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Liberal Intolerance on Display at the George Washington University – Video

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Liberal Intolerance on Display at the George Washington University
When will the administration at The George Washington University stand up and protect the free speech rights of all students and not just those who adopt the Left #39;s agenda? Click here for the...

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Liberal Intolerance on Display at the George Washington University - Video

Free speech at odds with ending racism: Opinionline

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USATODAY 8:41 a.m. EDT March 13, 2015

Video of SAE members singing racist chant.(Photo: Unheard Movement via YouTube)

David French,National Review: "This week, several University of Oklahoma frat boys were caught on tape singing a vile, racist song. ... And private citizens countered with expression of their own doing what the marketplace of ideas does best, countering bad speech with better speech. Then, the government got involved. OU President David Boren has expelled two students allegedly responsible for the chant. I hope these students find the courage to sue ... because the First Amendment needs a defense. They said terrible things, but they did not violate the law."

Jim Mitchell,The Dallas Morning News: "These students deserved hefty punishment and they received it, unlike previous generations of Sigma Alpha Epsilon students who apparently learned the same vile song in an age without social media. ... The average black person's friend network is 8% white, but the average white person's network is only 1% black. ... It is time to ... admit America still has a problem."

Ingrid Vasquez,Fox News Latino: "You can't punish someone for committing a crime of bigotry. But you can certainly try to show them why that mentality is questionable. By the time most head off to college, they are 18-years-old and are capable of forming their own ideas about the world. It is not a situation where parents are to blame. ... It doesn't matter if you wear Greek letters, or if your skin is black or white. We all have the power to make our voice heard."

USA TODAY

Oklahoma-style hate is everywhere: Column

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Eugene Volokh, The Washington Post: "(There is) no First Amendment exception for supposed 'hate speech.' But if there is such an exception, there certainly is no First Amendment foundation for distinguishing speech that is ... anti-black from speech that is anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Catholic, anti-women, or anti-men. If the University of Oklahoma president's position is accepted as legally sound, then there'd be no legal basis for protecting the other kinds of speech while expelling students for (anti-black) sort of speech."

The Oklahoma (OU) Daily,editorial: " 'Real Sooners' aren't racists or bigots. However, taking a peek at (social media) shows racist thoughts and comments are much more prevalent among OU students than we'd like. ... The veil of 'tradition' the fraternity members on that bus hid behind made them think their hate speech was acceptable. (The conversation) isn't over because SAE got kicked off campus."

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Free speech at odds with ending racism: Opinionline

Politics: 'Free speech' defenders are endorsing homophobia

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When SBS flatly refused to broadcast an ad for a Christian lobby group which claimed same-sex marriages would force children to miss out on a mother or a father during their Mardi Gras coverage, a few commentators argued that the decision was a hasty blow against free speech.

Not least of them was out gay Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, who describes the ad as distasteful and inappropriate, but insists it should still have screened.

Below, Melbourne secondary school teacher Alexandra OBrien disagrees. How comfortable would these free speech! defenders be if we were talking about a racist ad instead?

It blows my mind when I see people using the old right to free speech argument on social media as if this right gives companies and individuals the power to incite hate and fear, especially when using mass media outlets, such as the channel 7 and 9 anti-gay marriage ads which ran during Sydney Mardi Gras.

Im not going to endorse the institution of marriage here (hell nah), however lets get one thing straight for all of you closeted bigots out there who cry free speech when someone points out the homophobic, or perhaps racist or sexist comment that you are secretly supporting: No one, and I mean no one, has the right to cause further harm to an already oppressed, marginalised and vulnerable group.

There is no question that the LGBTIQ community, especially its youth, need protection, not condemnation.

In relation to the anti-marriage equality ads, the Australian Christian Lobby was happy to twist the statistics of one peer-reviewed study to suit their agenda, but in doing so they neglected that in a large queer specific study by The Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre in partnership with The University of Western Sydney it was found that 33% of LGBTIQ youth have committed self harm, 64% have been verbally abused, 42% have thought about self-harm and suicide, 16% have attempted suicide and 18% have been physically abused. There is no question that the LGBTIQ community, especially its youth, need protection, not condemnation.

