We have previously discussed how many are now claiming that the prevention of others from speaking is a form of free speech. The latest such example comes from the campus of Saint Louis University where students vandalized a pro-life memorial. What is most striking is how unconcerned the students are in their destructive conduct as they are videotaped. They clearly believe that they have the privilege to stop others from speaking because they espouse opposing viewpoints.
The Saint Louis University Students for Life chapter set up a memorial with 1,000 flags arranged in the shape of a cross. Each flag is meant to represent to 800 abortions.
In a video posted by Students for Life, students destroy the memorial and then use profanity when the pro-life students ask them to stop. One asks “Why can’t you just leave women alone?” as they destroys the memorial.
At around 9:00 p.m. on Monday night, other individuals were caught on video attempting to remove the flags from the display. However, they stopped when confronted.
We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by 2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free speech. Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.
This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others. Berkeley has been the focus of much concern over the use of a heckler’s veto on our campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers, even including a few speakers like an ACLU official. Both students and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech. At another University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).
We previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher who recruited students to destroy pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter. A district court has now ordered Thatcher to pay $17,000 and undergo First Amendment training. However, Thatcher remained defiant and the university appeared complicit in his actions by the lack of disciplinary action.
The pro-life students had written messages on the sidewalk like “You CAN be pregnant & successful” and “Unborn lives matter” to “Women need love, NOT abortion.” Thatcher got students from his 8 a.m. class to help remove the anti-abortion messages and their chalk was taken away to write pro-choice slogans on the sidewalk. The students seem entirely unconcerned that they are censoring speech and engaging in a grossly intolerant act. Instead, they refer to their teacher as telling them that they should do so. Thatcher then walked up and confronted the pro-life students. Thatcher invoked the controversial restriction of free speech to “zones” and says that there is no free speech right for this type of writing outside of that zone. When the students explain that they have permission, he then proceeds to rub out their messages and declared “you have permission to put it down — I have permission to get rid of it.”
Thatcher is arguing that same Orwellian “Stopping free speech is free speech” position.
A few years ago, I debated NYU Professor Jeremy Waldron who is a leading voice for speech codes. Waldron insisted that shutting down speakers through heckling is a form of free speech. I disagree. It is the antithesis of free speech and the failure of schools to protect the exercise of free speech is the antithesis of higher education. In most schools, people are not allowed to disrupt events. They are escorted out of such events and told that they can protest outside of the events since others have a right to listen to opposing views. These disruptions however are often planned to continually interrupt speakers until the school authorities step in to cancel the event. Some schools (as discussed in the SUNY lawsuit) do not wait to cancel events and instead cancel in anticipation of such hecklers. At SUNY when the speaker insisted on trying to speak to the audience, a protester with a bullhorn was eventually led out of the room. However, he was allowed to simply hand the bullhorn to the next disrupter and eventually the hecklers prevailed as the officials shutdown the event.
Absent enforcement of school rules on such disruptions, there is little hope for the open exchange of ideas and a diversity of opinions on campus. It can unleash a type of tit-for-tat pattern of retaliation as speakers are prevented from speaking on controversial subjects. Our campuses then become little more than screaming matches. The rules of most schools properly draw the line between protests and disruptions. Everyone is allowed to be heard. However, if you enter to disrupt it, you are disrupting free speech.
The added increase in embracing violence is particularly chilling. A quarter of those polled supported violence to prevent others from speaking. This is the core of the philosophy of the Antifa movement. It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Indeed, Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic and thus unworthy of being heard.
Antifa has a long and well-documented history of such violence. Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
All Americans owe their freedom to Veterans, whom we thank and honor today.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
While God is marching on
“Battle Hymn of the Republic”
– Julia Ward Stowe, Nov 18, 1861
Abolitionist
Typo: Julia Ward Howe
Wait. This very nice young lady has a “constitutional” right to commit illegal homicide against the very young human being “inside her body”?
Well, what does the nascent hominid have to say about homicide “inside her body”?
Oh, nothing; the growing human being “inside her body” can’t speak yet.
Does that mean this very nice young lady is subject to immediate dispatch due to the fact that she can’t think yet?
What kind of society kills its babies, its future?
Everyone does not agree that undeveloped embryoes are human, nor are they required to, since the beginning of life is a matter of religious belief, not science. That’s what you so-called “pro-lifers” don’t understand, appreciate or tolerate. America is a secular country. Laws based on religious beliefs violate the Constitution. If you believe that life begins at conception, that is your right, along with the right to believe that abortion of an undeveloped embryo or fetus is wrong. But, you don’t have the right to force others to live their lives in compliance with that belief.
