Below is my column in USA Today on the “deactivation order” issued to a controversial pro-Palestinian group at the University of Florida. The order in my view is unconstitutional. We need to focus on deterring acts of destruction and any violent threats or acts on our campuses. We can maintain a safe space for all of our students without sacrificing the free speech rights that are the foundation for higher education.
Here is the column.
The issuance of a deactivation order last month in Florida sounded like it involved a routine decision by the utility to cut off service because of an overdue bill. In reality, it involved the deactivation of the free speech rights of a controversial group, and the bill may prove prohibitively expensive for many citizens.
The order in question was issued by Raymond Rodrigues, the chancellor of Florida’s university system, to the University of Florida chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine. The SJP has been under fire for its statements in support of Palestinians after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.
I have previously written that Hamas is factually, legally and morally a terrorist organization. However, the banning of the student group in Florida represents a clear denial of free speech rights under the First Amendment.
Rodrigues has indicated that he made the decision “in consultation with (Gov. Ron) DeSantis” due to the SJP national body voicing support for the Palestinian “resistance” and rationalizing the Oct. 7 attack as the result of Israel’s “apartheid, ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate bombing” and other “provocations.”
That advocacy is being used to suggest that the group is guilty of a felony under Florida law to knowingly provide material aid or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
However, no such charge has been filed. Indeed, no charge could be sustained on this basis. Political advocacy is not a crime in this country and cannot alone constitute material support.
The SJP’s anti-Israel language and its support for Palestinians fall squarely within protected speech under the First Amendment. The emphasis remains on the word “material,” not political support under these laws, and has not yet been shown in Florida.
Under cases like Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court has emphasized that criminal material support of terrorist groups cannot criminalize simple advocacy. Rather, it requires “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.”
The court also has stressed in other cases that the First Amendment protects the right of students to associate and advocate on campuses on issues of public concern.
Our universities must remain places where students feel safe to voice their viewpoints, and threatening or violent acts, including tearing down flyers about Hamas’ hostages, cannot be tolerated. However, campuses also must remain places where diverse viewpoints can be expressed. Free speech remains a critical guarantee for higher education.
Other schools such as Brandeis University have banned SJP and my own university, George Washington, issued a temporary suspension. Those, however, are private universities. They can face lawsuits over violating their own free speech principles, but Florida is a state actor barred directly under the First Amendment from such content discrimination.
Conversely, we have seen students and professors accused of inflammatory rhetoric against Hamas subjected to suspension or forced to teach remotely.
It is a pattern that has repeated itself with cyclic regularity throughout our history. In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore periods of “panic politics” and how inevitably the first victim is free speech. The same pattern appears to be happening now in Florida.
Silencing opposing views is never an effective way of combating ideology. A Quinnipiac University poll found that, among Democratic voters, 41% said their sympathies lie with the Palestinians, while 34% said they were more sympathetic to the Israelis. Overall, the percentage of Americans who support Palestinians rather than Israelis is smaller but growing.
Responding to these citizens with censorship will only further fuel the rage while undermining free speech for all Americans. speech
There is an alternative. Universities can enforce policies barring threats and violence while allowing good speech to counter bad speech.
We have seen the alternative. It is to succumb to the monster of sedition and speech crimes. In every prior period, the fear and anger were genuine and often understandable. However, they resulted in the abuse of minority groups and dissenting views in society, from communists to feminists to civil rights advocates.
We have seen censorship and cancel campaigns also directed at Jewish groups, including the disgraceful destruction of Hamas hostage flyers by lawyers and professors. We have also seen school publications push back on pro-Israeli writers. And we have seen rising antisemitism, physical abuse and violent rhetoric directed against Jewish students. None of that can be tolerated on our campuses.
Florida is likely to lose the fight over its deactivation order because it is attempting to deactivate the exercise of free speech. That is the very right that defines us as a nation.
It is also a right that has been in a free-fall on college campuses in this era of cancel campaigns. Conservatives have rightfully denounced such campaigns, which largely target conservative, libertarian and contrarian speakers. Indeed, universities have been complicit in rising orthodoxy and intolerance on our campuses, including the dramatic reduction of conservative and libertarian faculty.
DeSantis should reconsider the implications of this action. The First Amendment was not created to protect only popular speech. It was a truly revolutionary statement that we would protect all views, including those we may find wrong and offensive. It is a protection of the least popular among us. It is a covenant among citizens that we will fight for one another’s right to speak regardless of our disagreement with the underlying views.
Whatever the cost that SJP’s speech may have for schools, it pales in comparison with the cost of censorship. That is a bill that must be paid by every citizen when we try to silence the few for the satisfaction of the many.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @JonathanTurley
“Florida’s “Deactivation” of Pro-Palestinian Group is Unconstitutional”
– Professor Turley
____________________
The United States should commence “deactivation” programs and apply for “asylum,” understanding that actual American lives are in danger.
The United States should immediately commence “deactivation” in the form of mass “asylum deportations” of all unassimilable, heterogeneous, illegal aliens and foreign invaders in the interests of national security.
Can a professor hang a Confederate Battle Flag on his door?
I think he can and should be protected.
Yes, he can. And if a government university prevents him from doing so, and he sues, he is guaranteed to win.
https://www.albanyherald.com/news/former-obama-administration-official-arrested-after-video-shows-islamophobic-language-spewed-at-food-vendor/article_14238997-ed39-53da-ac31-e770cab52199.html
I suppose it depends upon whose ox has been gored.
The Obama Admin official was actively harrassing the Vendor, and driving away customers.
There appears to be no evidence that the vendor sought out engagement much less confrontation with the official.
I am not sure that a criminal arrest is justified – but a restraining order most definitely is.
No it does NOT depend whose ox is gored. This former official was jewish and was attacking a Halal vendor.
While a protection order is justified – the conduct of protesotrs chasing Jewish students into libraries and closets,
is WORSE – that goes beyond speech into conduct and atleast strong threats of violence.
Deactivating the Palestinian group is a first amendment violation – the solution is to end government education.
It is not the role of government to educate our kids.
