more of a willingness on the part of the public to stop expression. They're happy certain speech is cut out," the journalism professor said. "If you put something like that on a ballot, people would vote to regulate expression."

Ramachandra, the Oberlin student accosted by bikers, acknowledges clinging to her own truths. Oberlin is a bastion of the left, and it's unlikely someone like Spencer or Yiannopoulos would be invited to speak at the Ohio school, she said.

If they were, there'd be anger but support. People would open up safe spaces to shield students from hurtful messages, she said. She's fine with that.

A leader of Oberlin's debate team, Ramachandra said the difference between Liberty's reaction to Sanders and Berkeley's response to Yiannopoulos is simple.

Sanders promotes policies, she said. Yiannopoulos was an alt-right darling who Twitter banned for harassment and who counts feminists, Muslims and social justice warriors as enemies.

If students want to protest Yiannopoulos, avoid him or shut him down, it has little to do with the free exchange of ideas, she said.

"I don't think I'm missing out on any political discourse" by tuning him out, she said. "I've already come up with my own counterpoints so I don't need them to come to campus and provoke me and hurt other people."

Link:
War on campus The escalating battle over college free speech - CNN

Susan Kruth is an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonpartisan organization that defends freedom of expression and due process on college campuses. On April 19, Kruth gave a talk in the Gund Gallery Community Foundation Theater entitled Free speech, safe spaces and academic freedom, sponsored by the Center for the Study of American Democracy.

In popular discourse, people tend to perceive a tension between political correctness and freedom of speech. How do you define political correctness and freedom of speech? Why do you believe theres a tension between the two?

To the extent that political correctness just means trying to be respectful in tone, I think that its reasonable to encourage, but when public schools or other government entities try to mandate that certain language be used or certain langage not be used, it can really hinder peoples ability to express themselves the way they want to express themselves. As far as freedom of speech, I think that the Supreme Court does a good job of drawing the line between speech thats expressive even if it makes people mad and speech that really functions as conduct because it really has such an immediate connection with physical harm.

As an attorney at FIRE, you have made statements criticizing the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the office that enforces Title IX on college campuses. Why are you critical of the OCR?

One thing the OCR has been doing lately is coming down hard on sexual harassment and sexual assaultand the way colleges deal with themin ways that dont help schools in actually protecting students and infringe on students rights. One thing the OCR was involved with was telling schools they have to define sexual harassment in this very broad way: speech or conduct of a sexual nature. That could include practically any speech about sex. Its very important that schools respond to the kind of harassment that interferes with students educations, but its really not the job of a public institution to say, You cant say anything about sex that offends anybody. Thats going to limit a lot of constitutionally protected expression.

Where do we draw the line between censorship and protecting individuals from hate speech?

The law right now does a pretty good job of distinguishing between speech that functions as conduct and speech that, while its hurtful, can ultimately, and should be ultimately, fought with words rather than censorship. One example would be incitement to imminent unlawful action. Thats a situation where someone is trying to convince people to violate the law usually with violence in a way that is likely to encourage someone to commit these acts imminently. Speech that doesnt have that immediate, concrete effect is protected by the First Amendment.

How can Kenyon students ensure that they are creating an environment in which all people can express themselves freely?

One of the biggest initial steps that all members of a campus community can make is advocating policies that are very clear and very speech-protective. Kenyon already promises its students and professors free speech rights, but make sure that all of the other policies in place are consistent with that. Make sure policies do not prohibit offensive expression because offensive expression is, a lot of the time, part of conversations, and it is certainly part of what is protected under the First Amendment. Protecting speech is something that we do because it actually helps things move forward. I dont think you can make progress on any issue, no matter how you define it, unless there are open conversations, including open conversations with people who youre really offended by or disturbed by.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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On the Record: Susan Kruth, an attorney specializing in student freedom of speech - Kenyon Collegian

I'm a liberal Democrat. I support an expanded welfare state, stronger environmental regulation, and affirmative action in college admissions. I'm pro-choice, pro-Obamacare, and vehemently anti-Trump.