NUTCHACHA,
Fertilization produces a zygote.
“…the zygote is the earliest developmental stage…” of a human being.
A zygote is a human being.
A zygote is a homi-nid.
Abortion is homi-cide.
It is an act against nature and God for women to abandon their natural roles.
It is an act against a nation for women to fail to produce a nations population.
Women who fail in their natural duty to procreate can know that they are simply and correctly wrong.
Next question, My Dear.
___________________
Zygote
A zygote (from Ancient Greek ζυγωτός (zygōtós) ‘joined, yoked’, from ζυγοῦν (zygoun) ‘to join, to yoke’)[1] is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote’s genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information necessary to form a new individual organism.
In multicellular organisms, the zygote is the earliest developmental stage. In humans and most other anisogamous organisms, a zygote is formed when an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm cell. In single-celled organisms, the zygote can divide asexually by mitosis to produce identical offspring.
German zoologists Oscar and Richard Hertwig made some of the first discoveries on animal zygote formation in the late 19th century.
So, is it homicide if there is a spontaneous miscarriage? Should the woman call the police and report herself if she spontaneously passes a blob of tissue? Should she be required to contact a funeral home and make funeral arrangements, which woud require her to obtain a birth and death certificate for the tissue? Who’s responsible–God–or should a woman be criminally prosecuted because she failed to fulfill her “womanly” destiny? What constitutes life? Fertilization, development to one stage or another, or ability to survive outside the womb? Roe v. Wade answered this question by holding that at the point of survival outside the womb, the state can enact laws regulating abortion, but not prior to that point in time because the woman has the right to decide whether to proceed with the pregnancy.
It’s what progressives do. They destroy things. Look at the cities that Antifa and BLM were allowed to loot, riot and burn to the ground. The police are told to stand down. And then they wonder where a Kyle Rittenhouse comes from. There are going to be a lot more Kyles if they keep this crap up. It will not end well.
Wen Bars threatens homicide:
“There are going to be a lot more Kyles if they keep this crap up. It will not end well.”
I’ve said it before, but it beats repeating, Leftists will die at the hands of Trumpists and Q-Anon in “self-defence.”
Sorry Jeff, getting off the bench for this one only. Kyle has not been convicted of ANYTHING. So no threat of homicide. As a lawyer I am sure that your are aware of the presumption of innocence. Pulling the trigger a little early. ( pun intended).
Oh, Dinner offer holds.
You throwing a flag on me?
I was not trying to imply that Kyle is guilty. I realize that his is a cause celebre on the Right. I tell you now that I will NOT question the jury’s judgment of the facts and the law. I will accept the verdict whatever it is. Let’s see if the Right and those on this blog will….
You wanna make a gentleman’s bet they will?
OK .But from I have seen of this trial, I like my odds. I mean as far as the outcome. Not on acceptance. It seemed to me the prosecution’s witnesses , especially Gauge, helped the defense. That being said, Kyle should not have been there.
Thanks for the football reference.
It was the left that was violent, not Rittenhouse. The person shot was convicted of burglary and is known to be violent. One of the others that attacked Rittenhouse beat up his wife. The one Rittenhouse shot that lived initially claimed Rittenhouse was the aggressor. However, when the videos and other information were presented, he had to admit he had drawn his weapon and that Rittenhouse didn’t fire until the leftist pulled his gun and pointed it at Rittenhouse. The prosecutor tried to make it appear differently, but a still shot shows Rittenhouse was about to be killed. This case proves that this prosecutor wasn’t looking for justice. He was looking out for himself and having to face the angry leftist mob. Justice failed when Rittenhouse was arrested with all the videos that prove him innocent.
Rittenhouse is a paramedic and felt some might need help. He cleaned graffiti from the walls and acted peacefully as the leftists savaged the city. Rittenhouse was attacked by the leftists and defended himself. He is a good human being.
Jeff, on the other hand, supports the violence on the left. What Jeff insultingly calls Trumpists don’t kill, but some of them know how to protect themselves. Wen Bars is correct. Eventually, the left will be attacking people who will defend themselves, and it will end badly.
Violent leftists should be put in jail. Let them call our Malibu lawyer for their defense. I’ll foot part of the bill because this lawyer is so incompetent he will probably cause a few more years to be added onto their sentences.
“Rittenhouse is a paramedic and felt some might need help. He cleaned graffiti from the walls and acted peacefully as the leftists savaged the city. Rittenhouse was attacked by the leftists and defended himself. He is a good human being.”
