Monthly Archives: May 2017

Are These 5 Grievances About Millennials Character Strengths? – monroviaweekly

Posted: May 26, 2017 at 3:52 am

Selfies and participation trophies may not be the downfall of society. Courtesy photo

By Monica Sanchez

Millennials are the worst, right? Theyre annoying and overbearingly doing some kind of action that irks the dark recesses of societys soul. What must be done about this incessant Millennial problem that is spreading its infectious ideology across the globe?

Its rather difficult to come up with a wholly effective solution to the Millennial problem, but lets think radically for a moment on how to go about handling such people and what they represent. Quite simply, accept it. All these grievances being echoed on repeat dont exactly give Millennials any credit whatsoever, and as human beings, Millennials at the very least have some redeeming characteristics.

So lets reevaluate five common grievances about Millennials that are actually character strengths:

Theyre always on their phone.

Hello and welcome to the present, where career networking is now accomplished through social networking. Millennials are always on their phone not just to show how lit their night was on Snapchat but to build and maintain positive relationships with others and reach out to people or companies they normally would not be able to communicate with.

While the phone and social media naysayers might feel the need to interject with Why dont you just meet them in person?

In the working world, thats not always possible due to time constraints and conflicting schedules. Keeping in contact with people via texts and social media is more convenient and reliable for the working Millennial who may be juggling two jobs, a masters program, and even a child.

Staying on top of social media communication is also a great way for Millennials aspiring towards a specific career to get their start. See the past Millennial Feed article: Why Employers Want Millennials With Social Media Skills.

Because Millennials use their phones incessantly for career networking, they have built an aptitude for immersive learning that other generations have not completely caught onto yet. Walk into a random office on any given day, and you will inevitably be a witness to someone calling a Millennial for help with a computer issue. Phones are the gateway device to immersive learning, and the griping and grievances about Millennials on their phones must end if they are constantly sought after for their technological skills.

Theyre entitled because they were given participation trophies as kids.

Surprisingly, participation trophies have led to intrinsic motivation within Millennials. Because Millennials have been told that they were valued as children, it made them significantly more optimistic and confident than children who did not receive the same level of attention or appreciation.

As a result, they have caused Millennials to want to complete a task or try something new not out of the prospect of a possible reward or an answer to Whats in it for me? Instead, those horrid golden prizes have caused Millennials to complete tasks in order to gain enjoyment and pleasure from simply participating in various activities. Active participation is a nostalgic reminder of their childhood, and nostalgia is a dictator that rules a large portion of most peoples choices throughout life. In this case for Millennials, that strict dictatorship is a positive factor in their lives because nostalgia can lendmuch-needed context, perspective, and direction (Psychology Today), which it has by laying the foundation for the desire to achieve intrinsic rewards through simple participation.

A common complaint about participation trophies that reverberates throughout older generations is that they are sole contributor of the downfall of the Millennial generation. The complaints heard across the country go as follows: Participation trophies make kids afraid of failure, or participation trophies make them feel entitled to everything.

On the contrary, those participation trophies have given Millennials confidence to seek new experiences, chase different opportunities, and try new activities, even if they may not exactly be good at them.

And Millennials are not so hopelessly delusional as one might think. They are aware that they will not just magically get everything that they want because they were told theyre special once after a soccer game when they were eight years old.

Most importantly, participation trophies have also taught Millennials how to show appreciation and respect for others no matter who they are, which is a contributing factor as to why Millennials care so much about social justice. A person who feels entitled and superior to others would not even think twice about social justice.

They have no respect for authority.

Millennials lack of blind obedience to authority obviously makes them the most disrespectful generation to ever have existed. How dare they question anything!

While its unthinkable that Millennials, as human beings, would have curiosity and feel compelled to wonder why things are the way they are, its important to note that this behavioral trait is not unique to Millennials alone. Curiosity is a personality component that applies to the youth in every generation.

Plus, being able to question things is a trait that society should want Millennials to have too. In fact, St. Edwards University claims that great leaders know that the path to exceptional growth and performance often requires upending existing ideas to choose a new path, noting examples such as Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, and Pope Francis, who both questioned the status quo in their respective fields.

Questioning the status quo demonstrates that the Millennial generation can think critically about difficult situations and will ultimately lead them to generate alternative solutions to societal problems. Millennials have the skills to become leaders of the future, and it all begins with questioning authority. And Millennials will continue to do so because they dont simply accept whatever is happening to them. Their posts on social media and active participation in political protests prove just that. At the end of the day, people should want Millennials to be leaders and not followers.