But I'm also an advocate for unbridled free speech, which makes me a "conservative" on many college campuses these days. Freedom of speech used to be a centerpiece of liberalism, while conservatives took up the banner for censorship. But in recent years, these roles have been reversed.

When you read about a speaker getting shouted down - or a campus newspaper getting confiscated - the censors are almost always on the Left. The latest example occurred earlier this month at Claremont-McKenna College, outside of Los Angeles, where students prevented conservative author Heather Mac Donald from giving a public address about her new book, The War on Cops. (Mac Donald delivered her remarks via livestream video, instead.)

The students' arguments - such as they were - were grimly predictable. By inviting Mac Donald to campus, the college administration allegedly gave its imprimatur to her views on race and policing. And those views made students - especially students of color - feel "unsafe."

How did two ideas that used to run in tandem - free speech and racial diversity - get pit against each other? Part of the answer lies in the remarkable growth of diversity itself. Between 1976 and 2012, the number of African American college students in the United States tripled. And women now receive 57 percent of undergraduate degrees, nearly double their proportion of 50 years ago.

Over the same span, more and more students reported mental-health problems. That reflected a new and welcome awareness of psychological illness, which lost some of its longstanding stigma.

Finally, new technologies inhibited in-person communication. More than half of community college students and a third of four-year college students agree with the statement, "I pretty much keep to myself socially." Even phone calls are avoided in favor of texting and social media, which give people more control over any interaction - and less anxiety about its outcome.

When you put these factors together, it's easy to see why there's less solicitude for free speech at colleges today. Arriving on campuses made up of diverse groups, students are warned that their comments and behavior could cause psychological distress to any of them. That's a pretty distressing prospect, in and of itself, so we shouldn't be surprised that many students would rather retreat to Facebook than risk offending someone to their face.

In a nationwide survey in 2015-2016, 71 percent of incoming freshmen agreed that "colleges should prohibit racist/sexist speech on campus." And 43 percent said that colleges should have the right to ban "extreme speakers," nearly double the proportion who agreed with that statement in 1971.

Who defines "extreme"? My students and I recently met with Mary Beth Tinker, who was 13 years old when she was suspended by her school in Des Moines, Iowa, for an extreme act: wearing a black armband protesting the Vietnam War. Her case wove its way up to the Supreme Court, which upheld her free-speech rights in the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines decision in 1969.

All of my students said they should be allowed to engage in antiwar demonstrations, of course, but they drew the line at racist or sexist speech that causes - yes - psychological injury. But Tinker wasn't having it. Surely, she said, parents whose children were fighting in Vietnam - or, especially, students whose parents had died there - were profoundly wounded by her very public act of protest. Yet that wasn't a good enough reason to silence her, or anybody.

Other students argued that free speech is really a matter of power, which has become another popular line on our campuses. In a society marred by racial inequality, the argument goes, speech is used by whites to oppress minorities. Hence white speech must be restrained, so that minorities can be protected.

But Tinker wasn't buying that, either. Historically, free speech has been a weapon - often, the only weapon - of the powerless, not the powerful. At the time her case began, Tinker reminded us, she was a child. And speech was all she had.

That's why every great champion of African American freedom in our history - including Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr. - has also been a warrior for freedom of expression. "To suppress free speech is a double wrong," Douglass told a Boston audience in 1860, after a mob had broken up an anti-slavery meeting at the same location. "It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money."

It's tempting to imagine that the mob at Claremont-McKenna was fighting against racism, so it was justified in squelching speech. But at the end of the day, a mob is still a mob. It's anathema to America's great liberal tradition, which relies on free speech to right our wrongs. Let's hope liberals on our campuses can rediscover it.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author (with Emily Robertson) of "The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools" (University of Chicago Press, April 2017). jlzimm@aol.com

Published: April 19, 2017 3:01 AM EDT The Philadelphia Inquirer

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College students rejecting freedom of speech - Philly.com - Philly.com

As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook accepted the Free Expression Award at the Newseum in Washington D.C. tonight. At the event, Cook was presented the award and made brief comments on what it means to him and Apple, as well as touching on the importance of companies taking a stance

Cook was chosen forthe award because of how he has used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues such as racial equality, privacy, climate change, education, and LGBT rights. Prior to the presentation of the award itself, a brief video was played highlighting some of Cooks values, including clips for Cooks George Washington University commencement speech, his comments on the FBIs request to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone, and more.

