Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

The Graduate Student Assembly of the University of Nebraska met for its second to last meeting for the year in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Nebraska Union on Tuesday, March 7 to discuss four bills.

The four bills presented include the allocation of funds for Graduate Student Appreciation Week, an endorsement for the March for Science in Lincoln, a bill to support the protection of political speech for graduate students and an endorsement for the event #HackUNL.

GSA Bill 28 proposed an allocation of $2,000 from GSAs social budget to go toward Graduate Student Appreciation Week. Graduate Student Appreciation Week is a week that celebrates grad students through different activities throughout the week. The bill passed unanimously.

GSA Bill 29 asked for the assembly to endorse the March for Science on April 22. The March for Science is a march that supports scientists and the scientific community, while allowing the community to publicly take a stand. The bill passed unanimously.

GSA Bill 30 focused on supporting the protection of academic freedom, diversity and political speech for graduate students.

English representative Daniel Clausen proposed the bill to the assembly.

There is no current policy that directly pertains to protecting free speech, he said.

Clausen continued by saying the bill presented to the Graduate Student Assembly supports freedom of speech and asks the university to adopt a policy that explicitly defends graduate students right to free speech.

Lauren Segal, the co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, wanted to know if the bill asking for protection of free speech could be used against students regarding hateful political speech.

I was thinking of that as I wrote the bill, and I dont want to protect someones right to put up a swastika, Clausen said. But thats why I think having a policy that deals with deciding what is and isnt hate speech and then following a protocol is important.

Before the assembly voted on the bill, GSA President Ignacio Correas commented on how the bill would be enforced.

I will make sure that if this bill is passed that I will work with the appropriate university authorities to make sure that the regulations to determine what is and isnt hate speech has grad student input, he said.

After brief debating, the bill passed unanimously.

GSA Bill 31 asked for endorsement toward #HackUNL. #HackUNL is a 24-hour event in which UNL students can use coding and graphic design to come up with ideas to end cyberbullying and harassment. The bill passed unanimously.

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UNL's GSA passes bill to protect grad student free speech - Daily Nebraskan

George Korda, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee 7:06 a.m. ET March 7, 2017

The Hill and Ayres Hall, University of Tennessee. (University of Tennessee)(Photo: UT Photo)

In light of Tennessee General Assemblys discussions about the University of Tennessees diversity programs - and a legislators wish to establish an Office of Intellectual Diversity to foster conservative speakers and thought on campus - its interesting to note that UT has a microaggressions research laboratory.

The College of Arts & Sciences microaggressions research lab studies, it says, the subtle everyday experiences of discrimination and their impact on mental and physical health outcomes.

Thus, its worth exploring how microaggressions correlate to free speech in the continuing controversy over UTs (presently defunded) Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

For several months toward the end of 2015 UTs diversity office impaled itself on self-inflicted public relations blunders. One was suggesting odd pronouns by which to address people who prefer not to be identified by the gender binary (male or female). Another recommendation was to not hold Christmas parties by that name and that religiously-themed cards potentially breach the campuss inclusion imperative. The legislature stripped $436,000 from the UT budget to defund the office for a year.

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The diversity issue is enough on legislators minds that State Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, offered on March 1 an amendment to this years proposed UT budget calling for $450,000 to fund a UT Office of Intellectual Diversity. The Tennessean newspaper reported it as, a move some senators suggested would encourage more people with conservative views to speak their minds.

Diversity of thought, expression, and civility are components of a look at the microaggressions lab. According to the labs website, its research focus is two-fold: gendered racial microaggressions, and racial microaggressions:

Various searches of the UT site produced no list of specific microaggressions. Therefore, microaggressions as found on the University of Cincinnati website are helpful in considering UT's potential future in this arena. The University of Cincinnati is the school from which new UT Chancellor Beverly Davenport recently arrived after serving as interim president, prior to which she was senior vice president for academic affairs and provost (in fact, her photo is still on the UC Office of Equity & Inclusion website).

What follow is an example of one of 36 racial microaggressions listed on UCs website. It is divided into theme, the actual microaggression, and the negative message supposedly sent by the microaggression.