And thrill punches girls in the side of the face on the side.
“Two Kenosha men who filmed the melee — Reese Granville and CJ Wakefield — said the teen throwing the punches was Rittenhouse, the outlet reported.”
Amazing who I can’t see the face. It seems the left will lie, cheat, steal and burn. For months we have heard that Kyle Rittenhouse shot a man who wasn’t threatening him. Now we see the film in court of that same man pulling a weapon and pointing it at Rittenhouse. It seems with time all these fantasies disappear.
What won’t disappear is that ATS is deceitful and a liar whether he acts in a purely anonymous way or uses his new green anonymous icon.
interesting considering that SLU is a Catholic university
This story is somewhat off subject but it’s so hilarious that it must be shared. On second thought it does address the Woke mob. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10188137/PIERS-MORGAN-Biden-doesnt-stand-chance-2024-neither-does-epically-unpopular-Kamala.html
@ralph chappell
I have always wondered why the Brave, Masked, Wonderful Warriors of Antifa (TM) don’t take their message of love and joy to places such as Coeur d’Alene, Idaho or other non-urban locales. I heartily recommend they do so!
antonio
More of the famous leftist “tolerance” we keep hearing so much about. President Trump whatever his deficiencies, forced the left to show what they really think about those with whom they disagree. And it is quite clear they despise us and feel justified in using any means at their disposal.
I want a divorce and it would have already happened if the US were a couple.
antonio
Antonio wonders:
“President Trump whatever his deficiencies…,”
Pathological liar, self-confessed sexual degenerate, would-be authoritarian and conman.
But, hey, whatever
“What is most striking is how unconcerned the students are in their destructive conduct”
They killed the baby once, why should they care about killing the baby again?
“Antifa has a long and well-documented history of such violence. Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
I submit ANTIFA is a Domestic Terrorist Group that needs to be shut up….behind Bars in Prison or other more permanent confines when appropriate.
Words are fine…but the use of physical violence is a crime and done as it is by ANTIFA….is terrorism.
There is but one way to deal with Terrorists….simply render them ineffective by whatever means required.
These are the same students who hyperventilate over verbal “microaggressions,” and who claim they “feel” physically threatened by words they don’t agree with. They conflate verbal aggression with physical aggression, erasing the line between speech and act. This is Gen Z in all its mental instability. I believe history shows that many great empires were weakened and destroyed from within, despite having plenty of external enemies. The US now has at least one entire generation of future elites who simply can’t cope with reality. They’re going to make Biden look like the picture of mental health.
This is accurate, and it has been apparent for some time now. There were those of us that mused if left unchecked, these kids and their inability to be functional human beings, given that they would one day inherit society, could very easily bring us to the brink of civil war or even world war. This topic can’t be discussed without addressing the parenting trends of the past 40 years, too – these kids did not pop out of the womb proclaiming anything a micro-aggression. No, they were fragile and unstable long before they got to college, and that having grown up in one of the safest and most prosperous times in the West’s history. There’s lots to unpack with this, and we’d better start unpacking sooner rather than later. When two or three more of these generations are voting, we could find ourselves in a seriously intractable situation.
I doubt if these “students” could have an original thought. Someone is feeding their minds this garbage. Though this is a petty crime, the process is the same as it edges toward violence. The names Tex Watson, Bobby Beausoleil, Susan Atkins, Mary Bruner, Squeaky Fromme, etc. were also youths who were just caught up in the moment, not thinking.
This is why it is never okay to shut up a dissenting voice or another individual’s point of view. Groupthink is unchallenged thinking. It is dangerous. The balance is fragile.
We are witnessing a deliberate and well-orchestrated movement to destroy this nation and everything that makes it unique and wonderful.
EM:
“This is why it is never okay to shut up a dissenting voice or another individual’s point of view.”
Trumpists have not mentioned the fact nor complained to Fox or Turley for its silencing the Trumpist lawyers from appearing on Fox to provide their dissenting voice that the election was stolen.
Why not?
It’s only censorship when the Left silences another individual’s point of view?
Will no one here answer my question?
Apparently, this lawyer never learned what the word censorship means.
This is what happens when people can’t agree to disagree !
The students at SLU should protest against nuns who have sex with each other
Hardly an apt analogy.
In days of old.
When Knight’s were bold.
And rubbers weren’t invented.
We tied a sock
Around the cock.
And babies were prevented.