Theyre selfish and self-absorbed.

Every side has its story, and from the Millennials point of view, their so-called selfishness and self-absorbed behavior is simply a positive sense of focus.

Yes, Millennials love to post what theyre doing with their lives online, especially their accomplishments. Millennials goals are important to them. They like talking about and sharing their goals with others via social media because it helps keep them focused on working towards achieving them. And when they finally achieve those goals, isnt it a reasonable concept that people might possibly be proud of their accomplishments in life?

Millennials are also aware that its a cruel world, and the philosophy of ethical egoism states that people ought to do whatever action maximizes ones own self-interest (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a person can be morally right if they positively achieve such an action without detrimentally harming the well-being of others.

In a competitive job market, Millennials already know that they need to do whatever it takes to survive, even if they have to resort to tactics of ethical egoism and annoy people with their goals and accomplishments by showcasing them online.

Theyre unrealistic.

Oh, Millennials and their unrealistic expectationswhen will they learn that humanity is not allowed to have dreams, goals, or any hope for something better in life?

What some people might label as unrealistic optimism and expectations, Millennials will refer to as positivity. This strange but ancient concept is vital to peoples mental and physical health. Harvard Health Publications states that optimism helps people cope with disease and recover from surgery. And the University of Rochester Medical Health Center informs the public that optimistic people tend to live longer and have better physical and mental health than pessimistic people.

Its important to find ways to stay positive just to maintain basic mental and physical health in order to keep trudging on because life is hard! Thats an obvious statement that shouldnt bear repeating. But with all the frustration directed towards Millennials high levels of optimism, society seems to need a reminder that optimism is actually a good trait to have. So if some Millennials are a little more optimistic than the average person, then let them be for their own well-being.

Millennials have had to swallow a lot of criticism and hold their tongues at times in order to avoid being labeled as disrespectful and rude. But George Orwell had it right in relaying that every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. Perhaps, Millennials will be regurgitating similar phrases of negativity and bitterness when youth has shed itself of them too.

Hopefully, that is not the case and Millennials will learn, based on their experiences, to end this detrimental cycle of blatant ageism. But it is only human nature to comment and react negatively to things we find unpleasant due to a lack of comprehension. Moving forward, lets avoid holding onto personal bias and be more willing to learn from each other, for every generation has invaluable wisdom to offer.

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Ethical issues in Nigeria’s higher education and governance – Nigeria Today

Posted: at 3:52 am

From all interrogations in symposia, lectures, workshops, conferences, submissions of policy makers and independent opinions of parents and parent teachers associations, Nigeria is in dire need of quality education characterised by duty, moral obligation and moral commitment different from the status-quo. Quality education can be defined as formal learning in schools, polytechnics and universities squarely related to individual well-being, competence, rights, duties, obligation, aspirations and national goals, a kind of integrated and holistic development of the individual and the society. Absence of quality education makes nonsense the ideal of individuals and societys developments leading most often than not to violence, poverty, unemployment, corruption, graft, unaccountability and political instability. The cause and course are historically and vertically decipherable and horizontally clear and reducible. The dramatic fall in the quality of education is not an idea, not a myth but a reality which is a subject of contemporary history and sociological anthropology. We live by it and we live in it but paradoxically most us pretend not to be aware while pointing accusing fingers to their next neighbours. The historical and the anthropological nature of the phenomenon which calls for a synthetic apriori surgery, objective and sensible analysis is simply a reminder of the myopic, narrow minded straight jacket and suicide driven complexity of western capitalism which, though is being strenuously combated by the inventors, the western and U.S.A governments, is irresponsibly and unaccountably being used or allowed to inflict unbounded mortal injuries on Nigeria and African countries.

As we swim through this turbulent ocean of search, cognition, apperception and rediscovery of our cultural destiny anthropological re-definition of history is one solution to lack of quality education and another is the synchronic or structural analysis of the way out of the accumulated deposits of history, bourgeois elitism and satanic technology, or rather western monotheism, absolutism and imperialism

One monumental cause of disabled education in Nigeria is the failure of our successive governments to capture the price or negative side effects of western civilisations, and cushion them, as the originators have been doing, in the management of our educational and development polices. If our governments received or followed western styled systems discriminatively, we would have benefited qualitatively from western civilisations, just as they did with our African Egyptian civilisations, and achieved a synthesis of the African and western to become one of the bastions of glowing and expanding cultures.