The University of Tennessee has a research lab specifically studying microaggressions. The new chancellor came from a university that on her watch focused on such subjects. The continuing diversity conversation is driving discussion about UT and freedom of speech.

Given those factors, how do microaggressions as defined by the UT lab relate to UTs civility principles and free speech? Of UTs 10 civility and community principles, two in particular are significant in this discussion:

If microaggressions are uncivil speech or expression, and can be subtle and unintended, how can a student or faculty member possibly know what they can or mustnt say for fear of committing an act of bigotry or other type of incivility? What student comments or questions go unspoken or unasked because of this uncertainty? What faculty comments are, intended or unintended, unacceptable?

Common sense dictates that there are people who, as they turn to ask someone a question or begin to make a statement in class, will stop and ask themselves if they want to endure potentially being labeled as a racists, sexist, etc., for committing a microaggression.

Thats not diversity: its bringing about silence through intimidation, intended or unintended.

Are there insults and statements that are beyond the pale? Certainly. There are indeed people with discriminatory and even hateful attitudes. But is UT really a hotbed of student and faculty injustice? Must students and faculty wonder if their words are being scrutinized at all times for microaggressions and other uncivil behavior?

Thats a subject also worthy of study.

Diversity and inclusion isnt a one-way street. Otherwise, its not diverse, its not inclusion, and it bears little relation to freedom of speech.

(The University of Tennessee Microaggressions Research Laboratory website: https://microagressions.utk.edu).

George Korda is political analyst for WATE-TV, appearing Sundays on Tennessee This Week. He hosts State Your Case from noon 3 p.m. Sundays on WOKI-FM Newstalk 98.7. Korda is a frequent speaker and writer on political and news media subjects. He is president of Korda Communications, a public relations and communications consulting firm.

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George Korda: UT's microaggressions laboratory: Where free ... - Knoxville News Sentinel

We asked readers, Does America have a free speech problem?

In the United States, free speech is in big trouble

Free speech in America is in big trouble. Take the recent case of Orange Coast College student Caleb ONeil, who would have been punished by administration were it not for the exemplary defense mounted by Freedom X attorney Bill Becker and others who rallied at his side.

This mindset that declares that Trump supporters are racist white supremacists is ludicrous. Many on the left are blinded by their own hysteria and this shuts down any chance of reasonable discourse on issues.

Read the free speech column by John Phillips, Its a college campus run by bullies. You will be shocked. If not, you may have blind hysteria syndrome.

Tressy Capps, Fontana

Limited speech is not free speech

I do not believe that America has a free speech problem. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted society freedom of speech and we are grateful for it.

Some people dont want to hear what others have to say, but do we not wish for freedom of speech? Some may argue we should have freedom of speech but only to a certain extent. What is the point if we are restricted from expressing ourselves?

Itd be ironic to be a country that has freedom of speech but only to a certain point. We should be allowed to voice our thoughts and feelings regardless of the topic. That is freedom of speech.

Karla Davalos, Ontario

Respect First Amendment

When the U.S. Constitution was written, it included individual freedom of speech; therefore there is not too little or too much freedom of speech.

With freedom of speech comes disagreements, and when a person expresses their political views it becomes a sensitive subject, especially regarding hatred of Donald Trump.

Therefore, many Trump supporters feel they cannot fully express their opinion and that is not right. People allow their emotions to take over and cannot separate political views from other issues and that is why many feel they are not able to speak and write freely.

And California Democratic leaders need to respect that everyone has the right to the First Amendment instead of removing people from the floor.

Lesle Chicas, Rancho Cucamonga

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Does American have a free speech problem? Readers answer our ... - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

In this day and age when being offended has become a perfectly acceptable justification to suppress someones freedom of speech, scarce are the people who advocate for the un-conditionality of the political right. I am one of these people. I strongly believe that freedom of expression can only be absolute. Otherwise, it is pointless. Irrelevant. As in the words of American philosopher Noam Chomsky:

So when Leni Robredothe person who holds the second-highest public office in the Philippineslaunched a campaign against free speech which she conveniently marketed as war on trolls, I was both appalled and fascinated by the sheer irony of it all. The declaration came from the same public official who, just last month, urged the Filipino public to fight for the right to speak dissent.