Perhaps Professor Turley will explain in a future column why the Palestinians voted for Hamas, a known terrorist organization, in 2006. Is it akin to some Trumpists who claimed they voted for this hot orange mess in 2016 because of his “policies”?
One of The Big Guy’s Bolshevik Birthing Boys from the Soviet Democrats’ Woke Marxist Useful Idiot Brigade has arrived! He’s specifically here to assure us that we aren’t in a hot mess today for the last three and a half years since Trump!
Bidenomics is an incredible success, leaving thousands of Americans in Afghanistan was one of our greatest military victories, the borders are in fact secure, the adversarial nations are still behaving themselves, the military is as strong as ever!
And the Bolshevik Birthing Boyz are here to assure us that President Daddy-Daughter Inappropriate Showers “policies” are the only thing saving us from what was America under Trump from 2016 through 2020!
Impressive! Let’s have a big cheer for four more years of following The Big Guy and his Bolshevik Birthing Boys wandering in the woke Marxist Wilderness – where men can get pregnant and they cheer men cosplaying as women competing in womens’ sports.
What a great vision for America here to scream like a maddened loon from the Biden wilderness!
Gee. I seem to have hit a nerve. Kind of exotic, being called a Marxist. What an old trope.
And labeled a “maddened loon” to boot. Interesting simile, “scream like a maddened loon”. Very poetic.
Seems when hyperbole meets hyperbole, its amused.
+100
Geez… imagine that. You say “Bolshevik Birthing Boy”… and it pops up as though you just said it’s name. So… did I hit a nerve to have you pop back up – or did I get your name right?
But you mostly came here to tell us the country is so much better off now that your man Bribery Biden is running the country on the Chicoms and Bernie Sanders “policies”… wasn’t that it? You didn’t wander in here to post what you did because you accidentally wandered in here on your way to your Incels Anonymous meeting.
Dennis McIntyre should probably be happy to have you lend him a hand.
I absolutely voted for Trump because of his policies. His first 3 years before covid were the best 3 years I’ve ever had under any president. When I was born Harry Truman was president. I’ve lived through a few administrations. Independent Bob.
Can you delineate Trump’s policies and describe how they have helped you, Bob?
Does he need to, lost in the wilderness? It was better then, its not now. It was better before obama, worse during. Its not coincidence, dum dum.
Childish name-calling is not a helpful response.
Generalities won’t do. There needs to be at least one example of a Trump policy, but nobody can do that because there weren’t any.
Lost in the wilderness
No, dum dum, its not necessary. But since you’re an idiot, and refuse to accept what you see with your own eyes, here ya go.
Energy policy made and kept fuel prices low. And since energy prices affect literally EVERYTHING else we buy, inflation was at record lows, despite the spending.
Foreign policy kept our would be antagonists at bay. No new wars and people generally behaving. When they didnt (soleimani) they paid the price. Also prompted our allies to step up.
Tax policy and deregulation created jobs, moved jobs back to US, caused record low unemployment among minority groups. Record low poverty rates, substantial rises in wages and real wages, and real mean household income.
Border policies were reining in the out of control illegal immigration and asylum abuse.
These are just a few, chosen because they were specifically targeted by biden for change, and are easily contrasted to where we are now.
I am sure that he can, but why is that necessary – LOOK AROUND.
The overwhelming majority of people have CORRECTLY decided they are worse off under Biden and were better off under Trump.
That is both objectively and subjectively correct.
Inflation was inconsequential. Biden is Proud that after getting it to nearly 10%, it has come back down to only 3 – 4 times what it was under Trump. The damage of inflation NEVER goes away.
On average each of us is paying 20% more for what we need than we did in 2020.
Average Standard of living rose under Trump – most of that rise was in the Bottom Half.
Standards of living have Declined under Biden – that loss has been primarily in the bottom half.
Most of us are wise enough to grasp that the changes in our standard of living are the consequence of the differing policies.
As Thatcher noted the problem with the left is that you eventually run out of other peoples money.
Or as Toqueville similarly noted Democracy ends when Congress bribes people with public money.
Separately, the world was at relative peace for 4 years. An increasing number of people are noting that Trump is the first President since Ford that did NOT draw the US into a new foreign conflict.
One of the most Fundimental problems that Biden has is that you can only get so far blaming things on the other guy.
You can argue Bush left a mess for Obama, Obama left a mess for Trump, Trump left a mess for Biden.
In the end president’s and party’s in power WILL end up with credit or blame for their actions.
Democrats have LOST the debate over the border. The contrast between Trump and Obama/Biden is stark.
Even those of us who want “open borders” – so not want human trafficking, massive drugs, chaos, and violence.
As Reagan noted half a century ago – our age old dream is the maximum of individual liberty consistent with public order.
Ordered liberty.
We do not want chaos, anarchy.
Democrats have attacked Trump essentially as chaotic. But america under Trump was closer to ordered liberty than it is today.
For Democrats free speech means palistinians can disrupt congress, But Jews must be forced into closets.
The left can argue that Biden’s messy Afghan withdraw was a consequence of Trump.
But as we have more and more and more global chaos and conflict and as it is increasingly clear that the difference between Trump and Biden is the cause. It is increasingly impossible to Blame Trump.
I can provide a LONG list of the policy differences between Trump and Biden that are the reasons for each mess during the Biden administration.
But I no longer have to make the argument that the prior stability and the current chaos are the consequences of specific policy differences.
Voters do not care whether the Urkaine war is the result of Bidenflation, bad energy policy, government attempts to bring Ukraine into NATO, or ……
It does not matter if I can prove that every bad thing that happened since 2021 is the consequence of bad democrat policies.
Voters KNOW the chaos of the Trump administration was a media narrative. The economy. and the world as a whole were more stable, more ordered than they are now. The KNOW that the national and global chaos of the Biden administration is REAL – it is not a media narrative.
People can look arround – the chaos is right out their for them to see.
Wilderness Marxist Useful Idiot from the Soviet Democrats’ Redistribute The Wealth tribe claims he and the rest of Bribery Biden’s Bolshevik Birthing Boys were worse off under Trump than they are now under Bribery Biden. Because he’s now getting more Free Stuff?