Capitalism and liberal democracy is an expanding universe of an idea, the bastion and torchlight of western civilisations, which has enslaved most African nations in a box, a highly limited universe, an analogy of a prison yard or a demonic stronghold under the watchdog of capitalism, the Lucifer. The Lucifer, capitalism, an idea, demon itself, has the freedom to parade and monitor those it has kept in prison while the in-makes of the prison yard have no freedom and have no alternative source of life and energy. They have no idea any longer, for theirs had been killed by a strong idea. Yet the Bible warned us to fear most the power that kills our bodies and souls and fear less the one that kills only the body. But here is the demon, capitalism that has killed the African soul, even stolen it for its own chemistry and alchemy leaving the in-mates of African prison yard with no alternative while they intensively and extensively, from the collections of cultural artifacts from all parts of world, search for alternatives to their economies and education that suffer the headache or side-effects of their own capitalism.

The anthropological anatomy of Nigerian failed education, the pedagogy of the colonial education is, therefore, lack of alternative inherent with the in-mate in the prison yard and the only solution is to recapture the African soul and grant her freedom to search for contemporary alternative to contemporary educational problems. Historically speaking, capitalism breeds the knack to get rich quick, corruption and indiscipline. These side-effects of capitalism are rapidly pulling down Nigerian universities and schools while it is seriously being checked in the country of capitalist origin (U.S.A).

There are a number of unethical non-pedagogic and non-epistemic issues which underline the foundation of failed education programme in Nigeria. The liberal democratic reforms or growth which expanded the democratic specie for higher institutions has yielded a multiplier effect of vices that accompany individualism, free market forces and primitive competition. The underlying vices are corruption, graft, unaccountability, impunity, mediocrity and erosion of quality assurance in Nigerias higher institutions.

These vice chancellors know and sustain it either unconsciously or consciously, advertently or inadvertently, former ministers of education and former Heads of State, perhaps, not conscious enough to reflect upon their own educational back grounds are carried away by the paraphernalia of offices; but definitely the average rational Nigerian in the street or in the re-mote villages natural habitat knows this but could not reach out even to his local governments chairman because of outrageous gaps or alienation caused by the overarching power, dominion and surreptitious security, nor could he get to the local government quarters because of high transportation cost and bad road. These are moral burdens of the oppressed in the society stifled and blighted from their capacity to contribute to knowledge growth in their environment. This is, by all means, a case of disallowing the citizenry from participating in knowledge sharing and when the suppression of a peoples latent skills and knowledge goes on unabated the height of absurdity is reached when rebellion in forms of Boko Haram, insurgency, robbery, social and political crises and instability sets on.

Education substantiates the moral worth of an individual as a moral and rational agent grounded in the Immanuel Kants categorical imperative which treats man as an end (Kant, 1788). Certain contraries or antinomies are negations of this moral worth of the individual. Nigerias educational failure would continue to subsist unless these negativities are challenged by ethical, cultural and epistemic solution

Firstly, the appointment and promotion of teachers from the primary schools through the secondary schools to the universities has been drastically compromised since 1980s. Stake holders of education in Nigeria have alleged that people from nowhere are lifted out of social or pecuniary interests and appointed lecturers whose primary contribution is to become professors and Head of institutions the way they were appointed. The traditional and excellence yardstick of epistemic and cognitive endowment decipherable from undergraduate school continuous assessment and final year results has been shortchanged by extraneous considerations and impunity. Strange category of conversion of administrative staff, primary and secondary school teachers, staff relations and wards and so on and so forth into academic positions in the universities has drastically jettisoned the irreducible minimum for academic appointments. This conversion absurdity has impetuously and pathologically dissipated the rigorous intellectualisation of the fetus of Higher Education in Nigeria.

Secondly the idea of institutional and university autonomy is like a blanket power vested on the heads of institution to appoint lecturers and professors without pause, which at any rate is justified by the currency of bourgeois autonomy properly construed, where professorship, according to critics, is lacking in international content in most Universities in Nigeria. Perhaps, the National Universities commission needs to seek for a redefinition of what makes a Professorship and who or what identifies it and in what context. This is the critical and dialectics juncture where most Vice Chancellors or Professors are found to be least qualified because those who go for equity must go with clean hands. The deontological ethical problem of Higher Education in Nigeria is, therefore, that the fingers of the managements are dripping with filths and cankerworms totally devoid of equity, honesty and justice of knowledge power.