Luckily for her, even hypocrisy and double standards are protected by our political right to freedom of expression.

During her speech, Robredo quips:

I disagree. Such is an excuse of dictatorial regimes, not democracies. And history is rife with relevant footnotes.

The success of our democracy doesnt depend on safeguarding an arbitrarily defined regime of truth, it will depend on the health of our political discourse. It will depend on our capacity as a nation to dissect issues and opinions, regardless how grievously they offend us.

The success of our democracy will depend on our audacity to accept and use criticism in molding policies of compromise which are necessary to the governance of a society with a multitude of clashing ideals and opinions. All can be achieved through an unrestricted flow of ideas because no person, no political ideology, no religion has the monopoly of the truth.

We live in a country where free speech is enshrined in our Constitution. It is deemed so important to political liberty that even so-called trolls, no matter how obnoxious or offensive, are protected by it. Its the price we have to pay for all its wonders.

It is important to understand that just because someone doesnt agree with our opinion, it makes them a troll. I have seen a lot of cases where someone posts a belief contrary to what the majority espouses, they are flagged as a troll or their page is mass-reported, something the office of Robredo is guilty of.

Such strategy rarely works, nor does ignoring them. Silence is, in itself, a reaction. When a person tries to engage you in a discussion and you pull away, that person wins the argument. They get what they want.

Thats how lies, if theyre indeed lies, become the truth, Leni Robredo. (I believe you mentioned this in your speech.) If you want to keep lies from assuming the appearance of truth, discuss, do not ignore. Engage, do not censor.

Protect speech at all cost

When we censor speech, when we restrict expression, we do not only hurt those who are censored. We also hurt ourselves in the process. Any form of censorship retards the progress of political discourse. They also bestow unjustifiable overconfidence in unchallenged ideas.

Censorship curtails the possibility of radical change, which is why Irish playwright, critic and polemicist George Bernard Shaw thinks that the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.

All opinions deserve the equal opportunity to be heard.

Opinions that are popular usually do not need protection. It is the unpopular ones, or those which are unpopular with the Establishment, that need to be protected. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte may have had this in mind when he told the Catholic Church, I may not agree with your statement but I will defend your right to say it.

If we silence those who criticize popular opinions, then we also deprive ourselves and society of the possible contribution that could have been made. Christopher Hitchens, an Anglo-American literary and social critic, believed:

There is simply no logical basis for censorship, regardless whether it is imposed by a government office or not. It is fundamentally irrational because it demands two tremendous leaps of faith.

That, first, we must trust that all our ideas are inherently, absolutely, immaculately perfect.

And second, that theres an entity capable of identifying which ideas adhere to this degree of perfection.

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Leni Robredo's War on Trolls Is Just War on Free Speech. And It Is Dangerous. - Huffington Post

The Hindu

March against violence, gagging of free speech The Hindu Hundreds of students from universities, members of political outfits and independent bodies across the Capital came together at Mandi House on Saturday to protest against a range of issues, including alleged violence perpetrated by the Akhil Bharatiya ... Time for a frank debate on freedom of speech and nationalismThe Indian Panorama When Words Beget BlowsOutlook India Were the BJP govt stumped by young idealists?Free Press Journal all 78 news articles »

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March against violence, gagging of free speech - The Hindu

Raj Kumar Bhatia, former ABVP president associated with the student body since 43 years, tells Bhavna Vij-Aurora that a free debate in universities is possible only when the Left realises that even the VHP and the RSS have freedom of speech, but nationalism is non-negotiable. Excerpts from the interview:

You have been associated with Delhi University (DU) for over five decades, first as an undergraduate student and then as a teacher. What do you think about the Ramjas College incident and its fallout?

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It all started with the invitation to Umar Khalid by Ramjas College. To invite him is to irritate and provoke people. After the JNU case, where slogans of Kashmir ki azadi were raised, he has become a symbol. I have seen the video myself.