Can Wilderness Marxist Useful Idiot answer his own question: how have Bribery Biden’s “policies” made America more secure and better off than before he took office (after selling America from the Vice President’s office to the highest bidder between the ChiComs and Putin)?
Are those actually The Big Guy’s “policies”? Or are they the policies the Chicoms and Putin bought? Or maybe the policies of Iran’s Mad Mullahs, the Drug Cartels, and others who have obviously benefited from having Babbling Biden in office?
No joke…
Congratulations, AVITW. Your post wins the cretin post of the week award. You start out with a correct premise, pointing out that the Philistines voted for Hamas. But then you absurdly try to link that fact to Trump and Trump voters in a totally cretinesque and nonsensical manner. Your post should appeal to cretins with TDS, and is, therefore, award-worthy for that specific award.
Who are the real “cretins” on this comment section? All I can say is that the erstwhile Trump administration was filled with them.
I am not sure I understand your argument ?
The citizens of a country are to atleast some extent culpable for the acts of those they place in power.
When a nation commits acts of war against another nation – international law – and thousands of years of history justify TARGETING the government of that country – even if that causes the deaths of those not part of the government.
As to why people voted for Trump ? Why is it you think they voted for him ? His hair ?
Though it is not the same – Trump did not commit acts of war as president, still Those who voted for Trump – like the palestinians who voted for Hamas share some moral culpability for their vote.
Just as democrats who voted for Biden share moral culpability for their vote.
Regardless, I can not find your argument ? It seems clear you do not like Trump or Hamas – that’s fair.
Beyond that – I can not decipher what you mean.
Professor Turley’s columns yesterday and today are bookends between which he and other progressive Democrats display their intersectional interpretations of Constitutional rights crashing head on into the reality of facts, logic, and consistent application of mores and standards.
Those who value the Constitution would expect some uniformity concerning the exercise and defense of Constitutional rights, and particularly government limitations on the Bill of Rights. One would expect to find that most prominently ondisplay with Constitutional scholars such as Professor Turley. Instead, the opposite is true.
Here we are… looking at the glaring difference in Constitutional defenses Turley offered between yesterday’s article concerning the Second Amendment, and today’s article and his views on the First Amendment:
Nov. 22nd column concerning the Second Amendment and it’s exercise:
“While the Court may be at odds with a majority of voters on abortion (seriously, Mr. Turley… ‘the majority’?), a growing number appear to be embracing gun ownership and gun rights. That does not mean that either the Court or the voters WILL NOT SUPPORT REASONABLE LIMITS”.
Nov. 23d column claiming First Amendment free speech rights of Hamas terrorism advocacy GROUPS on a college campus:
“The order in my view is unconstitutional… We can maintain a safe space for all of our students without SACRIFICING THE FREE SPEECH RIGHTS that are the foundation for higher education.” (where’s that safe space for Jews, evangelical Christians, conservatives, etc. on those campuses BTW?)
Today’s column has Professor Turley concluding with:
“The First Amendment was not created to protect only popular speech.”
True; I agree. Now let us ask Professor Turley if he believes the Second Amendment cannot be a universal right in all places in America? As universal as he claims in this defense against what he claims is an attack on the universality of First Amendment free speech?
Does Professor Turley believe the Second Amendment was only created to protect Americans only when they weren’t on these college campuses and/or living in the Democrat controlled gun control utopia states and cities that absolutely prohibit exercising Second Amendment individual rights? And thus, Democrat governments and these campuses can legitimately place what Turley and they call “reasonable limits on the Second Amendment”?
Obviously he does, when they use the Turley defense that these are merely “reasonable limits”. Reasonable limits that cannot in the same way be applied to campus groups on campus property concerning speech that is supposedly protected by the First Amendment.
Is that pesky Second Amendment (the only one that those who gave us the Bill of Rights believed sufficiently important to add ‘shall not be infringed’) subordinate in value to the First Amendment that the Constitutional scholar that authored both these articles lectures is practically absolute?
Defend the First Amendment even on questionable grounds it applies to campus groups when on campus – but never defend the Second Amendment, not just on those same campuses, but even the universal application of the Second Amendment in America and the Democrat cities and states that make it a dead letter?
And how are the First Amendment free speech rights of this group advocating for Hamas’ to complete the job Hitler started with his Final Solution for the Jews sacrificed? Did they lose their individual right to free speech, wandering the campus yelling “Eliminate Israel and the Jews”?
Perhaps more accurately, did this group lose their First Amendment right to advocate for the genocide of Jews if they simply walk off campus onto the outside public streets and sidewalks to chant and march to celebrate the Oct. 7th slaughter of the Jews? I would say the opposite: they may even be celebrated while exercising their First Amendment rights saying and doing the exact same things to celebrate Hamas’ Oct. 7th butchery and pre-Medieval torture the moment they step off campus property.
It is a feeble canard for Professor Turley claiming that if a campus group is told “You don’t get to say and do that in my home, in my business, while shopping in my store, while working on government property, while on a college campus funded by taxpayer money from Jews and with Jewish students; go do that in public places in America or other businesses and homes that are willing to allow that”, then those places doing that have sacrificed the Free Speech rights of these groups. Seriously?
They still have their free speech rights everywhere BUT on the property of the specific places that they are guests, employees and customers of that say “Not while you’re here on our property”.
I’ll support and in fact celebrate their First Amendment rights to show the entire world their evil, malignant faces that celebrate and advocate for Hamas attempting to complete Hitler’s attempted Final Solution for the world’s Jews in public. There is value in allowing them to show the world the vile monsters they are in public. Take their pictures! List their names for posterity!
But not in my home, not in my business, not in any store I own, not in government, and definitely not as campus groups on campus property my taxes fund and my children attend.
These are the exact same campuses who absolutely prohibit the exercise of Second Amendment rights by Jewish and other students who are in real danger (who don’t have Turley’s “safe space on campus” he speaks of in this article). Who claim claim as Turley does in yesterday’s article that these are simply ‘Reasonable Limits’ on the Second Amendment. Professor Turley isn’t offended by those limits on Second Amendment individual rights as he is of those campuses limiting the alleged First Amendment rights of these campus groups on campus property.