Upon accepting the Free Expression award, Cook thankedWashington Post CEO and publisher Fred Ryan for the honor, explaining that hes accepting it on behalf of everyone at Apple. Cook went on to address the idea of the freedom of speech.

As noted by AppleInsider, Cook explained that times now are very different fromwhat they were when the Founding Fathers established the idea of free speech. There were no app developers, modern content creators, and other new forms of speech.

We know that these freedoms require protection, Cook said of First Amendment rights. Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. Theyre the ones that need protection the most. Its no accident that these freedoms are enshrined and protected in the First Amendment. They are the foundation to so many of our rights.

Cook went on to talk on the fact that Apple takes protection of the First Amendment very seriously, working to give everyone an opportunity to speak up and speaking up itself:

This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously, Cook said. First we defend, we work to defend these freedoms by enabling people around the world to speak up. And second, we do it by speaking up ourselves. Because companies can, and should have values.

At Apple we are not just enabling others to speak up, we are doing so ourselves.

Furthermore, Cook spoke on the importance of listening in a time when many people have conflicting opinions:

Free speech isnt only about speaking, its about listening, whether or not we agree. It demands we stay informed.

Cook also seemingly took a swipe at the Trump Administrations idea of alternative facts, something first set forth byU.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. We must be open to alternative points of view, not alternative facts, Cook said.

Tim Cook has given Apple a voice on many social issues. He has been honored withtheNational Visibility Award from the Human Rights Campaign after becoming the first CEO of a major company to come out as openly gay. Furthermore, Cook has spoken on a variety of hot-button issues including diversity, immigration, and much more.

Video of the awards presentation should be available here soon.

See the article here:
Tim Cook accepts Free Expression Award, talks value of free speech ... - 9 to 5 Mac

Opinion | Column

the voice of dissent

When I started writing for The Chronicle eleven months ago, roughly a year had passed since a group that named itself Concerned and Conscious Duke Students had created the following petition on change.org: We are demanding the immediate removal of Jonathan Zhao as editor of the Duke Chronicle's editorial page. The petition argued that Zhaos column the plight of black America, [proliferated] racist stereotypes and misinformation about an entire group of people. In addition, the petition argued, Jonathan Zhao should be removed from his position because he also [had] a history of publishing inflammatory and ill-conceived pieces in the newspaper, which [indicated] his inability to moderate the Chronicles opinion section fairly and well in this upcoming school year.

The event proper to Dukes campus did not occur in a vacuum but rather in the context of increasing restrictions on freedom of speech on college campuses. Two factors have fueled this trend. First, Title IX initially aimed to cancel federal funding to institutions that do not properly tackle discriminations based on gender. However, in the last six years, the federal government broadened the definition of sexual assault to any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature and eliminated a protection that such conduct had to be offensive to a reasonable person.

According to Will Creeley, vice president of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the amended Title IX invites censorship by educational institutions that are frightened to lose funding. The second factor that has led to the roll-back of free speech on campuses is the culture of millennials. Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE, and Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, argued in The Atlantic that parents raised millennials in an overprotective environment. Now that they are in college, they demand to be protected from any kind of speech that could make them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome, and thus advocate for restrictions on free speech.