In DU, I am told by people I trust, some Left-related girls began abusing the ABVP boys. Girls using abusive language is an issue in itself. The boys got provoked and one thing led to another. ABVP members are trained not to resort to violence whatever the provocation, but probably two boys did get provoked. If two out of 100 get provoked, only that gets all the attention.

Is the attention unwarranted?

If marks were to be allotted, ABVP would get 40 if they deserved 60, and the case is the opposite for the Left organisations.

Arent there other ways to settle differences and resolve issues instead of resorting to violence and street protests?

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It is very difficult as things stand today. The Left is only interested in free debate. I dont agree with their definition of free debate. Inviting Umar Khalid and listening to him is not part of free debate. Until the Left agrees that organisations like the VHP and the RSS also have freedom of expression, the debate cannot begin. Also, nationalism is non-negotiable.

Last year, Arundhati Vashishtha Anusandhan Peeth, an intellectual forum set up by Ashok Singhal and headed by Subramanian Swamy, had organised a two-day seminar in DU. When I got to know about the seminar, I warned them that the Left will disrupt it. I was proven right as students belonging to various Left organisations, including AISA from JNU, came and protested.

Swamy is not killing anyone with a sword. He only uses words. Freedom of speech cannot be defined at the convenience of the Left. Dont the VHP and RSS have freedom of speech and expression? Or is it only reserved for Umar Khalid? Things have to be seen in perspective.

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How do you think the situation in DU campus can be brought back to normal?

There is only one way, and that is restraint. I can only speak for ABVP. They have to be true to their training of no violence at any cost. They must not cross the lakshman rekha, whatever the provocation. I dont know what the Lefts designs are, so cannot speak for them. I believe there are divisions within the Left.

Often right-wing organisations, including the ABVP, are accused of having a sense of entitlement with the BJP in power, which is why they are getting out of control. Do you think that is correct?

ABVP is an old organisation and it does not derive a sense of empowerment from the BJP. I know for sure that top people in the Parishad are aware of what is expected from them. Some new members may not be aware of the ethos of the body, but that will be taken care of. ABVP had to pay a price for the Prof Sabharwal case in Ujjain (he was attacked by a mob of students in 2006 and died of cardiac arrest). These things damage the organisation.

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The RSS Too Has Freedom Of Speech. - Outlook India

Bundle of nerves: Are we getting paranoid about freedom of speech?

The rise of Modi and the continued Cabinet slots for those preaching sectarian hatred is not much different from President Trump listening to thewhisperings of Rasputin-like Stephen Bannon, erstwhile publisher of Breitbart News the mouthpiece of alt-right, who is White House chief strategist, observes the author KC Singh

Two events over the last few days, on opposite continents of the world, raise questions about the future of democracy in the US, the worlds most powerful, and India, the worlds most populous. On February 22, Srinivas Kunchibhotla was gunned down in Kansas, sharing a drink with a friend after work, by a white US navy veteran, in patently a hate crime. In India, at Ramjas College, New Delhi, a fracas broke out when BJP-aligned students union, ABVP, disrupted a function organized by campus students not aligned to them and invitees from JNU. The passively observant police intervened, more to rough-up the organizers than restrain ABVP disruptors. The allegation is that anti-national slogans were in the air.

The attention got diverted from the melee when a young student, Gurmehar Kaur posted on social media placards denouncing the ABVP high-handedness, arguing that like her father martyred fighting militants in Kashmir when she was little she was unafraid to confront intolerance. The battle lines got promptly drawn, with intemperate remarks or tweets by an actor, a cricketer, a Union minister of state, and so on. In Gurmehars defense rose up senior journalists, retired soldiers, television anchors, etc. By nightfall, BJP spokesmen began distancing themselves from Gurmehars tormentors as their standard dubbing of any critic as anti-national did not work against a martyrs daughter. The elections in UP also made it unwise to offend serving and retired servicemen.