Funny how that works when Democat and progressive intersectionality and personal struggle sessions get involved with interpreting and defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
So: Second Amendment “reasonable limits” that include absolute prohibition of the Second Amendment on campus is fine with Professor Turley. Any limitation of speech from groups that are part of the campus that advocates for the genocide of Jews: that isn’t a reasonable limit to tell them to do that off campus property – that is a complete sacrifice of the First Amendment!
Professor Turley: like the group Queers For Palestine, this is what it looks like when Democrats and progressives like yourself have intersectional struggle sessions that result in a public failure to show consistent beliefs, morals, and values in defense of ALL Constitutional rights.
There is no hierarchy in the Constitution that guarantees the First Amendment every potential protection while allowing the Second Amendment to be treated as a dead letter.
I won’t hold my breath waiting to see if you become equally critical of any and all infringements of the Second Amendment as you do with this ridiculous canard claiming the First Amendment rights of this campus group has been sacrificed by telling the group “You don’t get to do that on campus property; do that off the property”.
You are a valuable source of analysis on many things: your views on the First and Second amendments are horribly inconsistent.
While I would temper your remarks by noting that Prof. Turley is a “work in progress” that slowly the left is pushing Turley and much of the country away from them.
At the same time your comment is a very good demonstration of the hypocracy of liberals such as Turley – and I mean Liberals, not progressives, not the left.
While I THINK Turley is equally supportive of the free speech rights of Jews, and other groups disfavored by the left, and SOMETIMES he makes that clear. The right to free speech is not qualified by the policitics, or race or sex of the speaker. Turley is FAR less willing to defend the free speech rights of those the left hates than those of the left.
Where was the defense of First amendment – not just free speech rights of the Alt-Right at Charlottesville ? Of J6 protestors ? Of the proud boys.
I stand with Turley defending the first amendment rights of brain dead idiotic know nothing students that want to defend and celebrate terrorists who would gleefully behead babies and call home to their mothers proud of committing murder and rape.
Where is Turley, and those on the left on the long list of those unpopular with the left – even unpopular overall ?
If you do not like what Trump has said – do not vote for him. But NO Trump did not “incigte violence” just because you do not like what he said.
The limits on the first amendment are NOT determined by the whim of the majority.
The majority by definition ALWAYS thinks they are reasonable. A right is only a right if it is protected when the majority thinks its excercise is UNREASONABLE.
The limits to free speech are pretty well defined today. Your offense at what someone else says,even the offense of the majority does not empower you to silence that speech.
The limits of the 2nd amendment should be equally well defined. No nukes, no machine guns. Interestingly – despite democrats claims, Cannons have been historically allowed.
“Professor” Turley is right. Leftists perverts and Pro-Islamoterrorists must be given a safe space and free reign to proclaim that Jews must be murdered and annhilated. Only decent people must be silenced and imprisoned.
That philosophy is most in line with our holy Banana Republic’s blessed and sacred two tier system of justice.
Now, why didn’t I think of “professor” Turley’s excellent suggestion? I suppose that’s because, unlike him, I don’t spend any time at Leftist Indoctrination Entities and am, therefore, unfamiliar with the latest Leftist perversions and filth promulgated in their programs and in their explications of our esteemed Banana Republic’s laws.
The problem is NOT that Prof. Turley supports the free speech rights of groups favored by the left.
It is that his absolutism regarding offensive speech only applies to the left.
Every single Time Turley mentions Trump’s J6 remarks he implies it is a close decision as to whether it is protected speech.
If that were true, then all pro-hamas protests are not protected.
There is no world in which the first amendment rights of pro-hamas student groups are protected, but those of J6 protestors are not.
And as OAD correctly argues – if the first amendment is not subject to the reasonable limits of the majority, then neither is the 2nd.
I really want to jail all the Pro-Hamas protestors. We live in a topsy turvey world when the left is advocating for genocidal, homophobic, sexist, racist, islamofascists with historical links back to actual nazi’s In the entire world is there any group that is the total opposite of everything those on the left claim to value ?
But my total disgust with pro-hamas protestors, does not alter the fact that they have a first amendment right to protest.
That they can say stupid hateful genocidal things, that they can march to the Capitol, and into it, and through it and disrupt congress in session.
That they can do so chaotically and riotously.
If I can stand up for the first amendment rights of revolting ignorant people like pro-hamas protestors.
Those like Prof Turley who claim to be free speech absolutists. can provide the same full throated support for the first amendment rights of J6 protestors.
We can debate exactly how violent J6 was and how did that violence start.
There is ZERO debate that there were not 3000 violent protestors at J6. There were at the very most a few dozen.
Nor can we debate that the most violent protestor at J6 did NOT do ANYTHING as egregious as tossing a molitov cocktail into an occupied police cruizer – something that resulted in 18months of probation in the BLM riots.
On 10/7/2023 – Hamas showed us all what an actual insurrection looks like. In comparison J6 was not even jay walking.
Regardless, nearly all J6 convictions should be thrown out as unconstitutional efforts to punish protected first amendment activities.
All insurection claims have already failed. All sedition charges must be tossed, all conspiracy charges must be tossed. All obstucting a proceeding charges must be tossed, all tresspass charges must be tossed.
Those few who have been convicted of actual acts of violence must be sentenced exactly as others who comitted the same acts have been.
This is kind of fruitful thinking:
“The problem is NOT that Prof. Turley supports the free speech rights of groups favored by the left. It is that his absolutism regarding offensive speech only applies to the left.
Every single Time Turley mentions Trump’s J6 remarks he implies it is a close decision as to whether it is protected speech. If that were true, then all pro-hamas protests are not protected.
There is no world in which the first amendment rights of pro-hamas student groups are protected, but those of J6 protestors are not.
And as OAD correctly argues – if the first amendment is not subject to the reasonable limits of the majority, then neither is the 2nd.
I really want to jail all the Pro-Hamas protestors.”
