Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Kent State Petition Seeks to Punish Students for Painting “What is a Woman?” on Free Speech Rock
Like many schools, Kent State University has a free speech rock that is a symbol of the right to free expression at that institution. However, some at the school appear to have a narrow view of what constitutes free speech after College Republicans painted “What Is a Woman?” on the rock. The question appears to be a reference to  a documentary by conservative commentator Matt Walsh. The rock painting led to a petition declaring that “The Kent State College Republicans must be held accountable for their actions.”

According to KentWired.com, Marina Difranco, a senior visual communication design major, created the petition and website and insisted that “it doesn’t matter if you’re Republican, Democrat, old young, a student – this type of speech shouldn’t exist anywhere.”That sentiment is picked up by Kent State LGBTQ Studies Professor Lauren Vachon, who called the documentary hate speech. After offering the perfunctory acknowledgment that free speech is “super important,” she added “we know that the intent was antagonism. I do think there should be consequences for that. It’s not about free speech.”

I understand how this documentary can be offensive to many, particularly transgender students and faculty. However, it is all “about free speech.” We cannot simply label documentaries or advocacy “hate speech” because people reject your core beliefs.

Vachon is a self-described “queer activist and educator” who writes on “queer pedagogy […] and collecting queer oral histories.” That is valuable perspective for this (and any) campus and I expect most faculty and students agree with her underlying objections to this documentary. Yet, these students are also part of that diversity of opinion.

Every university must strive to preserve an environment that is welcoming and tolerant. That is why this controversy literally puts Kent State between a rock and a hard place. However, as a state school, it is subject to the First Amendment. Even if it would be inclined to take action against these students or blocking the documentary, it would be prevented from doing so.

This is not the first such controversy caused by “the Rock.”  Three years ago, Kent State faced a similar situation after someone painted “White Lives Matter” on the rock. The university president denounced the painting as part of an overall problem with racism in our society.

The planned protests against the film and the rock are precisely why this is all a matter of free speech. Professor Vachon and others can voice their opposition with equal vigor. One would hope that there might also be room for a substantive and civil discussion of the underlying issues. However, as for calls to hold these students “accountable,” the university should continue its position of supporting the free speech rights of both sides.

The anti-free speech movement is a death knell for our higher education, particularly at private universities, which are not directly impacted by First Amendment protections. The anti-free speech movement is making public universities the last line of defense for those struggling to preserve forums for free speech.

In the petition, organizers referenced the university mascot the “Golden Flash,” and asked “how can flashes support flashes when the university is permitting hate speech?” The answer is that the university supports all “flashes” when it supports free speech. Otherwise, free speech will be gone in a flash.

176 thoughts on “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Kent State Petition Seeks to Punish Students for Painting “What is a Woman?” on Free Speech Rock”

  1. There was earlier discussion about Garland’s lie. The amount of corruption, lying and everything else that is bad coming from this administration is non-stop.
    ===
    Attorney General Merrick Garland is ‘senior’ Biden official in Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower claim
    Steven Nelson
    WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland is the unnamed official whose sworn testimony before Congress is being challenged in a bombshell letter from an IRS whistleblower’s attorney that also alleges a coverup in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation, The Post has learned.

    https://nypost.com/2023/04/20/merrick-garland-at-center-of-hunter-biden-whistleblower-claim/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news_alert&utm_content=20230420?&utm_source=sailthru&lctg=62680bbe38a279b1870b18c5&utm_term=NYP%20-%20News%20Alerts

  3. Election interference
    —
    Ex-top spy admits Hunter Biden laptop letter designed to influence 2020 election, Blinken involved

    A former acting CIA director has admitted to Congress that he organized the letter that falsely portrayed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation in an effort to influence the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden and that he did so at the direction of current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to a letter released Thursday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

    The extraordinary admission by career intelligence officer Michael J. Morell provides stunning evidence that the now-infamous letter from 51 security officials in October 2021 was not an organic intelligence community initiative but rather a political dirty trick originating with Blinken and the Biden campaign.

    https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/ex-top-spy-admits-hunter-biden-laptop-letter-designed-influence?utm_source=breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

  5. “we know that the intent was antagonism. I do think there should be consequences for that. It’s not about free speech.”
    *************************************

    Sounds like George III’s words to Cornwallis when discussing Thomas Paine.

    The best thing is the irony that these tranny dolts don’t know who any of the three folks I mentioned even are or what century they lived in.