The distraction aside, the issues in the US and India are not that apart. The rise of Modi and the continued Cabinet slots for those preaching sectarian hatred is not much different from President Trump listening to the whisperings of Rasputin-like Stephen Bannon, erstwhile publisher of Breitbart News -the mouthpiece of alt-right, who is White House chief strategist. Both leaders prefer political rallies and one-way communication with chosen media outlets than transparent and frank interaction with the media. If Modi has never contradicted ministerial colleagues tarring the media with the abusive phrase presstitutes, Trump does one better by directly and almost daily referring to The Fake News. At a Florida rally, he confidently advocated -uncaring that independent media strengthens democracy that media is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. A former President, George Bush, has been constrained to contradict Trumps condemnation of the media, despite both being Republicans.

Both the racist killing of an Indian techie in Kansas and the ABVP use of violence to drown alternative views spring from identical philosophies and narrow visions. In case of India, it brings up the freedom of speech, while in the US it raises the spectra of nativism fed by a mix of xenophobia and fear of Islam. It is thus supremely ironical that while the Indian Government sends Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to intervene with the US on the rising danger to Indian diaspora from white vigilantism, when under their noses similar intolerance is being happily marketed daily from election platforms in UP.

Illustratively, RL Stevenson related the story about George Meredith, author of the 19th century novel, The Egoist, written to purge Victorian England of this evil, that when a young friend of the writer complained that the protagonist Willoughby is me, the writer replied: No, my dear fellow, he is all of us.

The issues arising need a closer analysis. At stake in India is the definition of freedom of speech. Having inherited the common law-based criminal justice system from the British, India clings to antiquated laws on sedition. In the US too, immediately after their independence they enacted a sedition Act, which was allowed to lapse in 1801 as the nation matured and gained self-confidence. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the fear of Communism made the US pass the Federal Espionage Act in 1917. Thus, while the British Common Law treats freedom of speech as residual freedom, circumscribed by societal needs of morality and public order, the US Supreme Court started treating it as a fundamental right flowing from the First Amendment from 1925. In 1969, it upheld the right of students to wear black bands to protest Vietnam War. Justice OW Holmes ruled that while a nation is at war, many things that can be said in time of peace are taboo, but the test has to be whether there is clear and present danger of sedition, not merely the expression of an opinion or a thought. What a person, in the exercise of his freedom of expression, is doing must be more than public inconvenience or annoyance, or even unrest.

India, with a concept of Fundamental Rights borrowed from the US practice has to assess if what happened at JNU earlier, or now at Ramjas College, passes the Holmes test. The definition of nationalism cannot be crafted in Nagpur and implemented by an evangelical lynch mob. Is that not the same question that the US is today required to answer, whether ordinary whites carrying guns can ask any non-white to prove their immigration status, or why they are in the US at all. So, the diaspora that came to Madison Square Garden to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai, in response to Modis incantations, are being put to the kind of test of loyalty that misguided flag-carriers of the BJP, or fringe organizations of the Sangh Parivar, have been putting to their own countrymen. How does India ask Trump to be more considerate when President Obama reminded the Modi government before emplaning for the US in 2015, in his speech at Siri Fort, that Article 25 ensured freedom of conscience and it was the governments responsibility to uphold it.

While it is true that the Indian geo-political environment does compel the government to be ever-alert to forces endangering Indian territorial integrity or sovereignty, but surely campus students holding placards, or sloganeering do not compose such a threat. As Voltaire, some say wrongly quoted, said: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Perhaps like the US Supreme Court, Indias highest court needs to re-balance the fundamental rights and the States obligations, and in the process, re-educate the lawyer-ministers of the BJP.

(The author, KC Singh, is a former Secretary,Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India)

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Time for a frank debate on freedom of speech and nationalism - The Indian Panorama

Economic Times (blog)

To all of Gurmehar Kaur's trolls, the Delhi high court has a pertinent reminder of the importance of free speech Quartz They shut her up. That was their most valiant act, their only claim to fame, in recent times. They are ministers of the mighty government of India, a cricketing great, a Bollywood star, an Olympic champ, and a whole army of rabid trolls. Her is ... The right and wrong of free speechEconomic Times (blog) Ramjas College and Gurmehar Kaur row: Debate rages on freedom of speech a day after social media backlashFirstpost No Room for 'Intolerant Indian'; President Bats for Free Speech, Respect for WomenNews18 The Express Tribune all 1,374 news articles »

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To all of Gurmehar Kaur's trolls, the Delhi high court has a pertinent reminder of the importance of free speech - Quartz

When Lester Packingham beat a traffic ticket a few years back, he couldnt contain his joy. He went online and wrote, No fine. No court cost, no nothing spent. Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks, JESUS!