Well, after multiple fun filled government sponsored trips to the two way rifle range to have encounters with their fellow Hajji Brothers From Different Mothers, I’d prefer the 5.56 solution to reduce them to ambient temperature. But we don’t allow that in America. Nor do we allow them to be treated as Nazi collaborators were treated in their home countries after the occupying Nazis left. Here in America, whether they’re Kluxxers, neo-Nazis, Antifa commie anarchists, Black Liars & Marxists, I fully support them being allowed to demonstrate and advocate for their causes. Let America see them for not what they want and what they support, but let us see their faces so we recognize the ones who live among us. The ones who might be teaching our children as their day job.
When individuals among them decide that First Amendment includes the right to assault others, vandalize property, etc those individuals should be immediately and overwhelmingly crushed by law enforcement. Pour encourger les autres… But of course, throughout the civilized world, for various causes, we have allowed groups and individuals to commit criminal acts and treated it as though criminal acts are included in the rights included in the First Amendment. And so we get more of it.
As far as “hate speech” goes as a criminal act, my belief is that starts somewhere around the point you start exhorting people to go find a Jew to kill, go get some Black Liars & Marxists friends together and ambush and kill a cop, go gather some fellow Soviet Democrats to stalk Jonathan Turley as a traitor to the cause and beat him to death when he steps out of his house in the morning to go to work, etc. Somewhere in there is where I can accept that this is what criminal hate speech looks like and it isn’t subject to a the defense it’s the exercise of First Amendment rights.
Then there’s the grey zone of where violent rhetoric is just rhetoric versus a criminal threat or specifically asking for criminal violent acts.
But I digress…
I view this issue more through the lens of having read this column immediately after reading his column where he assured readers that the Second Amendment is subject to “reasonable restrictions” supported by the majority. I focused on constitutional and criminal law while doing my criminology degree, so perhaps I’m more hung up on principles of stare decisis than most people are – but then that should apply even more so to Turley.
Turley is wildly consistent not only on ‘reasonable restrictions’ for the First Amendment as he accepts for the Second. But as you pointed out and that didn’t occur to me, he isn’t anywhere near as defensive of First Amendment rights for those like the J6 protestors. One rule for me, another rule for thee…
I also find it impossible to not notice when a constitutional scholar insinuates that whether or not Constitutional rights are available to Americans is subject to ‘the reasonable limits of the majority’.
That’s not the way unalienable constitutional rights work under a republic, where those rights don’t come from governments elected by the majority. By extension, if that is Turley’s view, every single right including his defense of First Amendment absolutism for speech he favors is on the chopping block for replacement with each successive majority government.
SCOTUS – theoretically – protects against that of course. But as that is true, why would Turley or anyone write that any right, including his favored groups First Amendment is subject to whatever ‘reasonable restrictions’ the majority of citizens want? Again, that’s not how unalienable rights work in a republic. Maybe in a democracy like our neighbors to the north, but not in America.
I regularly find value in Turley’s columns. But that doesn’t mean he’s always correct and his are the trustworthy opinions and analysis of a truly unbiased scholar. And I certainly don’t fall into the populism of “Hey guys! This guy is great – he’s a Democrat who publicly disagrees with Obama/Clinton/Biden/etc. Celebrate him!”.
Populism is a shallow and sophomoric way of analyzing the world we live in and it is alive and well in politics and political issues. Whether it’s Obama, Clinton, Biden, Trump, Jon Stewart, Turley, etc…
I didn’t mention State Fairs so why did you bring that up rather than addressing what I specifically mentioned?
I specifically mentioned the absolute prohibition of exercising Second Amendment rights on Iowa government property, whether a state campus or a state government building. Why did you choose not to address what I specifically mentioned and instead divert to telling us about Iowa State Fair?
Iowa State University prohibits the possession and use of ANY weapon on campus for self defense, not just firearms whether or not you have an Iowa carry permit. So what does that have to do with the State Fair after you made the point that these campuses are extensions of government?
Back to the central theme: stare decisis, especially in Constitutional law, requires consistency. That would include consistency in what Turley calls “reasonable restrictions” on the Second Amendment would also apply to his favored versions of the Second Amendment.
Consistency matters. Including on whether you are accepted to be a truly impartial and unbiased commentator and analyst. One rule for thee and another rule for me does not meet the test of state decisis or impartiality.
“Deactivating the Palestinian group is a first amendment violation – the solution is to end government education.”
Turley wasn’t leading that viewpoint in all the recent instances when chapters of national sororities on some campuses were deactivated. In fact, I don’t recall ANYBODY leading that charge. Even in the instances when the sorority appealed their deactivation to the courts and their appeal was slapped down.
Apparently, just like reasonable restrictions on the Second Amendment, deactivating chapters of national sororities on campus is considered to be a ‘reasonable restriction’ of the First Amendment by Turley. He certainly didn’t write any columns attacking that as a sacrifice of First Amendment rights as he is doing here.
Is there a rational explanation for what are obviously two very completely different standards of what is and what isn’t protected First Amendment activity and ‘reasonable restrictions’ on the First Amendment pertaining to college groups? And between what are ‘reasonable restrictions’ on the First Amendment in comparison to on the Second Amendment?
As an aside, as far as state government campuses go, that’s a state issue: if the residents of a state wants to end it, that’s what the ballot box and elections are for. Federal taxpayer dollars going to Harvard, wherever? Hell yeah, end that the sooner the better. Unfortunately by extension, that will end when taxpaying voters elect governments that promise to stop all taxpayer money going to any college/university.
And we’re more likely to find unicorn poop than we are to see that happen.
You might add “machine guns” to your list of permitted arms if you want to be historically correct while recognizing cannons. As one example, the Puckle Defense Gun that went into production sometime around the turn of the 17th century. Some were privately owned in Colonial America, just as there were privately owned cannons.
It was essentially similar to the chain guns in military use today, except manually operated. The Gatling Gun and other similar variations a century and a half later would be more recognizable variations on the development of automatic weapons – all of which were allowed for private citizens to purchase and own right up until the original Gun Control Act of 1934 which placed an excise tax on purchases.
To paraphrase one of your lines, “Democrats by definition ALWAYS claim their Second Amendment prohibitions and restrictions are a reasonable restriction”.
As do many Democrat constitutional scholars.