Thirdly that some Universities allegedly reject some professors for appointments for sabbatical or substantive positions based on lack of merit only portrays poor quality of some Nigeria professors and teachers as well as that teaching and research is questionable in some University where conference sponsorship, TET Fund grant, Committee membership, Directorship, Deanship and Headship depend on your political portfolio or affiliation with the Vice-Chancellor.

Universities and other Higher Institutions are the ideal places for recognition of intellectual powers, creativity and pedagogy. But the opposite is the case in Nigeria. Battle-cry trails appointments in the universities and so merits are relegated to background. Quota and favoured appointments and professors are most often the gifted for the battle-cry for positions.

Fourthly, increasing population and expansion of number of universities are not being managed to correspond in geometrical proportions to the quality of education instead it has brought a rapidly alarming rate of educational corruption; as this phenomenon has released unmerited lecturers and teachers who cannot afford to sit down for at least one minute to ponder, cogitate on problem predicate, yet the system appoint and promote lecturers and professors indiscriminately every year. Fifthly, sorting-out, bribery and favoritism in higher institutions of learning are a society induced, a symptom of primitive and barbaric capitalism. A streaming population of unrestrained youths falls into the lap of ethnic, sectional and sectarian generated corrupt lecturers in order to grease the elbow of get certificate quick syndrome in our universities, some of which has been reduced to the status of Business centres.

The problem of Nigeria education has passed the level of describing it as facing challenges but is in a state of near irreversible chaos which however, can be paradoxically and mutably be re-written in new education history and constitution for our country. When a piece of history gets to its dead end only a revolution can re-define it.

It is against the above background that the National University Commission and the Ministry of Education need to express the rational and retro-active win to re-fashion our educational system that will meet the challenge of future Nigeria. First, funding, discipline and merit should be the defining principles of educational, academic and administrative actions in tertiary institutions. This will be enhanced if true academics and not politicians in academic gowns are appointed Heads of institution.

Secondly, corporate sector, individuals and business organisations participations in educational sector as players and partners have become imperative in the contemporary lopsided society and economic meltdown. Nigerias value system need to be attacked positively to avert the trend where social responsibility is a phobia, where egoism is philosophy and where politicians spent millions in a failed Senatorial election and millions in a failed House of Assembly election.

Thirdly parent teachers associations should be elevated to a corporate and responsible level and accordingly headed by responsible and influential personalities who can reduce or unmaske Heads of institutions and their lecturers in the discharge of their real duties. We can discern this sense of duty from Bill Gates financial and moral support to the American federation of teachers and whose speeches to the teachers on 2010/7 are reported thus:

We have made public schools our top priority in the United States because, we believe, as you do, that nothing is more important for Americas youth and nothing means more for the future of the country If great teaching is the most powerful point of leverage, how are we going to help more teachers become great (Bill Gates, 2010).

This sermon on educational reform from within the world greatest liberal capitalist society and from the richest man and capitalist bastion in the world is a testament that capitalism can reform itself in a deontological way and that the self-inflicted unethical practices in the Nigerias liberal capitalist economy is both paradoxical and absurd.

Fourthly, as a matter of educational policy government should initiate a road-map in a revolutionary manner that would redefine the goal of Nigerias educational system which is currently only organized for the industrial age, a hang-over from colonialism and western mentality and cataclysmic jump over knowledge based economy; when indeed the west moved from knowledge economy to organized industrial age. The jump to education organized for industrial age without first of all meeting the demands of education based on knowledge economy is a fallacy: a blind action without premise that has set African educational system, especially the Nigerian on the perpetual teeth of failure and somersault.

Fifthly, good governance is the bottom line answer to educational failure in Nigeria without which democracy will not be sustained and corruption triumphs. In a corrupt country even private initiative in education will be corrupt. The table is tumbling, to use Professor Peter Okebukolas inaugural lectures apt description of the state of education in Nigeria, is a requiem for the dearth of the deontological and normative foundation of education in Nigeria.

There is an adage that says that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Democracy and good governance must go along with social responsibility and private sector initiative and participation in education. Beyond this, Higher Education must have an epistemological and normative chain with the primary and secondary education awash with duty, moral obligation and moral commitments on both the part of teachers, their environment and stakeholders. Education should be seen as the bedrock of political stability, employment, value chain and wealth creation.

Dukor is Professor of Philosophy at Nnamdi Azikiwe University and President/ Editor in-chief of Essence Library.