It is in this environmentin the past year throughout which speakers were disinvited across the country, trigger warnings and safe spaces proliferated and a growing number of students became vocal about their hostility to certain conservative viewsthat I started writing for The Chronicle. As a person who holds many conservative and nationalistic views that run counter to the liberal consensus on college campuses, I was prepared to face backlash, controversy and even intimidation from those who disagreed with my views. Nonetheless, I cannot describe my joy and excitement when The Chronicle communicated its official policy to us columnists: you are free to write whatever you want as long as it is properly articulated and backed by evidence.

This is exactly the standard I have set for myself when thinking and writing about political issues. I do not try to shock people or spark controversy; I strive to be as objective and scientific as possible, putting my ego and my emotions aside. I do so not because I strive to be politically correct and to avoid offending people, but because embarking on that path would take me and the people around me further away from truth. Indeed, although I hold my own views, which I have addressed in my column, I believe that truth is complex and multifaceted. In an argument, every side holds one part of the truth, as tiny as it may be. Otherwise, respective sides would not feel the urge to speak up and make claims they deem legitimate. The problem is that most people start their arguments from a legitimate concern and take it to the extreme, using words that they do not properly define which bear negative connotations. They end up advocating for radical solutions that do not account for the other side of the debate.

For example, one of the views I hold dear is the cultural assimilation of immigrants in the United States. To make the case for assimilation, I once cited an article in The American Interest by Jonathan Haidt, where he argued that Having a shared sense of identity, norms, and history generally promotes trust Societies with high trust, or high social capital, produce many beneficial outcomes for their citizens: lower crime rates, lower transaction costs for businesses, higher levels of prosperity, and a propensity toward generosity, among others.

However, many people favoring multiculturalism as an alternative integration model would caution against the bigotry and hate that such such nationalistic thinking could fuel. And indeed, a study conducted by Vasiliki Fouka, assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, shows that people who think like me would need to listen to the other side of the debate in their quest for truth. After World War I, several US states barred the German language from their schools. Fouka found that the German-Americans affected by that policy were less likely to volunteer in WWII and more likely to marry within their ethnic group and to choose decidedly German names for their offspring. Rather than facilitating the assimilation of immigrant children, the policy instigated a backlash, heightening the sense of cultural identity among the minority.

Certainly not all people hold themselves accountable to such high standards of intellectual openness and moderation. Some people hold radical and extremist viewsthe kinds of views that many people deem offensive. Nonetheless, the government should not interfere to restrict their freedom of expression. Indeed, instead of bringing about moderation in debate, a restrictive policy would have the exact opposite effect. For example, media personality Milo Yiannopoulos, who has made many well-known outrageous statements, sees himself not as a bigot but as a crusader of free speech in the age of political correctness.

As this is last article I am writing in The Chronicle for the foreseeable future, I would like to dedicate it to The Chronicle, Duke University and the Duke community as a sign of my gratefulness for their commitment to freedom of speech and intellectual excellence.

Throughout this past year, The Chronicle never censored any of my articles, even those that run most counter to the dominant liberal narrative on campus. The only time one editor called me to ask if I could modify some part of an article, he did so because one of my arguments was not well-articulated and backed by evidenceand he promptly offered advice on how to better it. The argument was minor to my overall thesis, so although it was also extremely controversial, this person effectively told me, If you want to, you could pursue your research and write about it in a separate column. The Duke community also was surprisingly open-minded. I expected my columns to be met with outrage; instead, people who disagreed with my views simply invited me to have conversations around them. Finally, I could clearly sense that Duke University remains committed to free speech.

Striving for the truth in a spirit of freedom: this is exactly the mission of a university.Keep up the good work, Duke.

Emile Riachi is a Trinity sophomore. His column, the voice of dissent, usually runs on alternate Wednesdays.

The Chronicle is your source for Duke news, sports, culture and dialogue.

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My experience with free speech - Duke Chronicle

Free speech isnt dead. It is increasingly yielding necessary debate. The creation of an entire student organization at Harvard focused solely on free speech is highly unnecessary and promotes the idea that free speech cannot simply be integrated into everyday conversations.

Earlier this semester, a group of students at Harvard University launched the Open Campus Initiative, the schools first club focused on free speech.