ZZDoc: “History provides us with a long running narrative of how the mythology of religious beliefs and practices of all kinds have been a bane on the human condition, used to justify all manner of horror and suffering in the name of some god.”
Did you accidentally forget to include The Rock Fairy Religion Of Atheism and their mythology of religious beliefs and practices? The where they can’t explain how at one moment of time, there was suddenly DNA and life? Or was that a deliberate omission?
As an agnostic who is willing to listen but am not yet sold on any Abrahamic religions, Rock Fairy Atheism, or deities of any religion, it seems kind of important to remember nobody has as successfully butchered and caused all manner of horror and suffering as atheists. Genghis Khan killed approximately one sixth of the world’s population during his rein, and he didn’t make any attempts to apologize – much less justify it by referencing his religion as an atheist. Our star atheists in living memory – they don’t even try to justify it either. Other than claiming that is for the betterment of their countrymen as a whole.
After all, their notables in living memory have butchered well in excess of a 100 million people around the planet: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot are a short list of their star disciples of atheism who many are still alive who suffered and lost relatives to those disciples of The Rock Fairy Religion Of Atheism.
Those who claim to be atheists often claim their fellow atheists like Lenin and Mao weren’t actually atheists… they kind of sound like today’s Democrats claiming they aren’t Maxists while they do everything in their power to “redistribute the wealth”.
SJP calls for death to jews & destroying Israel. Not free speech.
Wonder where the FBI is hiding? No arrests.
I fail to understand how/why the 1st applies to a *state* university.
Well, yesterday Professor Turley lectured us that there can be “reasonable limits” on the Second Amendment – by which I would assume he means the absolute prohibition of the exercise of the Second Amendment on these very same campuses. Which probably explains why he doesn’t object to those campuses’ absolute prohibition on the individual exercise of Second Amendment rights.
In fact, I would guess that the good professor would lecture that, because these campuses are not public spaces, they get some taxpayer funding, so they’re not unlike working for government in government spaces, therefore those are what he yesterday termed “reasonable limits” on the Second Amendment.
It is indeed odd therefore that he claims that there is an absolute protection of First Amendment rights – even when it involves campus groups while they’re on those same campuses’ property.
Professor Turley’s Constitutional scholarship and analysis appears to have become a victim of one of those Democrat/progressive internal struggle sessions.
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
That to David B.
Thank you, Young.
I think this article about the Gitlow v NY (1925) Supreme Court decision explains it well.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Gitlow-v-New-York
Thank you, Concerned Citizen.
DBB – please clarify ?
Are you saying that government can circumvent the first amendment by providing a service directly ?
Jonathan: I tried to post a comment. Tried twice but it was blocked both times. Any reason?
Blocked?
Or just did not post?
WP or the server sometimes has a hiccup and a comment will not post.
It happens sometimes.
DM – They decided to give the rest of a day off. A no-troll Thanksgiving. I hope you still get paid.
Reason: Today has been Marked Safe From Bribery Biden’s Baghdad Bob.
I cant imagine that blocking the court jester’s daily buffoonery would be blocked. We all get such a kick out of watching the Benjamin Button 8 year old try to impress the adults. No way JT would deprive us of that. Its one of the few things we have to be thankful for under this administration.
“Holy, ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’, Batman. Depends upon whose ox is being gored.
https://news.sky.com/story/ex-barack-obama-official-arrested-for-islamophobic-harassment-of-halal-food-seller-in-new-york-13014119
Professor Turley, your use of Woke Democrat vocabulary “We can maintain a safe space for all of our students” points again to the fact you aren’t quite the impartial, purely rational Constitutional commentator that perhaps you hope to be accepted as. Being able to offer rational analysis much of the time doesn’t mean you are infallible.
Where is that “safe space” guaranteed on these campuses? For Jews, as just one example? Or for devout Christians, those opposed to elective birth control abortions, or conservatives? Where is it guaranteed in the Constitution? “Safe spaces” is nothing more than one of the more recent tropes from the Democrat party you and half the country vote for.
Meanwhile, a college, or a business, or a family saying “You don’t get to act and speak like that in OUR house” does not equate to the feeble canard you attempt by claiming this robs those who are told “not in OUR house” of their right to free speech. It simply says “In public elsewhere – but not here”.
The entire neighborhood, the entire city, the entire country is NOT being told “don’t let these people say what we won’t allow them to say in our house”. There is an enormous difference between a prohibition against this speech and these actions in the public places of America, and a prohibition against this speech/actions in a family home, the local Rotary Club, a business, or a college.
Try doing better, please.
I cant consider this in a vacuum.
We have decades of Affirmative Action discrimination, enforced by punishment and censorship.
Replace Palestinian, with Black. The FBI is infiltrating groups that do nothing but express support against invaders that are black.
Those groups have not loped the heads of infants, or sliced the breasts off women still alive% of the and placed infants in ovens and forced their mothers to watch and listen as the babies screamed in their final moments.
We know over 85% of the Palestinian people support all the action of October 7th.
Just help me know which actions warrant a response, and which actions or off limits because of 1st amendment protections.
Well, just yesterday our Constitutional Scholar was lecturing us that there can be “reasonable limits” on the exercise of the Second Amendment. Not just for campus groups while the group associated with the campus is on campus grounds – but for all Americans, no matter where they are in America.
Which apparently explains why he has no complaints about the absolute prohibition of the exercise of the Second Amendment by any staff or students (including Jewish students being threatened) on campus property. Reasonable limits (never explained) that are absolute prohibitions do not violate the Constitution!
HOWEVER, telling campus groups “You can’t say and perform advocacy for Hamas attempting to complete Hitler’s Final Solution for the world’s Jews on campus property” is NOT what the good professor agrees is a similar reasonable limit on First Amendment speech rights. That’s a dastardly sacrifice of First Amendment free speech!
The fact they can still individually wander the campus screaming for Hamas to eliminate Israel and the Jews doesn’t matter; that isn’t enough free speech.
Furthermore, the fact that as a group or as individuals they can merely step off campus property to howl and bay like rabid animals for the genocide of Jews doesn’t mean they still have First Amendment free speech rights. If these campus groups can’t do it on these campuses partially funded by tax paid by Jews and attended by Jewish students… their First Amendment free speech rights have been sacrificed!