“Jeremy Waldron who is a leading voice for speech codes.”
‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
A university is either the “life of the mind” or it is a back alley of thugs. Tragically, the thugs are winning. Their intellectual leaders are Ph.D.’s, bent on transforming universities into propaganda mills. They cannot win on the battleground of ideas, so they resort to intimidation, mob tactics, and physical violence.
So, thugs.
The dilemma clearly presents. The opposition no longer subscribes to the social contract that facilitates a peaceful cohabitation. As civility and personal security erode in a free society, the authoritarians gain the upper hand with their offerings of order. The quarter of students who would restrict others’ natural rights with violence will almost certainly grow given the current pedagogical bent in our schools. The collective’s failure to protect the individual’s natural rights doesn’t end the individual’s fight to exercise those rights. At some point, an individual’s optimal response, either morally or practically, shall be to meet violence with violence. How does the West escape this death spiral?
FriscoDB,
Great analysis.
I really do think we are getting closer to that ” . . . shall be to meet violence with violence.”
Horrifying.
Absolutely horrible. Those destroying it likely were paid by Soros.
Kaykay says:
“Those destroying it likely were paid by Soros.”
Naturally, when in doubt, blame a Jew.”
He blamed a man without a conscience, but that is something you wouldn’t understand.
The left always changes the topic, moves the goal posts, and dives into pedantic cover to support censorship.
While the 1st amendment prevents the govt from taking actions to silence ideas, the left loses the entirety of the concept of free expression. These college students have been steeped in the bile of the educational elites indoctrinating students with the notion that some ideas deserve censorship. And not just censorship, but physical violence to enforce their ideas on all others.
Yes we all know the 1st ammendment applies to the government.
But all should do their part to protect ideas we disagree with. That is a founding principle of a free nation. Without that principle, none are free.
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” – William O. Douglas, The One Un-American Act, A Speech to the Author’s Guild Council in New York (1951)
Thanks Whig98 for the quote. In researching William O. Douglas I came across many terrific quotes regarding Speech at Great Minds Dialogue Caputo-Nov 11-Template-Blue (shu.edu). Plato being one: “For as there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists, or haters of ideas. Both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world.”
Where were you deployed on January 30, 1968? Were you then a rifleman, a ’60 gunner or a radioman?
Lefty thugs trying to undermine democracy.
Look at lefties like Anonymous who swamp this site with garbage. His right to post, but his mindset is telling.
Even Turley has to censor him occasionally when Anonymous’ anger spills over and he forgets courtesy.
Many Lefties are angry people.
I have absolutely no problem with people commenting anonymously, see my own creative moniker, but I do have an issue with people not at least labeling their comments by separate handles. What I am saying is that there should not be 10 people with the name Anonymous because when we see a comment we have no way of knowing which Anonymous it is. Is what I am saying making sense? Let the bad Mr. Anonymous call himself Anonymous 666 or something so that when he comments we can just skip his inanity.
I love this site, I respect Professor Turley and I enjoy his columns and his commentary, but please Professor, stop letting so many people use the same name.
hullbobby
Blogs like this allow dysfunctional people like Anonymous to display their pathologies.
Anonymous is a manchild who compulsively hits the refresh button all day hoping to engage someone, anyone in debate.
Waste of time. Two days ago, over 1/3 of posts were anonymous.
I agree. If we each had a separate name, readers could avoid disturbed people like Anonymous.
I tend to just skip past any “Anonymous” posting.
“I tend to just skip past any “Anonymous” posting.”
Sure you do….
I just don’t get why anti-fascism is a considered a negative by the right.
You don’t get it because as proven over and over again you don’t know what fascism or all the other isms are. You think fascism and socialism are good for the little people. They aren’t. They are good for those in charge and their friends.
Anonymous, a little history lesson. It was the fascist who just like these students wouldn’t allow any speech that went against their official proclamations. This is an elementary understanding of history. Of course you have to read some history to understand what happened.
I imagine it has something to do with your sort calling anyone they want to punch a “fascist” just before delivering the blow.
One should skip all anonymous comments including this one.
Colorado in denial:
“Many Lefties are angry people.”
True. It is commendable that I NEVER perceive ANY anger from Trumpists, e.g.,
“These baby killers are nothing more than rabid dogs and should be disposed of in the same manner.”
Or
“At some point, an individual’s optimal response, either morally or practically, shall be to meet violence with violence.”
Or
“There is but one way to deal with Terrorists….simply render them ineffective by whatever means required.”
“Whatever means” implies that killing is not off the table.