This post was syndicated from The Guardian Nigeria Newspaper | Nigeria News and World News. Click here to read the full text on the original website.

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What witch-hunters can teach us – The Daily News of Newburyport

Posted: at 3:52 am

It is hardly a new observation that political leaders seeking populist appeal will exacerbate popular fears about immigrants, terrorists and the other.

President Donald Trump plays to fears of immigrants and Muslims. Benjamin Netanyahu inflames Israeli fears by constantly reminding citizens about the threats around them. And many African leaders bring up fears of satanism and witchcraft.

Such observations explain how leaders use fear to create popular anxiety. But this focus on fear and evil forces, I believe, does something else as well it could actually contribute to a leaders charisma. He or she becomes the one person who knows the extent of a threat and also how to address it.

In my book Evil Incarnate, I analyze this relationship between claims to discern evil and charismatic authority across history, from European and African witch-finders to modern experts in so-called satanic ritual abuse.

In popular parlance, one calls a person charismatic because he or she seems to possess some inner force to which people are drawn.

Social scientists have long perceived this ostensible inner force as the product of social interaction: Charisma, in this interpretation, arises in the interplay between leaders and their audiences. The audiences present their own enthusiasms, needs and fears to the leader. The leader, for his part, mirrors these feelings through his talents in gesture, rhetoric, his conviction in his own abilities and his particular messages about danger and hope.

In sub-Saharan Africa, over the course of the 20th century, charismatic witch-finders swept through villages promising the cleansing of evil. In both Africa and Europe, communities had long been familiar with witches and their modes of attack in general. It has been common in many cultures throughout history to attribute misfortune to witches, who are both a part of society and also malevolent.

Witch-finders have offered four new elements to the basic image of witches:

They proclaimed the immediacy of the threat of witches.

They revealed the new methods witches were using for harm.

They offered new procedures for interrogating and eliminating witches.

Most importantly, they proclaimed their own unique capacity to discern the witches and their new techniques to purge them from the community.

The witch-finders indispensability to the growing crisis of threatening evil shaped his rarely her charisma. People came to depend on his capacity to see evil and on his techniques of ridding it from the land. An uncleansed village felt vulnerable while a village a witch-finder had investigated seemed safer and calmer, its paths and alleys swept of evil substances.

Of course the witch-finder needed auspicious historical and social circumstances. These could be catastrophes like the plague, or new ways of organizing the world (such as African colonialism), or political tensions all of which could make his identification of evil people especially useful, even necessary. Also, he had to come off as professional and channel local fears in compelling ways.

This pattern can cause atrocities. Charismatic discerners of evil in medieval and Renaissance Northern Europe (often Christian clergy and friars) promoted false charges against local Jews and organized hunts through Jewish houses to uncover signs of mutilated Eucharist or childrens bones hunts that swiftly turned into pogroms as participants in these hunts felt a conspiracy of evil was emerging before them.

The contemporary West has in no way been immune to these patterns. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the United States and the United Kingdom found themselves facing a panic over satanic cults, alleged to be sexually abusing children and adults.

In this case, a number of psychiatrists, child protection officers, police and evangelical clergy were styling themselves as experts in discerning the abuses of satanists both in daycare centers and among psychiatric patients. Many people came to believe in the urgency of the satanic threat. Yet no evidence for the existence of such satanic cults ever came to light.

In many ways, we can see a similar interplay between charisma and the discernment of evil in those modern populist leaders.

For example, in his campaign, Trump insisted that he alone could utter the words radical Islamic terrorism, which assured members of his audience that only Trump was calling out the terrorist threat. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened publicly to eat the liver of the terrorists there. These leaders, I believe, are trying to convey that there is a larger threat out there and, even more, they are assuring people that as leaders they alone understand the nature of that larger threat.

As my work on witch-finders shows, an anxious culture may invest itself in a leader who, it feels, can discern and eliminate a pervasive and subversive evil. Perhaps, in todays world, the terrorist has become the new witch a monstrous incarnation of evil, posing a unique threat to our communities and undeserving of normal justice.

Do our leaders provide the charismatic leadership for this current era?

David Frankfurter is a professor of religion at Boston University. A version of this story appeared online in The Conversation.

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Why the Twitterati hates Hopkins more than Abedi – Spiked

Posted: at 3:52 am

Whats most striking about the backlash is not its censoriousness. Yes, the calls for a boycott, the ratting-out of Hopkins to the police for something she said, reminds us of the illiberal age we live in. But Hopkins has had her collar felt for saying much less. As shes found out, slagging off Scottish people or accidentally accusing a food blogger of defacing a monument is enough to see you fall foul of the New Inquisition.