This is where Professor Turley’s intersectional struggle sessions rooted in his Democrat and progressive roots collide with actual, genuine scholarship. Doesn’t mean he can’t do that most of the time; just means he regularly falls short of that genuine scholarship. Being extremely well educated and capable of generally doing good analysis and commentary doesn’t mean you’re Marked Safe From Having Double Standards.
Turley’s last two columns when compared to each other with his comments on the First and then the Second Amendments, just put those Democrat/progressive intersectional double standards on display.
Iowan2, spunds like Germany in the 1930s. Independent Bob.
The first amendment and free speech is a powerful tool if it’s allowed to do its magic.
The only way for the world to absorb the true venom of their message is to hear it, see it, feel it spoken directly – their voice, emotion, depth of reason.
Censorship helps their cause. It softens their message, allowing them to hide behind the censors. No reporter, writer, journalist can describe the primitive, regressive, barbaric dark world they envision and are calling for more intensely, more accurately than experiencing the emotion in their voices, the hatred in their signs.
Censuring, casts them as victims, which they are not. They embrace the censorship as a warm bunker, dug by the censors, to hide out in, for the propaganda wars.
Freedom of religion allows for free thought. Speech allows us to say and hear those thoughts. The free press allows us to report and share who has those thoughts, their words and actions. Along with our speech rights, the free press allows us to write and publish our observations and support or counter what they say. The right to protest gives all the right to protest in mass peacefully. We can ask the government to censor or do anything but the government has no obligation to oblige. Accountability for those decisions (theoretically) happen on Election Day.
In its totality, as intended it’s a powerfully magical tool of justice.
Where does the First Amendment apply when you are told “You can say that in public spaces – but not in my house, not our social club, not in our business, not our college”?
An employee gathering at our business to celebrate/support Hamas butchers – or Black Lives Matter or numerous other organizations – would result in exactly ONE warning: “You don’t do that in our business; do it out in public if you must”. The next time they would be out the door. Simple: my home, our business, our college – our rules.
While you’re making a pitch for defending this through the First Amendment, would you like to take on the complete and total absence of Second Amendment rights in those exact same businesses, colleges, etc that happily host celebrations and support for Hamas terrorists.
Johnathan’s view of freedom of expression runs so deep that it inspires entertainment. In Startrek lll, The Search for Spock, Kirk explains to Spock that they came back for him because “the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many”. Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Pity it doesn’t run deep enough to be equally as protective of Second Amendment rights where he just argued for “reasonable restrictions”, versus his absolutism in defense of the First Amendment… which somehow or other includes non-public spaces like colleges.
I noticed that. Perhaps you didn’t?
Or is that somehow or other an apples and oranges comparison, where the Second Amendment (with that pesky ‘shall not be infringed’ that the founders didn’t add to the other original Amendments) is somehow or other inferior to the First Amendment.
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Buck’s Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 439, 31 S. “For an assault to occur, an aggressor only needs to make some overt act or statement that would make a reasonable person fear for their safety. However, whether those overt acts or statements constitute assault is dependent on whether the person that utters those words backs them up with a particular set of actions.” That should be the criteria upon which hate speech should be judged as unprotected, in the manner in which it, or the actions of those who utter it, infringe upon the rights and privileges of the individuals so being abused. How these groups, and the members thereof, are to be dealt with collectively or individually is another matter, to be determined by the agents who hold sway over them. History provides us with a long running narrative of how the mythology of religious beliefs and practices of all kinds have been a bane on the human condition, used to justify all manner of horror and suffering in the name of some god. My father-in-law of blessed memory, a survivor of the Shoah, at the time of the ISIL ‘dustup’ wished that he could rid the world of them.
From the SCOTUS Holder case, it appears that advocacy CAN be outlawed when it is “coordinated with” or “at the direction of” a terrorist organisation. Does anyone know what relations SJP has with Hamas?
Generally, I agree with Professor Turley on this but wonder whether the case is as open and shut as it appears.
Daniel,
I agree with you AND the good professor.
I would rather see their 1stA rights upheld.
But do they support Hamas? There was an article noting how NGOs and other non-profits raise money that is supposed to go to humanitarian aid, winds up supporting terrorists.
It is a fine line.
I question why Turley argues that he’s defending the First Amendment when a college, or a business, or a social club, whatever, essentially says “You don’t do that in our house as a worker, a guest, a customer, a student, etc”. Have they suddenly been deprived of their First Amendment rights; they’re also prohibited from going out on the city sidewalks and streets outside of those facilities and saying exactly what they were saying inside?
I don’t think so; I think this is a pretty feeble canard, including the lead in with the “safe spaces” – the ones the exact same facilities don’t provide for Jews, devout Christians, strong conservatives, etc.
And I notice this analysis is written immediately after Turley just wrote one regarding firearms ownership where he said there was plenty of room for “reasonable restrictions” on national Second Amendment rights for all Americans. So one day we get a lecture assuring us that there is room for reasonable restrictions on the Second Amendment; today we get a second lecture that any deprivation of the First Amendment for students attending a college is a horror of deprivation of rights. Colleges, BTW, that almost unanimously prohibit the exercise of Second Amendment rights by both employees and students.
Not much in the way of consistency of thought, reason, and logic on display here from the good Constitutional professor… where it seems some rights are penultimate, while others are subordinate.
Just wanted to say, Mr. O. A. Dog, that I agree with all of your points — about “our house” our rules, about “safe spaces”, about the 1st and 2nd amendments, and about “shall not be infringed”. Prof. Turley seems to conflate free speech with academic freedom and nondiscrimination.
I don’t understand why you made so many repetitive comments though. Best regards.
“I don’t understand why you made so many repetitive comments though. Best regards.”
Most comment forums, when you hit “Reply”, the comment falls right below the post you were specifically replying to. Obviously, that does not work with Turley’s format, nor is their a means to edit after posting the reply. Clearly, I’m going to have to change and get in line with Turley’s forum structure.
“Does anyone know what relations SJP has with Hamas?”