We decided to seek out some method for advocating for the things that we learned and we realized that there was no group at Harvard interested in open dialogue, club president Conor Healy told USA Today.

This sentiment sounds nice, but it begs the question shouldnt every group at Harvard be interested in open dialogue? Im sure there are not many campus organizations openly promoting their commitment to closed dialogue.

This development demonstrates just how ridiculous the discussion surrounding free speech has gotten. People are now quick to throw out phrases like free speech is dead and claim that their right to free speech is being infringed upon, but the fundamental right to free speech hasnt changed. The only thing that has changed is wider accusations against individuals violating free speech, when these individuals are simply practicing free speech for themselves.

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. As far as I know, Congress hasnt passed any new legislation that reduced the right to free speech, so the right still exists. It is just a matter of exercising it. However, many conservatives claim that their free speech is under attack as soon as liberals push back against what theyre saying.

It is completely understandable that many conservatives feel like they are under attack or that schools are no longer places of open dialogue, especially considering recent incidents of controversial speakers being widely protested by students, such as conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley and National Policy Institute President Richard Spencer at Auburn University. Nevertheless, the First Amendment technically only limits the ability of Congress to legally restrict free speech. It doesnt mean that no entity can ever exercise discretion when allowing a speaker on their property.

Universities currently find themselves in a tricky balancing act between the desire for open discussion and the need to address students who legitimately feel threatened by certain speakers. This balance has plagued free speech since its inception; as Americans, we have the freedom to say whatever we want, until it crosses the line and infringes on the rights of others.

The Open Campus Initiative is an overreaction and negates the very purpose it hopes to achieve. Theres no need to create a club specifically for free speech; it would be more effective for the same students involved in the club to lead by example by contributing to open discussions in every aspect of their lives on campus, not just within a small group of students who chose to be in the Open Campus Initiative.

Those who claim free speech is dying are often the same people who lambast the rise of campuses as a safe space, yet the Open Campus Initiative merely creates a safe space for students to speak openly without fear of someone vehemently arguing with them. If the involved students truly feel like free speech is disappearing on campuses, they should try to open the minds of students who normally would resist their ideas, instead of limiting their open discussions to a student group that is made up of a self-selecting group of individuals that is predisposed to be accepting of open and frank discussions. In this way, the club essentially defeats its very purpose by sectioning off into a club for free speech, instead of maintaining the expectation that free speech be a part of everyday life, and by creating yet another group of inherently like-minded individuals.

Recent support for campus safe spaces have undoubtedly created an environment that is less than friendly to students with unpopular beliefs. However, the proper way to address this is by organically fostering open conversation at any possible time, not by specifically designating one organization as the space for these conversations.

Erin Rode is a junior majoring in print and digital journalism and political science. Point/Counterpoint runs Wednesdays.

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POINT: Conservatives exaggerate attacks on free speech rights ... - Daily Trojan Online

By Lukas Mikelionis, Heat Street A group of students at Pomona College in California has published an open letter urging the outgoing college president to retract his commitment to free speech as a way to discover truth because objectivity is a white supremacist myth.

In the letter addressed to outgoing Pomona College President David Oxtoby, three self-identified black students slammed the president for claiming that the college is committed to freedom of speech and urged him to take action against journalists at the Claremont Independent, an on-campus newspaper.

The letter comes in response to April 7 email from President Oxtoby who said the college is committed to the exercise of free speech and academic freedom following the protests against distinguished academic and Black Lives Matter critic Heather Mac Donald at next door Claremont McKenna College (which is part of the same Claremont Colleges system as Pomona) that led to the shutdown of the event.

Protest has a legitimate and celebrated place on college campuses, President Oxtoby wrote in the email. What we cannot support is the act of preventing others from engaging with an invited speaker. Our mission is founded upon the discovery of truth, the collaborative development of knowledge and the betterment of society.