The old saying goes that a lie will go around the world while the truth is pulling its boots on and so yes, there is cause for restrictions of this so-called right to freedom of speech, and that is when it is being used to cause harm to oppressed and vulnerable people. Lets look to the European Convention on Human Rights who states that freedom of expression may be subject to restrictions or penalties and dont freak out, in Australia these restrictions come in the form of laws such as the sex discrimination act, telecommunications law (to avoid menacing, harassing or offensive communication), and the offensive language in public act. These are all restrictions in place to protect not to endanger.

According to The Guardian commentator Nesrine Malik however, there is a loophole. She argues that those who fancy themselves defenders of free speech must be consistent in their absolutism, and stand up for offensive speech no matter who is the target. So, where are the ad campaigns demoting and attacking interracial marriage, or indigenous rights and equity, or perhaps womens and childrens rights to safety? surely any such campaigns would be valid and protected by the virtuous freedom of speech argument? Oh wait, no they are not, because the general population understands them to be unethical and harmful.

So, to you bigots who hide behind your self-entitled right to freedom of speech, let the rest of us never forget the golden rule: When you defend something, you are actually endorsing it.

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Politics: 'Free speech' defenders are endorsing homophobia

Volokh Conspiracy: Why todays Israel election polls are the last

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Opinion polls released in Israel today show the left-wing Zionist Union party (a combination of the venerable Labor party and Tzipi Livnis group) holding a 3-4 seat lead over the right-wing Likud party. However, the total size of the right and left wing blocs in the Knesset would be equal. Thus the nature of the government that will be formed will ultimately depend on the center-right, brand-new Kulanu party, and the two mainstay haredi parties.

While the vote is on Tuesday, Israeli law prohibits announcing opinion poll results from now until then. The assumption behind the law is that late polls could unduly influence voters. In the U.S., such a law would clearly be unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Indeed, such polls are the most protected form of speech speech about political matters. In Israel, as in Europe, free speech protections are less robust than in the U.S. Yet such laws seem exceedingly silly: protecting democracy from the voters. Governmental power to regulate the informational marketplace around an election isthe most dangerous kind of speech intrusion. Strangely, despite recent international fuss about speech legislation in Israel, the restrictions on electoral speech seem to go unremarked.

The notion that voters are dumb enough to be unreasonably swayed by polls but wise enough to choose a government isodd. This is particularly true in Israel, where government coalitions are formed by a large number of parties (the next coalition will probably have at least six). Thus there is necessarily a strategic aspect to voting, and knowing the latest poll results could be quite useful to decision-making.

Those who might be ok with laws regulating speech around political campaigns should note that they do not have an obvious stopping point. One of the items likely to be high on the agenda of the likely new left-wing government is a law banning Israel HaYom, a free-distribution daily, Israels highest circulation paper, and very supportive of Netanyahu. (The law would not actually explicitly ban Israel Hayom in particular, but would rather ban free newspapers, of which it is the only major one.) The purported justification for the measure, which would be manifestly unconstitutional in the U.S. (and Israel, I think) is that the newspaper, owned by U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson, constitutes improper political funding because of its pro-Likud editorial stance.

Despite the deep hatred for Adelson on the Left, I cant imagine the Israeli Supreme Court upholding such a law, but one never knows. Certainly the paternalism behind the polling law sets a tone that could support more intrusive, and targeted, efforts to eliminate information that may unduly sway the citizenry. A further irony is the electoral victory that would make such a law possible would also seem to undercut Livnis argument that through the newspaper, Adelson controls our lives here.

Eugene Kontorovich is a professor at Northwestern University School of Law, and an expert on constitutional and international law. He also writes and lectures frequently about the Arab-Israel conflict.

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Volokh Conspiracy: Why todays Israel election polls are the last

Free speech isn't free

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SEPTA DID what it felt it had to do, pointlessly, and wound up in federal court after banning posters deemed to be anti-Islamic.

I say pointlessly because the same ban had been tried and defeated in Washington, D.C., New York and San Francisco.

The U.S. District Court here ruled Wednesday that since SEPTA has accepted other advocacy advertising, it can't refuse ads that call for ending U.S. aid to Islamic countries and that portray an Islamic leader as an ally of Adolf Hitler.