  6. Is the subject of the documentary, “What Is A Woman”, hateful? I have not seen the entirety of the documentary, but from the trailer it seems to me one has to be far too sensitive for their own wellbeing to find it hateful. If not overly sensitive then for sure extremely ideologically driven. As objective and rational persons not driven by their emotions can see from the trailer, it’s obvious the documentary is nothing other than free speech intended to encourage civil discourse. It is wrong for the Kent State petitioners to attribute it to any organization as something to “encourage discrimination and hate crimes”, as is stated in the petition. Everyone should see the documentary for themselves to determine what the petition states the documentary “invalidates.” It sems to me the only invalidation to be had is for anyone who cannot define what a woman is.
    https://youtu.be/42ivIRd9N8E

    1. Ron A. Hoffman,
      I think you hit the nail on the head with your one observation,
      “. . . one has to be far too sensitive for their own wellbeing to find it hateful.”
      I have mentioned previously in other articles by the good professor, they have abandoned the Ego and the Super Ego in favor of the ID.
      They are all ID.
      To me, that would explain their hyper-emotional reactions. Their propensity to equate words with violence. Shout down any and all opposing POV as free speech. To declare that their existence is in danger from some kind of genocide.
      As if they were being rounded up, incarcerated in solitary confinement, denied a fair and speedy trial. Or even being shot and killed in the streets with the offenders not being persecuted. Or if they try to make a speech they get assaulted and have to be escorted to a safe room till police can provide their exit from a hostile mob.

      1. Thank you for your reply. I should have added that the question, “What is a Woman”, is one that confronts and has come to befuddle everyone’s historical understanding of gender. The question causes us to hesitate out of the fear that what we might say would be politically incorrect. It’s sad that we have come to a point when it is discomforting not knowing what a woman is. The question also discomforts those who were quick to sign the petition. It’s why they simply attack it as hate speech so not to have to contend with all the ramifications that go along with their wokeness.

  7. “Academia” is just trying to prove the Babylon Bee is not parody. They are taking one for the team.

  8. Two men and a womb, right?

    That said, sex is male and female by genetic consensus from conception. Gender is sex-correlated attributes: masculine and feminine, respectively. Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature by Her Choice… uh, choice. Trans- as in transgender refers to a state or process of divergence from normal.

    1. B.B. said: “Two men and a womb, right?”

      Yes,….. a womb with a view.(point)
      🙂

  9. Kent’s leftists pray to an iron sulfide rock.

    (That might take some thinking. While doing so think of Exodus 32:1-6. )

    1. Pray to mortal gods and goddesses for secular lucre, and bray loudly, endlessly in violent occupation, mobbing, clinics, and open abortion fields.

    2. Iron sulfide is pyrite known as fool’s gold or the mineral pyrite. The left prays to socialism and many false gods including the gods of political correctness, family destruction, and hate.

      Notable, when poked with acute instruments, whether knowledge or an Ice Pick, both socialism and pyrite crumble.

  10. This is no longer political, it is sanity vs. bathsh** insane. Decide which world you want to live in the future and act accordingly, because we are creating that future *right now*.

  11. I find it inconceivable that anyone should even ask such a question, except in a philosophical sense. As to the alphabet soup crew, the best place for them is doubled over in a dumpster.

  12. Although I am a Trump guy and will vote for him in ’24, it is good to see old-school liberal Bobby Kennedy running for the Democrat nomination for president. Kennedy is, by far, one of the smartest, most intellectually honest and decent people in either party. He is not woke. The Democrat leadership and the coastal elites hate him, but he does not care. Many members of his extended family will not vote for him, but he does not care.

    As it is with Trump, Kennedy is a populist who focuses almost exclusively on policies and actions that serve poor, working-class, and middle-class Americans. Kennedy is no friend of Wall Street or the government handouts they receive. Although Kennedy supports certain vaccines, he does not hesitate to call out pharmaceutical companies for the dangerous vaccines they have produced and the lies they have told. On the environment, instead of focusing on non-toxic CO2, Kennedy focuses on the truly dangerous chemicals harming regular Americans every day. And, like any old-school liberal, Kennedy believes the U.S. should go to war only in rare situations. Ukraine, he has stated, is not one of those situations. Kennedy has stated that he will also address the concern that poor and working-class men, not college students, have tended to fight our wars in the past.

    If Trump wins back the White House, he could do a lot worse than making Bobby Kennedy director of the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Health and Human Services.

        1. It is good he is a Democrat. He can contrast with what Democrats have become. There is no semblance of humanity in Democrats except for the very few, and he is one of them.

  13. Am I the only one thinking about ‘four dead in Ohio’?
    Maybe you’re too young to remember that?

    -G

    1. Ian—–I thought of those kids immediately. I was one year out of college when my old room-mate called me yelling and crying:
      :”They”re shooting kids in Ohio!!!”

      1. Cindy –– …”They”re shooting kids in Ohio!!!”

        They’ll be shooting our kids in Ukraine !!!