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Students: Free Speech Is for Bigots, College Must Apologize for Hosting 'Fascist' Heather Mac Donald - Fox News

A panel discussion on free speech had professors from Middlebury College and UVM discussing Charles Murray's March 2, 2017 talk. NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/Free Press

Jade Ye, Champlain College senior gave a talk on campus in April which will be shared on social media about free speech and the responsibilities of students in the classroom.(Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/Free Press)Buy Photo

Events at Champlain College and the University of Vermont had students and faculty talking about freespeechand who is responsible for decidingthe rules of engagement.

"From grade school onward,people use free speech as an excuse when they say ignorant or hateful things in a classroom," junior Jade Ye, apublic relations major and student ambassador at Champlain College, said last week.

Ye's April 6talk focused on the responsibilities of the students in the classroom.

Following the shouting down of author Charles Murray at a scheduled talk March 2 on the Middlebury College campus and the violent confrontation as Murray left,students and faculty are debating the definition of freespeech.

Erik Bleich, professor of political science, race and politics at Middlebury College with David Miranda Hardy, a Chilean film maker, Assistant Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middlebury on April 11 at a UVM round table on academic freedom and free speech on campuses.(Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DESMET/Free Press)

The discussion reaches beyond Vermont. Recently, author Heather Mac Donald wasshouted down by college students atUniversity of California at Los Angeles. Boston College students were disciplined in January for unregulated protests following the election of President Donald Trump.

But the trend for protesting has been ongoing for at least a few years. In the BerkshiresIn 2014International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde withdrewfrom speaking atSmith College's commencement because ofplannedprotests by faculty and students.

UVM had in thepast two months twoforums Black Board Jungle, a symposium to discussfree speech and hatespeech, anda professor round table that centered on the students who protested Murray.

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UVM professor Major Jackson spoke up at a round table discussion on free speech to point out language that replicates divisions instead of building bridges on April 11, 2017 at the UVM round table on free speech.(Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/Free Press)

Round table co-organizerMeaghan Emery mentioned in her introduction that a reason many faculty members chose not to attend was the continuing controversy surroundingMurrray's talk. Assistant professorswere feeling too vulnerable without tenuretoexpresstheir opinions on the topic.

Moderator Helen Morgan-Parmettbegan by askingwho gets todefineracism and the conversation jumped from there to free speech.

Middlebury College professor Erik Bleichargued that, even in countries with more regulations on free speech, Murray's talk would still have been protected.

Hardycounteredthat perhaps Murray's talk wasn't illegal but asked if the administration did a disservice to the student body by validating the speakerwith a platform.

Some students stand with their backs turned away from author Charles Murray as he attempted to address the group on March 2, 2017 at Middlebury College. The woman reading from the paper was one of the first students to interrupt Murray as he began his speech.(Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/Free Press)

"No one is saying remove [Murray's] books from the syllabus. I see our students of color engage in the most difficult questions on a daily basis. To pretend that students of color dont face ideas of white supremacy on a daily basis is ridiculous," Hardy said after aMiddlebury professor who attended the talk brought up The Atlantic's September cover story"The Coddling of the American Mind," in which the authorsdescribe college students demanding protection from ideas they don't like.

"I don'tsee it. I see a movement from the right to co-opt the right of free speech," Hardy said in defense of his students' abilities to broach difficult subjects. Bleichagreed.

Nevertheless, the argument came backaround to the beginning.

"The free exchange of ideas issacrosanct on a college campus, even the ones people find unethical," UVM professor Major Jackson said after the talk. "And yet freedom of speech has been weaponized against members of our community who are the most vulnerable."

A grad student in social psychology from UVM at the April 11 round table on academic freedom and free speech on campuses.(Photo: NICOLE HIGGINS DeSMET/ Free Press)

A student who identified herself as a UVM social psychology graduate student brought the conversation back to the classroom.

"When you saygive me your gut level reaction you are liable to hear everything. Thats when the safe classroom becomes unsafe and you lose control of the classroom and students," she said."Maybe thisisnt about free speech, it's about creating a coherent argument."

Ye at Champlain College took a similar stance.