SEPTA general counsel Gino Benedetti said SEPTA rejected the Hitler ad because it "disparaged Muslims because it portrayed them in a way that I believe was untrue and incorrect and false," adding the ad "put every single Muslim in the same category as being a Jew hater."

I'll get to the specific ad in a moment, but that's a huge stretch by Benedetti, like saying attacking Boko Haram is an attack on all Muslims.

The posters (and other ads) are commissioned by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, co-founded by Pamela Geller. Both are accused of being "Islamophobic," which is a convenient way of trying to shut down those who disagree with you.

Those attacking Geller and AFDI include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, other Islamic groups and the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center, which I have supported over the years, even while not agreeing with all it says and does.

I also don't agree with everything Geller says. She's too often a bomb thrower whose careless words allow her critics to paint her with the anti-Muslim brush.

"This is part of the Islamic supremacist narrative," she told me. "I oppose an ideology that calls for the annihilation of the nonbeliever."

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Free speech isn't free

Flag flap at California school raises free speech debate

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IRVINE, Calif. (AP) When student government representatives at the University of California, Irvine voted to ban all flags including the American one from their tiny office, they thought they had found a solution to a battle over freedom of speech that began when someone first tacked a U.S. flag to the wall in January. The flag had been at the center of an increasingly bitter game of cat-and-mouse, with some students taking it down repeatedly and others replacing it in the dark of night.

Last week, six student legislative council members passed a resolution banning all flags from their office space, saying the U.S. flag could be viewed as hate speech because some consider it a symbol of colonialism and imperialism. The executive cabinet of the Associated Students organization vetoed the legislation two days later but it was too late.

The vote prompted a furor: Taxpayers protested on the campus plaza, the school was bombarded with angry comments on its social media sites, and one state lawmaker proposed a constitutional amendment that would prohibit state-funded colleges and universities from banning the U.S. flag on campus. On Thursday, student government meetings were canceled for the second day in a row because of an unspecified threat.

The debate resonated on the ethnically and religiously diverse suburban campus south of Los Angeles, where tensions over freedom of speech have taken the national stage several times before. For years, Jewish students and members of the Muslim Student Union have sparred in a dispute that came to a head in 2011, when 10 Muslim students were arrested and prosecuted for disrupting a speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. In 2007, federal civil rights investigators looked into complaints of anti-Semitic speeches given at the university by invited Muslim speakers, but they found the comments were directed as Israeli policies, not Jewish students.

"It's the nature of young minds questioning and activism at a young age. I think people notice it at UCI more because they think, 'Oh, that's the quiet conservative campus in the middle of Orange County.' But the reality is the students are from all over the place, and they're testing out their ideas just like they are at any other campus," said Cathy Lawhon, a university spokeswoman. About 14 percent of the university's nearly 30,000 students are from other countries.

The tension between Muslim and Jewish undergraduates has calmed recently, and President Barack Obama gave the university commencement speech last spring. So current students said they were dismayed to be in the national spotlight again on freedom of speech issues. Some students and professors reacted to the national criticism by defending the six students in an online petition that said, in part, that the "resolution's perspective has been completely borne out by recent events."

Daniel Kellogg, a fourth-year cognitive sciences major, wore a muscle shirt emblazoned with the American flag as he walked across campus to drop off a term paper. The attention was unsettling, he said, particularly because UC Irvine was being portrayed nationally as a hotbed of anti-American fervor because of the actions of six students.

"We have a lot of international students, and I could see how somebody could possibly be uncomfortable by a gigantic flag in the middle of the common area. But at the same time, this is the United States, and they should just get used to that," Kellogg said.

Meeting minutes show legislative council members grappled with whose rights were more important as they voted: those offended by the flag or those who were offended by its removal. One council member noted that an anonymous letter that criticized the flag was free speech but taking it down was impinging on the free speech of others who wanted it left up.

Associated Students President Reza Zomorrodian did not respond to emails nor did any of the legislative council members involved in the vote or the resolution's author. But in a statement earlier this week, three of the six students who passed the resolution said that they were grateful to be "privileged enough to even have these kinds of conversations" and said they had meant to create a "safe, inclusive space" for all students.