      1. Bring back the draft.
        No exceptions.
        Even if you are a Senator’s son (H/T CCR), college bound, or a biological male pretending to be a female.
        And I would expect to see a HUGE % of leftist males suddenly declare themselves as trans in the face of a draft.

          1. They may have to register.
            But I would not put it past them and the Democrats to attempt to make them a marginalized exception.
            And suddenly, there would be a outbreak of trans men to women everywhere in the US.

        2. Russia Launches Video Campaign Calling For ‘Real Men’ To Fight In Ukraine
          https://www.zerohedge.com/military/watch-russia-launches-video-campaign-calling-real-men-fight-ukraine
          https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-expands-war-recruitment-drive-with-video-ad-calling-real-men-2023-04-20/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=042023

          “You’re a real man. Be one,” says the ad.

  14. If you cannot define what a woman is… or a man… how can you define transgenderism or gender dysphoria?

    The quote isn’t hate speech, but protected speech.

    -G

    1. “…how can you define transgenderism or gender dysphoria?…”
      By looking in a Mirror

      1. I looked in the mirror.
        What I saw was a slightly greying brown male.
        When I see pics of that Dylan . . . guy, I see a male pretending to be a female and in the process insulting years if not decades of women’s rights struggle.
        If I were a woman, I would beeotch slap that arsehole. And then knee him in the groin. For good measure, then I would dump a can of Bud Lite on him.

      2. @Anon,
        Not even funny.
        I mean a personal attack should at least be humorous or even note worthy.
        Clearly you failed to understand the meaning of my post.

        @Upstate Farmer…
        The wild thing… members of the transgender community have come out and said they were against Dylan. Not just Bruce Jenner aka Caitlyn Jenner, but most of the anonymous trans quoted in the press. Essentially saying they found Dylan to be obnoxious.

        Some said that Dylan’s tiktok followers were mostly CISgendered and Dylan portrayed what they thought a transgendered female should be.

        As to the rest of your comment….
        I wouldn’t recommend any violence towards anyone unless they were attacking you (physically) and you had to defend yourself.

        They have a right to live their lives as they see fit.
        That said… they don’t have the right to compete in women’s sports since they are not biologically female. There you have to have the courts to decide how to handle when two protected classes are at odds with one another.

        -G

  15. The creator of the petition, Marina Difranco, disturbingly said: “This type of speech shouldn’t exist anywhere.” With that, Difranco makes it quite clear that she is not nearly enough an advocate for free speech. Wanting to hold anyone accountable for speech that should not exist is one of the very first steps authoritarians take to establish their tyranny. I trust we can be certain that Difranco too does not wish to live under an unjust or oppressive governmental power. Assuming so, she should have good reason to be thankful when the Kent State Administration trash cans her petition.

    1. Ron A. Hoffman, her saying that speech should not exist anywhere and the prospect of that actually happening are quite literally very far apart. You do realize that that may may be just rhetoric expressing frustration right? Which incidentally is also free speech. Making demands, denouncing certain speech, or calling for certain speech to be banned are all forms of free speech. None mean they will actually happen.
      A lot of conservatives and Turley often mistake or deliberately mischaracterize mere rhetoric for actual intent. This is just another example of Turley peddling narratives to keep his more conservative readers upset or angry about things that are not as serious as he wants to portray them. Remember it was Turley who supports holding protesting students accountable for exercising their right to protest which IS also protected speech. Why would others who are demanding what Turley usually demands of others be any different?

      1. Making demands, denouncing certain speech, or calling for certain speech to be banned are all forms of free speech.

        Rejecting demands, denouncing the denouncers of speech are also free speech.

        I guess it is tutrles all the way up.

      2. It seems you may have a confused understanding of what rhetoric is. I take a person’s rhetoric very seriously. What they say is not at all far apart from what is read, heard, and perceived, and therefore what they mean and intend. It is why what you peddle here to keep your readers upset or angry about things is so disturbing to objective and rational people. Difranco and you should work much harder at more carefully monitoring your rhetoric and then hopefully mastering it.

      3. Their “rhetoric” is free speech, sure, but it also shows them to be immature and intolerant and deserving of the criticisms that Professor Turley heaps on them in that same marketplace of ideas. Also, it is just that type of rhetoric that so often times leads to censorship “actions.” The examples are too legion to recite, but for example Walsh himself has been demonitized on youtube in an effort to suppress his speech. The US government funds NGO’s that make lists of “trusted” and “untrustworthy” news sources used by social media to determine which narratives get promoted and which ones get silenced, which ones are “safe” for advertisers, etc.

      4. However, as a professor employed by state university speaking in her official capacity, her remarks cannot be construed as mere rhetoric. Your remarks about the student protestors has no merit. They have the same right to protest as the Jan 6 protestors.