For this he was arrested and convicted of a heinous crime: using Facebook.

Who is legally forbidden to use Facebook? In North Carolina and a handful of other states, a registered sex offender. In 2002, Packingham, then 21, pled guilty to two counts of statutory rape of his girlfriend, 13 (he claimed he did not know her age). This netted him a suspended sentence and 30 years on the registry.

His case made it to the Supreme Court Monday, where he argued that not being allowed on social media violated his right to freedom of expression.

The judges seemed to grasp the profound role of social media in our lives today. Justice Elena Kagan said that a person banished from major platforms like Facebook is effectively shut out of society.

This is the way people structure their civic community life, she said. Not only can the banished not communicate the way everyone else does, they cannot go onto the presidents Twitter account to find out what the president is saying. (I imagine her mentally inserting a winking emoji here.)

For its part, North Carolinas lawyer Robert Montgomery insisted that sex offenders should be barred from any Internet sites minors might use, just as theyre barred from playgrounds and parks. This Court has recognized that they have a high rate of recidivism and are very likely to do this again. Even as late as 20 years from when they are released, they may recidivate.

Its true the court recognized this high rate of recidivism, but its also true that it was mistaken. As the scholar/lawyer Ira Ellman wrote in a stunning expose a few years ago, the frightening and high recidivism risk cited by Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2002 a rate the justice said has been estimated to be as high as 80 percent was based on what turned out to be a single article by a single therapist in an old copy of Psychology Today.

The therapist didnt even cite any evidence.

Actual studies have found the sex-offender recidivism rate to be about 5 percent.

So Montgomerys argument is based, in part, on a falsehood. But the question remains: Do sex offenders have a right to be part of the world at all?

Montgomery argued that they could lurk online, gathering information on potential victims. At which point Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to tease the man:

Breyer: Can you have a statute that says convicted swindlers cannot go on Facebook or cannot go on the Internet on sites that tell people that tell people where to gather to discuss money?

Montgomery: Im not sure about that.

Breyer: We can think of you know, pretty soon, youre going to have everybody convicted of different things not being able to go anywhere and discuss anything.

Its true that people can and do discuss anything and everything online, nice and nasty. That is precisely why keeping sex offenders off social media opens the door to keeping almost anyone else off it for almost any reason.

And yet, the justices seem to be mulling, the Internet is the new town square. In the real-world town square, even people with criminal pasts are allowed to come and go, speak their mind and resume their lives. They can stand on a soap box and present their case for changing the laws that, for instance, turn an I beat my traffic ticket! status update into a crime.

Banning those found guilty of sex offenses from social media forbids speech on the very platforms on which Americans today are most likely to communicate, to organize for social change, and to petition their government, said Packinghams lawyer, Stanford Laws David Goldberg.

But of course, if your goal is to outlaw freedom of speech and assembly, its brilliant to start with a reviled group. First they came for the sex offenders, and so on and so on.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case by the end of June.

Lenore Skenazy, author of the book and blog Free-Range Kids, is a contributor at Reason.com.

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Do sex offenders have a right to free speech? - New York Post

Much like 1960s America, we live in an era of cultural tension and unrest. During times like these, the freedoms protected under the first amendment, especially those of freedom of speech, press and assembly, are flexed more than ever. Schools and college campuses, which serve as places of learning and spaces where voices are listened to, become the prime battleground for rhetoric and discourse of political ideas.

