The City Club of Cleveland

login Create an Account

private events
go

Not a Member?

Our members are champions of free speech. Join today!

join

Account Login

login

Forgot Password? Create an Account

Forgot Password

submit Cancel

Update Password

submit

blog

Want to know what is on our minds? Find blog posts written here, by the City Club staff, members, and partners. Every week you can find a new edition of #FreeSpeech in the News — a collection of related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century that’s making the news. You’ll also find takes on current events, past forums, and issues surrounding Northeast Ohio. Read on for all things City Club.

« back to blog list

Monday, February 06, 2017

#FreeSpeech in the News: Feb. 6, 2017

As the Citadel of Free Speech here in Cleveland, we work to protect and promote the basis of our democracy by sharing related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century. Here's what's making the news - and what you should know about - this week.

“Much as administrators and faculty may dislike it, the fact is that public colleges are subject to both the First Amendment and the state legislatures that fund them. Legislators shouldn’t micromanage the campuses, but they must set some basic rules.”

Lawmakers Haven’t Protected Free Speech On Campus – Here’s How They Can, Forbes

“In a pluralist society, the line of least resistance is to shield citizens from offence. The problem is that everyone is offended by something, or by many things.”

There must be free speech, even for Milo Yiannopoulos, The Guardian

“Section 230 is an important tool that promotes and protects online free speech.”

How lawsuits are threatening free speech online, The Hill

“I get very, very alarmed with folks who don’t treat [freedom of speech] for the treasure that it is.”

Q&A: It’s a free speech clash as Milo Yiannopoulos is shut down at UC Berkeley, Los Angeles Times

“This perversion of freedom of speech into acceptability, as approved by the status quo, is performed through long-bladed asterisks.”

Asterisks on free speech, The Nation

“If true freedom of speech is ‘freedom for the thought that we hate,’ then freedom is actually a form of self-mastery.”

Model Legislation to Protect Free Speech on Campus, National Review

“Berkeley’s free speech tradition, won through struggle – suspension, arrest, fines, jail time – by Free Speech Movement activists is far more important than Yiannopoulos, and it is that tradition’s endurance that concerns us.”

A Free Speech Battle at the Birthplace of a Movement at Berkeley, The New York Times

“To have the man at the helm of the most powerful nation of the world tweeting and threatening the University of California and talking about withholding funds, that’s unique and I find that very distasteful.”

Trump Crashes the U.C. Berkeley Free Speech Debate Following Protests, Newsweek

“Free speech is dangerous to dictators because it promises to recruit opposition; effective free speech is the best recruiting policy.”

At Columbia, Gorsuch blasted progressive protesters, defended free speech, POLITICO

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.”

Frederick Douglass Would Have Ardently Supported Milo Yiannopoulos’s Free Speech Rights, reason.com

“The inevitable complaints, even the boycotts, are part of that too, and it’s all part of a process of self-regulating speech, where ideas, ideally, rise and fall on their merits, where individuals get to argue about the meaning of things instead of having government decide.”

Super Bowl Ads Illustrate Importance of Free Speech Rights for All, Even Corporations, reason.com

“Opposition is part of democracy.”

Merkel urges Turkey’s Erdogan to uphold freedoms, allow dissent, Reuters

“Civil libertarians and First Amendment scholars say these proposed measures are part of a disturbing national trend to stifle public debate and criminalize the constitutional exercise of free speech. They point to bills in statehouses from Washington State to Virginia that not only seek to stifle free speech but also would encourage vigilante justice from those who disagree with demonstrators.”

Free speech targeted in bills nationwide, critics say, USA Today

Please login to post a comment

Want to know who is speaking next at the City Club? Sign up here.

Slice 1 Created with Sketch.

Our New Address

1317 Euclid Avenue, Suite 100
Cleveland, Ohio 44115

The City Club of Cleveland building
x

Photo Gallery

1 of 22