Tuesday, May 02, 2017
#FreeSpeech in the News: May 2, 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.
"All across the nation and here at home, we've seen protesters trying to silence different viewpoints… Free speech means free speech for everyone and not just for the person who speaks the loudest."
Wisconsin Republicans push college free speech bill that would punish hecklers, Chicago Tribune
“Universities invited speakers not chiefly to present otherwise unavailable discoveries but to present to the public views they have presented elsewhere. When those views invalidate the humanity of some people, they restrict speech as a public good.”
NYT Op-Ed: Free Speech ‘Parameters’ Must Be Redrawn To Protect The ‘Marginalized’, The Daily Caller
“Huh? Let me get this right: The violent suppression of invited campus speakers’ First Amendment rights—as well as of those who wanted to hear from them—is not ‘censorship,’ but, instead, an effort to protect ‘the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people.’
NYU Administrator Goes Full Orwell: Violating Free Speech ‘Ensures The Conditions Of Free Speech’, Forbes
“Priebus’ profoundly troubling statement runs against core American values of free speech and press freedom.”
Trump Administration’s Attack On Free Speech Sets A Dangerous Precedent, The Huffington Post
“We have an unwavering commitment to providing for the safety and well-being of speakers who come to campus, our students and other members of our campus and surrounding communities… While there may, at times, be tension between these paired commitments, we cannot compromise either.”
Ann Coulter, free speech and UC Berkeley: How a talk become a political bombshell, Los Angeles Times
“This has been a bad year for speech. The school year began with conversations surrounding the need for civility in discourse, and is ending with debates over whether or not people who say reprehensible things, or even hold deplorable beliefs, have the right to speak at all.”
Free Speech vs. Civil Disobedience, The Middlebury Campus
“Speech is often harmful. And vicious. And hurtful. And racist. And just plain disgusting. But whenever you start thinking these are good reasons to overturn—by violence or otherwise—someone's invitation to speak, ask yourself this: Who decides?”
The Most Important Free Speech Question Is: Who Decides?, Mother Jones
“It is not because students are ‘snowflakes’ and have pie in the sky illusions about what to expect from college that they shout down or assault speakers.”
The Roots of Campus Progressivism’s Madness, National Review
“That said, in a morally and intellectually healthy society, I’d have no problem with campuses refusing to lend resources to certain speakers. The idea that, say, the administrators of Yeshiva University, should be required to offer a venue to David Duke strikes me as silly as silly as saying he has a right to run an article in National Review.”
What The Free Speech Debate Misses, National Review
“In a new white paper, Newseum President and CEO Jeffrey Herbst argues that young generations have developed an “alternate understanding” of the First Amendment, with more students believing that it should not protect offensive speech – particularly when the offense is directed at groups that are defined in terms of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.”
Students have an “alternative understanding” of the first amendment, Newseum
“If we really want college to go back to being an educational experience where students hear the free exchange of ideas and are prepared for the real world, parents need to turn off the spigot.”
The only way to stop the college revolt against free speech, New York Post
“Suppression of freedom of speech in universities is ‘one of the greatest problems of our time,’ a former chancellor has warned.”
Lack of free speech at universities is a ‘great blight of our age,’ Lord Lawson says, The Telegraph
“Campus protesters are right that President Trump's America-first nationalism is a grave threat to many Americans. But unfettered First Amendment rights are the answer to the threat, not its cause.”
Campuses mobs muzzle free speech: Our view, USA Today
“It is an argument that many people find compelling — but censorship is always alluring, especially when it flatters the censor’s individual morality.”
Lawyer: Stop using censorship to ‘protect’ free speech, The Washington Post
An episode of On Point, discussing free speech, resistance and the American college campus.
Higher Education and The Free Speech Debate, WBUR 90.9