"Both on the part of the school and on the part of the students,we have a responsibility to empower students, so they feel like they can seek out reliable sources and take responsibility for things they say in the classroom," Ye said.

Ye offered her own guidelines: Always stand up for what youthink is right.You can learn a lot if yousit back and listen. Do research to find accurate sources like you would for a paper.

"The most important thing is the listening side of communication," Ye said.

The talks at UVM andChamplain College will be shared online as soon as they are edited, according to the schools.

Contact Nicole Higgins DeSmet atndesmet@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1845. Follow her on Twitter@NicoleHDeSmet.

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Montgomery Advertiser Published 11:11 a.m. CT April 18, 2017 | Updated 18 hours ago

Send letters to the editor to letters@montgomeryadvertiser.com. Maximum length 250 words. Please include name, address and daytime telephone number for verification. Only the writers name and city will be published.(Photo: Monica Rodriguez/Getty Images)

I remember back in Louisiana around 1970 Louisiana State University had a "Free Speech Alley" where students could express themselves on any subject from any point of view.

One of the speakers who showed up was David Duke, dressed in a Nazi uniform, including a swastika armband.Despite the unpopularity of his message, the university allowed him to speak, and did not pretend that his views were their own.

The same issue has come up this week regarding whether or not white racist Richard Spencer should be allowed to speak at Auburn University.The university has denied him use of its facilities because it did not want his racist comments to be interpreted as its own.

ALABAMA VOICES:Up with bureaucracy

The question is, since the university refused to allow any of its facilities to be used for the expression of unpopular ideas, is there freedom of speech on the campus? How does a university allow freedom of speech without appearing to advocate speech that is abhorrent?

Daniel Haulman Montgomery

Send letters to the editor toletters@montgomeryadvertiser.com. Maximum length 250 words. Please include name, address and daytime telephone number for verification. Only the writers name and city will be published.

CRIME:18-year-old accused carjacking, robbing women at gunpoint

Eric Thayer/Getty Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court on April 7 and this week will take part in deciding whether he and his fellow justices will hear the United States Courts of Appeals for the Ninth Circuits ruling which upheld Californias good cause requirement for concealed carry. Judge Diarmuid OScannlain wrote the majority opinion for the 2014 decision and The San Francisco Chronicle quoted from that opinion, saying, The right to bear arms includes the right to carry an operable arm outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Wochit

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Letter: Free Speech can be tricky - Montgomery Advertiser

Peter, thanks for your thoughtful critique of my piece, Understanding the Campus Free-Speech Crisis. You call for our elite colleges and universities to be disciplined by the market, rather than by legislation designed to protect freedom of speech. The case I made in my piece is that while market forces are effective in most sectors, the academy is protected from market pressures by massive government financial assistance and by tenure.

People have been talking about the higher-education bubble for some time now. Well, it hasnt burst yet. And why should it when federal and state governments pump massive amounts of money into the system? In fiscal year 2013, the federal government sent $137 billion into the academy in student loans and other assistance under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. Combined state and federal aid to higher education makes up well over a third of public college and university budgets. Rather than make college more affordable, schools have used that money to raise their already inflated tuitions. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is proposing some potentially helpful changes to this system at the federal level. Yet even if these changes are adopted, federal aid is certain to remain massive in scope. That is precisely why NAS has suggested linking Title IV assistance to the protection of campus free speech, an idea I elaborated into a detailed proposal. (And by the way, while it doesnt constitute a formal endorsement of every element of the NASs legislative proposal, over 100 educators, including many prominent conservatives familiar to NRO readers, have signed the NAS letter on amending the Higher Education Act, which includes the proposal on campus free speech.)