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Flag flap at California school raises free speech debate

Colorado Editorial Roundup

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A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:

The Gazette, March 10, on defending free speech:

Suppose a member of the Westboro Baptist Church walks into a bakery demanding a cake that features the organizations infamous slogan God Hates (Gays). The baker refuses. She will sell the man cake but will not design an obnoxious message.

Most would sympathize with the baker. In a country protected by free speech, no one should be forced to write, say or otherwise depict something the person deems offensive. Free speech means freedom to express what we desire. It also means the government cannot force us to express anything - whether it is popular or unpopular.

We cannot discriminate against a black person or Muslim in a place of business. For that, our country has become an oasis of liberty in an international environment abundant with slavery and discrimination. But a business owner cannot be forced to pledge agreement with or opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Expression is different than the sale of a good, service or commodity. Most newspapers would sell an ad to any religious extremist. Few would produce an ad that denounces a chosen demographic as infidels. We are allowed to discriminate against messages deemed inappropriate.

Though our hypothetical cake shop dilemma depicts an extreme, something similar happened in Colorado recently. Bill Jack of Castle Rock asked three Denver-area bakery owners to create Bible-shaped cakes and adorn each with a scripture opposing homosexuality. The bakers refused, and Jack filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Colorados civil rights statutes forbid discrimination on a basis of creed. Jacks creed involves opposition to homosexual relationships.

Jacks requests for anti-gay expressions came after two men asked the owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood to create a cake celebrating their marriage in another state. The baker, Jack Phillips, politely declined. He offered to sell them cakes and any other products but said his religious convictions precluded him from creating an expression that celebrates same-sex marriage. Whether one disagrees with Phillips should have no bearing on his First Amendment rights to free expression and exercise of religion.

The men complained to the Civil Rights Commission. The commission ordered Phillips to create whatever expressions same-sex couples demand. He must file quarterly compliance reports for the next two years and re-educate his staff that Colorados Anti-Discrimination Act means that artists must endorse all views.

That means pro-choice activists must design cakes that denounce abortion. Pro-life bakers must create expressions celebrating Roe v. Wade. Endless conundrums come to mind.

A person forced by a state commission to endorse or denounce same-sex relationships has no freedom of speech. She has only the obligation to say what the state demands.

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Colorado Editorial Roundup

Lawyer: OU had to balance free speech and protection from racism

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Two students were expelled from the University of Oklahoma this week after a video of them leading a racist chant went viral. The response from David Boren, the president of the university, was swift and decisive the video went public Sunday night, and by midday Tuesday the university had announced the expulsion.

[Read the students' apologies.]

The incident raised heated questions about race relations and how to balance free speech with protection from discrimination and harassment. Many applauded Borens strong stance as a good means to ensure the campus wasnt a racially hostile place. But others cautioned he had not given sufficient consideration to the students First Amendment rights.

College officials have to carefully navigate those competing claims.

Olabisi Okubadejo, a lawyer who specializes in higher education issues in Ballard Spahrs Baltimore office, writes about the tensions for colleges trying to keep their campuses inclusive even when theres divisive speech:

The announcement of the University of Oklahomas recent decision to expel two fraternity members who allegedly were involved in chanting a racist anthem on video has ignited widespread discussion at educational institutions nationwide.

At issue, in large part, is the tension that often arises when student organizations engage in race-based conduct on the one hand, many students and faculty are offended and outraged by the behavior, while on the other hand, perpetrators and individual rights groups vocally claim that the speech is constitutionally protected.

Educational institutions are caught in the middle, as they grapple with how to meet dueling obligations under the First Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial harassment.

The U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in its published guidance to schools makes clear that the mere offensiveness of speech, standing alone, is insufficient to establish a racially hostile environment on campus.

Instead, to constitute harassment, when viewed from the perspective of a reasonable person, the speech must be sufficiently serious to deny or limit a students ability to participate in the schools educational program.

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Lawyer: OU had to balance free speech and protection from racism

Alexey Shved: 21 PTS, 10 RBS, 7 AST, 2 BLK, 1 STL @ Utah 3/10/15 – Video

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Alexey Shved: 21 PTS, 10 RBS, 7 AST, 2 BLK, 1 STL @ Utah 3/10/15
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Alexey Shved: 21 PTS, 10 RBS, 7 AST, 2 BLK, 1 STL @ Utah 3/10/15 - Video


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