This immense cultural unrest and its consequential outcry, which can be heard and seen across Americas school campuses, plays a crucial role in interpreting and understanding our constitutional rights. Harping back to the time of the Vietnam war, Justice Abe Fortas famously said in the ruling of the monumental Tinker v. Des Moines, It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

But modernly, the fine line between abusing and violating the first amendment is drawn even thinner. What if those students or teachers willingly shed their rights of expression for the creation of a more safe and peaceful space? Are they not utilizing their freedom of speech in another way, by denying themselves speech? In the age of political correct (P.C.) culture, the legal and moral standards associated with our first amendment have become murkier.

As the way in which we are able to exercise our freedom of speech is debated, the stakes of those exercises of freedom are elevated as well. In 1965, Tinker v. Des Moines began over the instance of five students being suspended for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam war. Only a few weeks ago, over fifteen hundred people at UC Berkeley protested against the alt-right guest speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, resulting in damages to the campus of $100,000 and the cancellation of his speech.

This recent event has been a recurring story in the news. On college campuses across the nation, and including our very own demonstrations resulted in guest speakers on campus discontinuing or canceling their speeches.

The hundreds of protesters at UC Berkeley assembled peacefully for about an hour before 150 masked agitators swayed the protest into a more violent and destructive atmosphere. On the very same campus that once served as a major battleground in the fight for free speech, Yiannopoulos was evacuated and the school was forced to cancel the event.

Not only did our President then threaten to cut federal funds to UC Berkeley, but Yiannopoulos also took to social media saying, The Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.

This particular event exemplifies the issues that arise when making the assumption that P.C. culture infringes upon first amendment rights. The conception that those protesters violated his first amendment rights is a myth because the first amendment holds that congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. The protesters are not in the position of congress, therefore the government is not restricting anyones freedom of speech in this case.

However, one may also argue that because UC Berkeley is a public school, their decision to cancel Yiannopouloss speech can be seen as a de facto violation of the first amendment under the guise of safety.

The protesters, who can arguably be blamed for inciting the cancellation, were in their rights to assemble. It was only in the violence and destruction of property that they abused and stepped out of their rights. Yiannopoulos, too, was in his right to give a speech, however inflammatory or hateful that speech would have been.

Legally, as set by the supreme court in the case of National Socialist Party v Skokie, people in a public space are within their rights when [m]arching, walking or parading or otherwise displaying the swastika on or off their person; [d]istributing pamphlets or displaying any materials which incite or promote hatred against persons of any faith or ancestry, race or religion.

Essentially, the only speech that is not protected by the first amendment are those that include obscenity and fighting words, words legally defined by the supreme court as those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction.

Regardless of the cultural unrest in our day and age, the legal standards of freedom of speech are being upheld and rightfully contested. Before moving on to investigate the claims of moral standards, a close consideration should be made to the first amendment itself and how its defined and interpreted by the supreme court.

Eve Peyser writes in Esquire goes on to claim that, The heart of [P.C. culture] isnt about making sure what you say doesnt offend, but how people with radically different beliefs should best talk to each other. The intentions stated and the plea for communication addressed here, by an defender of P.C. culture, seem inherently reasonable. But its almost redundant to plea for protection of freedom of speech when the negative effects of P.C. culture on college campuses are under fire from both conservatives and liberals alike.

Language and communication are powerful, these are acts both sides of the political spectrum can agree with. Language dictates our law, but language and meaning in itself is incredibly malleable. The language of law in the case of freedom of speech raises further questions and contestations, especially with the emergence of P.C. culture and recent demonstrations on college campuses.

These campuses are spaces where people with opposing opinions should have the opportunity and the platform to exercise the power of their first amendment rights. It is here where anyone, regardless of political orientation, can delve into the murky meaning of language and law and attempt to find the answers to those questions and contestations.

In the same space where those that are accused of limiting free speech utilize their first amendment rights to assembly, those that accuse P.C. culture of suppressing free speech can also find a platform to voice their opinions. Here, in this complex and controversial dynamic, the beauty in interpreting and exercising the first amendment is made outside of the courts and instead, on college campuses.

This editorial is a reflection of the opinions of The Sundial editorial board.

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Editorial: freedom of speech in an era of political-correctness, part one - Daily Sundial