So long as that massive federal infusion of money through Title IV of HEA exists, colleges will remain powerfully insulated from market pressures. You note that many alternatives to the elite left-liberal institutions of higher education are available, often at a surprisingly reasonable price. Thats true, and many of those alternative schools are excellent, although quality and commitment to traditional liberal education among some of the alternatives can be uneven. In any case, the alternative menu hasnt produced an exodus from the dominant schools. And it certainly hasnt sufficed to secure free speech at the vast majority of colleges and universities. Nor do I believe that your excellent ideas on accreditation reform will escalate market pressures sufficiently even to slow, much less head off our rapidly metastasizing free-speech crisis.

There is a great deal of justified concern about religious liberty these days, not only at private religious colleges but for religious students at public and private secular colleges as well. You may be concerned about the effect of legislation on private religious colleges, but please note that neither my state nor my federal proposalsnor NASsapply to private religious schools.

Youre mistaken when you say that I never mention the role of college and university administrators. I had plenty to say in my piece about administrators: their tendency to cave in to anti-free speech demonstrators; the decreasing pressures on them to defend free speech; and how administrators are nowadays sometimes allied with disruptors. In fact my state proposal is designed to work by bringing pressure to bear on administrators, pressure not primarily from legislators but from trustees.

Although youre right to point to the growing importance of administrators, this hardly cancels out the role of tenured faculty. Tenured faculty have consistently driven the attacks on campus free speech, both through their teaching and through their ability to hire like-minded non-tenured faculty. After all, the leftist administrators youre worried about were taught by faculty radicals.

Ill let the semi-literate and now notorious Wellesley student editorial damning free speech make my point: We have all said problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society. Luckily, most of us have been taught by our peers and mentors at Wellesley in a productive way. Yes, those tenured Wellesley mentors, and the junior faculty they hire, are productive when it comes to churning out students who neither understand nor accept freedom of speech.

The tenure system has been grossly abused to create a de facto intellectual monopoly on campus, and the campus free-speech crisis is simply incomprehensible without understanding the facultys central role. Moreover, the tenure system is specifically designed to insulate faculty from market pressures. Abuse of the tenure system not only killed campus free speech and the marketplace of ideas, the resulting tenure-protected intellectual monopoly virtually guarantees that nothing will change in the absence of intervention from the public by way of its elected representatives.

By the way, I dont agree that the campus free-speech crisis is largely limited to elite campuses. That may have been true some time ago, but the problem has spread to a far wider range of schools. Shout-downs, thefts of student newspapers, free-speech zones and the rest are now regular features at the non-flagship campuses of many state systems. They just dont get as much publicity. I agree that there are some great alternative schools out there, and at a reasonable price. But the crisis of campus free speech and the broken marketplace of ideas now reach far more widely across the academy than you may think.

The idea that accreditation reform (which I favor) will do anything of significance to stop these campus shout-downs any time soon (or even later) is not credible.

You say that anti-Trump campuses wont be intimidated by reforms backed by Trump and the Republicans. But if contemporary experience of the academy says anything, its that administrators will do nothing to jeopardize their Title IV funding. Thats the federal gravy train they cannot do without. Threaten their Title IV eligibility, and youll rapidly see a remarkable number of administrators turn aficionados of John Stuart Mill.

You defend the tenure systemthe antithesis of the market. Yet you rely on the market in other respects. I dont believe this contradiction will hold. It would have when the tenure system was a bulwark of the marketplace of ideas. But now that tenure has been abused to create an unbreakable intellectual monopoly, we conservatives have to face the fact that the campus free-speech crisis is largely immune to market pressure. This is not a surrender of conservative principle but simple recognition that market forces have been structurally subverted in this sector. We wont win until we admit how badly were losing.

Again, I agree that there are still some great schools out there and that we should work to buck them up. (And my proposals exempt private religious colleges.) Market forces within the academy also can and should be strengthened. Important exceptions notwithstanding, however, we are losing our most fundamental freedom on a generational level. Were on the edge of the abyss; the foes of freedom are protected by tenure and ensconced in the seat of cultural power; and tweaking the accreditation system and hoping for the best 20 years from now wont do. Stronger medicine is required.

Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He can be reached at [emailprotected]

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Can Deregulation Restore Campus Free Speech? - National Review