FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

[grarpamp]

> EDU's have been CensorBanning


Heckler's Veto: 66% Of College Students Say Stopping Speech Is Free Speech

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/09/23/hecklers-veto-sixty-six-percent-of-college-students-say-stopping-speech-is-free-speech/

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/07/08/the-rising-generation-of-censors-law-school-are-the-latest-battleground-over-free-speech/
https://reports.collegepulse.com/college-free-speech-rankings-2021
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/01/22/why-burn-books-when-you-can-ban-them-writers-and-publishers-embrace-blacklisting-in-an-expanding-american-anti-free-speech-movement/
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/09/11/we-bury-the-ashes-of-racism-discrimination-and-stereotypes-canadian-schools-hold-book-burning-demonstration-to-be-a-more-inclusive-country/
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/12/09/free-speech-is-being-weaponized-columbia-dean-and-new-yorker-writer-calls-for-more-censorship/
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/05/04/china-was-right-academics-and-democratic-leaders-call-for-censorship-of-social-media-and-the-internet/
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/08/20/the-new-censors-polls-shows-almost-half-of-americans-favor-the-government-censoring-misinformation/
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/09/09/federal-court-rules-against-suny-birmingham-in-important-free-speech-challenge/
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/02/02/protesters-torch-free-speech-at-berkeley-in-latest-example-of-mob-rule-on-americas-college-campuses/
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/10/06/liberalism-is-white-supremacy-black-lives-matter-protesters-block-spech-by-aclu-head-at-william-and-mary/
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/04/18/wellesley-students-editors-endorse-silencing-opposing-speakers-and-declare-hostility-may-be-warranted/
https://jonathanturley.org/2014/03/21/california-feminism-professor-charged-with-battery-and-theft-in-confrontation-with-pro-life-protesters/
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/12/18/college-presidents-declare-there-is-no-protection-for-disingenuous-misrepresentation-of-free-speech/
http://www.law.cuny.edu/faculty/directory/bilek.html
https://jonathanturley.org/2018/04/17/cuny-law-dean-students-shutting-down-speech-on-free-speech-was-free-speech/
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/23/self-cancellation-cuny-dean-resigns-and-seeks-counseling-after-referring-to-herself-as-a-slaveholder/comment-page-1/
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/05/19/california-state-university-professor-sued-after-allegedly-leading-students-out-of-class-to-wipe-out-pro-life-messages-on-campus/
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/11/13/fresno-state-university-professor-remains-defiant-after-court-ordered-fine-and-first-amendment-training/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/12/health/fresno-chalk-free-speech-trnd/
https://jonathanturley.org/2019/04/08/turley-and-waldron-to-debate-hate-speech-at-rice-university/
https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/antifa/


We have previously discussed the worrisome signs of a rising
generation of censors in the country as leaders and writers embrace
censorship and blacklisting. The latest chilling poll was released by
2021 College Free Speech Rankings after questioning a huge body of
37,000 students at 159 top-ranked U.S. colleges and universities. It
found that sixty-six percent of college students think shouting down a
speaker to stop them from speaking is a legitimate form of free
speech.  Another 23 percent believe violence can be used to cancel a
speech. That is roughly one out of four supporting violence.

Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of
book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing
political views. Others are supporting actual book burning. Columbia
Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of
free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on
the right. So the dean of one of the premier journalism schools now
supports censorship.Free speech advocates are facing a generational
shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free
speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As
millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that
“China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new
society in their own intolerant images.

The most chilling aspect of this story is how many on left applaud
such censorship. A prior poll shows roughly half of the public
supporting not just corporate censorship but government censorship of
anything deemed “misinformation.” Perhaps the same citizens and
academics will embrace the Chinese model on social scoring and praise
actions that the reported move by Chase bank.

We discussed this issue recently with regard to a lawsuit against
SUNY. It is also discussed in my forthcoming law review article,
Jonathan Turley, Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the
United States, 45 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (2021).

This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe
that free speech includes the right to silence others.  Berkeley has
been the focus of much concern over the use of a heckler’s veto on our
campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers,
even including a few speakers like an ACLU official.  Both students
and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right
to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers
have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free
speech.  At another University of California campus, professors
actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life
advocates and tore down their display.  In the meantime, academics and
deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive
or “disingenuous” speech.  CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far
this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was
stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,”  Bilek
insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech.
(Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single
analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing
to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).

We previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public
Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher recruited students to destroy
pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the
pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter.
A district court has now ordered Thatcher to pay $17,000 and undergo
First Amendment training.  However, Thatcher remained defiant and the
university appeared complicit in his actions by the lack of
disciplinary action.

The pro-life students had written messages on the sidewalk like “You
CAN be pregnant & successful” and “Unborn lives matter” to “Women need
love, NOT abortion.”  Thatcher got students from his 8 a.m. class to
help remove the anti-abortion messages and that their chalk was taken
away to write pro-choice slogans on the sidewalk. The students seem
entirely unconcerned that they are censoring speech and engaging in a
grossly intolerant act.  Instead, they refer to their teacher as
telling them that they should do so.  Thatcher then walked up.
Thatcher invoked the controversial restriction of free speech to
“zones” and says that there is no free speech right for this type of
writing outside of that zone.  When the students explain that they
have permission, he then proceed to rub out their messages and
declared “you have permission to put it down — I have permission to
get rid of it.”

Thatcher is arguing that same Orwellian “Stopping free speech is free
speech” position.

A few years ago, I debated NYU Professor Jeremy Waldron who is a
leading voice for speech codes. Waldron insisted that shutting down
speakers through heckling is a form of free speech.

I disagree. It is the antithesis of free speech and the failure of
schools to protect the exercise of free speech is the antithesis of
higher education.

The added increase in embracing violence is particularly chilling. A
quarter of those polled supported violence to prevent others from
speaking. This is the core of the philosophy of the Antifa movement.
It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the
right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what
is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark
Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Bray emphasizes the struggle
of the movement against free speech:

    “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the
classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but
I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Indeed, Bray admits
that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or
antiauthoritarian communists…  From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as
such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”

It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white
supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and
genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic
and thus unworthy of being heard.

Antifa has a long and well-documented history of such violence. Bray
quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech
as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have
the right to be shut up.”

Notably, when George Washington University student and self-professed
Antifa member Jason Charter was charged as the alleged “ringleader” of
efforts to take down statues in Washington, D.C., Charter declared the
“movement is winning.” He is right and this poll shows the success.