        1. J6 protestors have MORE right.

          They were protesting government – which has NO Rights only powers.
          You can not infringe on the rights of government it has no rights.

          Further the J6 protestors had a permit to protest.

          Finally they were protesting govenrment – which is the MOST protected form of speech.

      5. @Svelez: A person’s “mere rhetoric” is a stated form of their actual intent.” Saying that anything “shouldn’t exist” is akin to saying So-and-so’s Twitter account should killed. Of course, hopefully, the Twitter complainer is not advocating that So-and-so be murdered. Of course, hopefully, Ms. Difranco and professor Vachon are not advocating that whomever painted the “What is a woman?” question have their fingers removed so they can never use spray paint again. However, in both cases, the subjects are acting as if their speech/ideals should take precedence over those of someone else. As it relates to free speech, that is the very essence of anathema maranatha.

        What you, Ms. Difranco, and professor Vachon are lacking is any self awareness of irony. You are each are certainly free to have and express your own opinions (indeed, that is the very definition of free speech). Yet you believe that that same freedom should only extend to people expressing opinions that harmonize with yours, and that people with thoughts that are dissonant to your should be silenced. The freedom you have most certainly does not include the freedom to deprive others of theirs.

        No action occurs in a vacuum: Every action begins as a thought.
        No thought occurs in a vacuum: Every thought begins with an intention.
        No intention comes from the outside, but rather from a person’s heart.
        “And [Jesus] said, “Whatever comes from [the heart of] a man, that is what defiles and dishonors him. (Mark 7:20, AMP)

        “Mere rhetoric” and “actual intent” are not as unrelated as you claim them to be. They are inseparable. The only distinction between them is how in check the mind keeps the body from physically acting on the intention.

        1. Hickdead,
          That was a very good and profound comment.
          As I have stated in the past, I am not religious but I found your references quite interesting.
          Thank you.

      6. You do realize that that may may be just rhetoric expressing frustration right?

        First, I don’t believe that for a nanosecond. Second, this is unduly solicitous of a person calling for censorship and punishment of the speaker. Would you give so much latitude if the person calling for such harsh measures were conservatives, and they were calling for the punishment of liberal speech?

        1. It is not the demand of students that are a problem – any more than the demands of toddlers.

          The problem is the action that will likely result from those demands.

      7. If her remarks were heated rhetoric or hyperbolic – she is free to correct them.

        Regardless you are once again contradicting yourself.

        It is once again is SVelaz World acceptable to harbor ill intent towards those who disagree with you politically – as long as you do not act AND you are on the left. But if you are on the right – your words, or even guesses by your political oponents as to your thoughts are proof of a crime.

      8. You are mostly correct – expressing an opinion – is free speech.

        Giving an order is also an ACT and the ACT portion Can be a crime.

        Students are free to hold and express bad opinions – though students demanding that the speech rights of others are violated – probably should be expelled.
        Or atleast started down that path.

        What you miss is that expressing an opinion is a step towards acting.

        The objective – of Turly, and the rest of us is to bring light to those so that bad opinions that ARE free speech do not turn into BAD ACTS that are not.

        I frequently expose Left wing nuts violent rhetoric – not because it is illegal or unprotected, but because it is more offensive that that of the Right that YOU claim is illegal.

        If the law was as you constantly claim – that would allow you to “get Trump” and some other republicans. At the expense of jailing nearly the entire democratic party – if YOUR law was neutrally applied.

  16. It’s beginning to look a lot like Cuba. Come on. Sing it with me. Never would I have thought it would come here too.

    1. “The Contest did not require participants to disprove election interference. Thus, the contestants’ task was to prove the data presented to them was not valid data from the November 2020 election,” the arbitration panel wrote…
      “The Panel was not asked to decide whether China interfered in the 2020 election. Nor was the Panel asked to decide whether Lindell LLC possessed data that proved such interference, or even whether Lindell LLC had election data in its possession,” according to the arbitration panel. “The focus of the decision is on the 11 files provided to Mr. Zeidman in the context of the Contest rules.” https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/20/politics/mike-lindell-2020-election/index.html

          1. .Why? The question is “what is a woman”.

            Up until now, I keep hearing from you lefties that a man can be a woman. I also read somewhere that midwives need training in the care of men and women since they are trying to believe men go into labor.

            Suddenly XY is a strange answer to “what is a woman”. Are you suddenly getting the point of the left’s nonsense? Your answer shows the leftist fallacy.

            If I had written XX you would have argued differently. You always do. That is your nature. I bet you would. I was right.

            In summary, what is a woman, PC leftists have to say,

            XY is strange
            XX is wrong

            That is the leftist mindset.

Comments are closed.