There was another incident of student protesters preventing a meeting or class from occurring, though this incident has a welcomed conclusion: arrests. At the University of California, Santa Cruz, students found out that fellow students were meeting in the library as part of the College Republicans. That was unacceptable to them, so they put out a posting on Facebook to stop the meeting. They succeeded. The protesters entered the room denouncing their fellow students as “fascists,” “racists” and “white supremacists.” One student protester reportedly told a Young Republican: “Your existence is a disturbance to every marginalized person in this country.” It was a telling comment. The very existence of a young Republicans is viewed as an offense like some type of human microaggression.
Category: Free Speech
In one of the most reckless and chilling attacks on free speech, the 
Many of us have been warning for years about the anti-free speech activities of various protest groups in barring speakers and even taking over classrooms. I have long advocated suspending students who prevent others from speaking or attending such events and expelling those who are repeat offenders. Now the University of Wisconsin system has adopted such an approach, though some of the terminology is problematic in my view. Nevertheless, while the policy (found here) could be more specific in defining terms like “disrupt,” it is a move that could go a long way in restoring free speech protections.
University of Oregon President Michael Schill probably thought that he would be the least likely university president to find himself silenced by the raising anti-speech protests by students. After all, Schill himself has been denounced as part of the anti-free speech trend after he supported the university’s punishment of a law professor for wearing an allegedly offensive Halloween costume at her own party off campus. However, Schill was unable to give his annual state of the university speech after students took over the event and denounced him a “CEO” of a “business firm.”
There is a growing concern over the intolerance shown conservative students and groups on our campuses. The latest such incident occurred at Seattle University School of Law where a debate was planned on immigration with both liberal and conservative views represented. That would seem precisely the type of exchange that law schools relish. However, students protested that one of the sponsors was the conservative Federalist Society. Over a couple hundred people signed a Change.org petition asking the school to cancel the Oct. 16th debate. The debate was scheduled to be part of the school’s “Social Justice Monday” series and was co-hosted by the school’s Access to Justice Institute. The law school eventually withdrew as a sponsor due to the protests from students.
A viral video from a Seattle coffee shop illustrates the growing tension between free speech and religious exercise values. In the Facebook video, Ben Borgman — the owner of Bedlam Coffee shop — threw a Christian group out of his shop while spewing vulgar and obscene comments about their views. There are a growing number of such conflicts as store owners assert their right to refuse to serve those with opposing religious or social values. On December 5, the Supreme Court will hear the argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Rights Commission. That case will determine if a cake shop owner could refuse to prepare a cake for a same-sex couple on the basis of his opposing religious values.
UC Berkeley Professor Harley Shaiken probably did not expect to be denounced as a tool of the racist establishment when he came to class recently. After all, he was simply giving a midterm exam when protesters appeared to demand that he checked his “privilege” and cancel his exam due to the stress that it was causing for students. Instead, the students demanded that he assign a “take-home essay with significant time to prepare.” The scene was truly Felliniesque but whatever humor might be found in the moment was lost by the fact that this is not an isolated occurrence on our campuses, as we have previously discussed.
I recently wrote how Antifa and other college protesters are increasingly denouncing free speech and the foundations for liberal democracies. That troubling trend was evident last week with a protest at William & Mary College in Virginia when protesters from Black Lives Matter stopped a discussion with Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia. Protesters screamed “Liberalism is white supremacy!” the protesters shouted, and “ACLU, you protect Hitler too!” It was an all-too-common sight and universities have done little to address students who believe that they have a right to prevent others from hearing opposing views.
For years, civil libertarians have warned that Great Britain has been in a free fall from the criminalization of speech to the expansion of the surveillance state. Now the government is pursuing a law that would make the repeated viewing of extremist Internet sites a crime punishable to up to 15 years in prison. It appears that the government is not satiated by their ever-expanding criminalization of speech. They now want to criminalize even viewing sites on the Internet. As always, officials are basically telling the public to “trust us, we’re the government.” UK home secretary Amber Rudd is pushing the criminalization of reading as part of her anti-radicalization campaign . . . which turns out to be an anti-civil liberties campaign.
Continue reading “Britain Moves To Criminalize Reading Extremist Material On The Internet”
We previously discussed the controversies swirling around Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher when he tweeted in 2016 that “all I want for Christmas is white genocide.” Now he is again in the news with tweets that blame the Las Vegas massacre on “Trumpism” and “white victimization.” There is still no confirmation of any motivation of Stephen Paddock but that does not appear to be relevant to Ciccariello-Maher. It is part of a torrent of comments using the massacre to amplify political or social views. Recently, Pat Robertson blamed the massacre on disrespect for Trump and the flag in society.
Continue reading “Drexel University Professor Calls Las Vegas Massacre An Outgrowth Of “Trumpism””
There is an interesting ruling by FIFA which has fined the German soccer federation 32,000 Swiss francs ($33,000) because fans chanted Nazi slogans at a World Cup qualifying game in the Czech Republic. It is a curious decision to penalize a team for the actions of third parties who are not under its control. It is not clear what FIFA expected the Germans to do to fans chanting in a foreign stadium. The team not that the offensive fans did not buy tickets through official channels. How is the team responsible?
Continue reading “FIFA Fines Germany For Fans Chanting Nazi Slogans”
We have previously discussed protests against literature and philosophy courses due to their reliance on white male authors from ancient Greece to the Enlightenment. The latest such protest is occurring at Reed College where students called “Reedies Against Racism” are protesting a required humanities class that explores founding works from ancient Greece and Rome. Requiring freshman to read such works is being denounced as “really harmful.” I have long been an advocate of the core curriculum and Western Civilization works (a love for these works that began as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago which helped establish the core curriculum or great works model).
I have been critical of the actions taken by former FBI director James Comey in leaking FBI information after he was fired by President Donald Trump. However, his appointment by Howard University as an endowed chair of public policy represented a good opportunity for both Howard and Comey. However, his first address to the university as part of the 2017-18 convocation was a disaster for both Howard and Comey as protesters shouted profanities and disrupted the event. It was the latest example of protesters shutting down free speech on campus and the university appeared unwilling or unable to enforce basic civility rules by removing and suspending the students.
Continue reading “Protesters Disrupt Comey Speech At Howard University”
Sometimes being a supporter of free speech can be really really really hard. A leading expert of “comparative jurisprudence” and Sunni cleric at al-Azhar University, Dr. Sabri Abdel Raouf, has been placed under review by his university (and ordered by the state media regulator to stay off the air) after dispensing some rather chilling advice on Sharia law and Islamic values. Abdel Raouf had told viewers that it is is permissible under Islamic law for a husband to have sex with his dead wife in what is called “goodbye intercourse.” The action taken by the university and the government highlights the curious line drawn over the discussion of Islam in Egypt. Moreover, it is a rather bizarre example of the debate that we are having in this country over the right of academics to engage in free (and controversial) speech outside of their schools. In this case, both the university and the government have moved to prevent anyone from airing these views as an insult to Islam.