I already outlined that on JT’s previous post on this topic. See UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian. He is the founder of SJP.
Yes, “Professor” Turley is correct. Leftists perverts and Pro-Islamoterrorists must be given free reign to proclaim that Jews must be murdered and annhilated. Only decent people must be silenced. Now, why didn’t I think of “Professor” Turley’s excellent suggestion? I suppose that’s because, unlike him, I don’t spend any time at Leftist Indoctrination Entities and am, therefore, unfamiliar with the latest Leftist perversions and filth promulgated in their programs.
“From the River to the Sea”, is a Biblical phrase that appears several/many times in the Bible. First mentioned in Genesis 15:18. But it’s the few verses that follow that’s caused this uproar as we read how God has given this land to the… Arab nations! “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” IMO, this is the reason why Chabad/DeSantis/Chabad even X doesn’t want anyone to utter this phrase.
This area currently under focus refers to the territory of the Nabataean tribe. When they disbanded they turned it over to the Jews.
Jonathan, If this case makes it to the federal court, could it be an opening to wider based victory for free speech, including the attempts to prevent conservative speech in universities and on web sites? If so, I wonder if a court loss in the FL case, could turn into a court ruling that helps guarantee free speech rights, including in cases where conservative speech is being suppressed.
That’s an excellent point David. If that was the strategy all along, it would be the first time I have seen conservatives use on purpose what Democrats use by accident.
So… as Professor Turley yesterday said there can be “reasonable limits” on the exercise of Second Amendment rights i.e. the absolute and almost unanimous prohibition of exercising the Second Amendment on campus grounds… that same argument wouldn’t apply to campus groups advocating for genocide while on campus grounds?
Or is that also what the good Constitutional professor termed “reasonable limits”?
I don’t think I missed any part that said they couldn’t wander the campus as individuals, howling like rabid animals celebrating the Oct 7th butchery while advocating for the extermination of Israel and Jews.
Pretty sure I also didn’t miss any restrictions on these genocidal terrorist collaborators stepping off campus property to put their advocacy and celebration of genocide on public display – whether doing that as a group or as an individual.
That isn’t to say courts wouldn’t go as intersectional as professor Turley just did with his internal struggle session yesterday and today and decide they can do it on for-profit campuses’ property (although they don’t object to other businesses saying “not on our property, you don’t; go elsewhere”). But they’re going to extend First Amendment protections to campus groups on campus property, and immediately do the same for conservative groups?
About as much chance as professor Turley suddenly being as absolutist in his defense of Second Amendment individual rights nationally (never mind on these same campuses) as he is of questionable First Amendment free speech rights on the property of for-profit campuses.
Amen! Free speech must be allowed to even the most reprehensible groups, like this one. If you muzzle these groups, they go underground, which makes them more dangerous. Let them spew their hate for all to see. If you censor them, who’s next? Perhaps those who want this group shut down.
Free speech does not extend to your right to say and act however you choose in my home, our business, our store, our recreational sports league, our college, employed in our state government, etc. Any of those essentially told “you don’t say/do that while in our house” doesn’t prevent those who want to perform in that manner from doing it in their free time outside of where they’ve been told they can’t say/do those things.
I’m slightly amused that our good professor Turley, constitutional scholar, can in his previous column lecture us that there is plenty of room for “reasonable restrictions” on the Second Amendment rights of ALL Americans. And then today lecture us that it is a horrible violation of the First Amendment for colleges to say “You don’t get to act/speak like that while on our grounds”.
Those colleges, BTW, almost without exception ban all employees – not just their students – from exercising their Second Amendment rights. The only Amendment felt sufficiently important to have the words ‘shall not be infringed’ included. So it seems pretty clear that our constitutional scholar, professor Turley, believes it is quite constitutional to completely ban Second Amendment rights on these campuses. But NOT constitutional to place what he would call “reasonable restrictions” (if it were firearms) on the speech and actions of Hamas terrorist supporting students.
That’s how the Constitution is supposed to work and be defended? Not the version I spent 40 years in uniform believing I was defending.
however you choose in my home, our business, our store, our recreational sports league, our college
State colleges are government. So not yours. However I agree on the rest. But I cant get past the govt forcing private businesses to serve Blacks. IF that is a power of Government, then squelching abhorrent speech like supporting Hamas, is well within a colleges power.
We have yet to square this discussion with laws on the books concerning hate crimes. That elevation of punishment is nothing more than punishment for expression. Something SCOTUS has defined as speech
State colleges are government? 100% government? Okay, let’s run with that instead.
How many state governments place professor Turley’s “reasonable restrictions” on the exercise of the Second Amendment – meaning an absolute prohibition of being armed while at work in government facilities, going into government facilities related to obtaining services from the government, etc? Not just state colleges. Any you know of?
If I remember properly, Iowa state law not only prohibits the exercise of the Second Amendment while on state or private college grounds, but on public park property as well as state government buildings.
So here’s the intersectional struggle session again: it’s perfectly acceptable and Constitutional to reasonably (and absolutely) prohibit the INDIVIDUAL exercise of the Second Amendment while in/on government facilities as either a worker or a taxpayer. That’s a constitutional “reasonable restriction”.
But to use Turley’s words, it’s a SACRIFICE of the First Amendment for the exact same state government/college to tell that government/college’s associated GROUPS “you can’t do/say those things while you’re an affiliated group and on our property”.
I expect to see consistency in the interpretation and defense of the Constitution. Not double standards, where one BoR Amendment is absolute, and another Amendment can be treated as a dead letter without a word of complaint from those claiming to be Constitutional scholars who pose as defenders of the Constitution.
I agree that there are no absolutes, but don’t try and give me two huge variances in what is a constitutional ‘reasonable limitation’ of the individual rights found in the Bill of Rights and then attempt to call it genuine, unbiased scholarship and analysis of Constitutional rights.
That’s just pissing on my leg while attempting to convince me it’s raining. And with this argument… I know that’s not rain on my leg.
I know the State Fair has rules that forbid guns. Rule not a law. The State Fair is a Private Corporation. That makes it private property. If some one sees your gun, you are asked to leave. No police, unless you refuse to leave.