No, whats striking is the profound moral cowardice, and the contempt for ordinary people, that the PC age has fostered. Over the past 24 hours, as information about Abedi has seeped out, commentators have been refusing to make him a martyr, refusing to talk about him these are the people we must remember, they say, retweeting images of the dead.

In any other context, this might have been an admirable thing to do a refusal to give him the status he craved. But thats not what is going on here. If this is supposed to be about the victims, why bother with Hopkins? Why not ignore her, block her, tell her to fuck off? Why waste breath on her? Its because really they are incapable of reckoning with the disturbing questions that Monday night once again raised.

Why have some of those born and raised among us as Abedi was grown to hate us? Why, among a minority of Muslim youth, is this nihilism brewing? And what might we have done to foster it, to cultivate it? These are questions theyd rather not answer. To do so would be to inflame, in their minds, the only hate they really care about the hate of lumpen plebs, the sort of people they imagine lap up Katie Hopkins every tweet.

Hopkins tried to make Manchester all about her. But through the response it generated, it told us more about the mainstream, about the cowards who tell us to treat Islamist terror like a natural disaster, a time only for sympathy and thanking the emergency services; the cowards who would rather shriek at cretinous columnists than reckon with the real hatred in our midst; the cowards who seem to get more exercised by tweets than bombs.

Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked. Follow him on Twitter: @Tom_Slater_

For permission to republish spiked articles, please contact Viv Regan.

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‘Run 4 Teran’ at Wine Station Trapan: an Exercise in Hedonism – Total Croatia News

Posted: at 3:51 am

"Dust off your running shoes" is not a sentence I've ever expected to write in the announcement for a wine event, but the day has come nonetheless.

A series of races has been taking place in various parts of Istria as of April 17th. A very attractive series of very attractive races, let me add, as they are part of the initiative called 'Run, eat, drink' (Tei, isti, piti in Croatian). The races aim to combine tasting of distinguished Istrian wine and authentic local cuisine with running surrounded by the gorgeous scenery of inland Istria. The last event of the season before the summer break is the upcoming race Run 4 Teran in Bruno Trapan's vineyard in ian that's planned for Saturday, May 27th at 10.

The route goes around the vineyard and measures 4km in length; running seems to be a sort of a warm-up for the rest of the day, seeing that the start is set for 11 and the return to the vineyard is expected at 12:15. The race is followed by a hearty meal of venison and polenta, provided by the Association of Hunters 'Bena'; quality Trapan wines and DJ Matko Bankovi from Kolektiv Buka Noise will make sure the party goes on until the evening.

For those want to participate in the race, there's a registration fee of 50 kuna to be paid online or at the spot on Saturday. If you want to be a part of the event without breaking a sweat, don't worry, as the enabling organisers are encouraging everyone to drop by, no matter if they plan to race or not Wine Station Trapan is there for the lazier among us to hang out and enjoy the top-quality wine. No matter how you look at it, the 'Run, eat, drink' manifestation is a literal and metaphorical exercise in hedonism.

The event is organised by the Association of Kinesiologists Pula, Wine Station Trapan and the Tourist Board of Linjan Municipality. More information is available at the official website.

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For National Wine Day, Three Ways To Attract Millennial Drinkers – Forbes

Posted: at 3:51 am


Forbes
For National Wine Day, Three Ways To Attract Millennial Drinkers
Forbes
But with craft brewers offering a wider range of styles and taste profiles than were available to boomers at the same age, plus millennials' propensity for frugal hedonism, as reflected in their hesitancy to pay restaurant markups, millennials may ...

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Free speech zone – Wikipedia

Posted: at 3:51 am

Free speech zones (also known as First Amendment zones, free speech cages, and protest zones) are areas set aside in public places for the purpose of political protesting. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The existence of free speech zones is based on U.S. court decisions stipulating that the government may regulate the time, place, and manner but not content of expression.[citation needed]

The Supreme Court has developed a four-part analysis to evaluate the constitutionality of time, place and manner (TPM) restrictions. To pass muster under the First Amendment, TPM restrictions must be neutral with respect to content, narrowly drawn, serve a significant government interest, and leave open alternative channels of communication. Application of this four-part analysis varies with the circumstances of each case, and typically requires lower standards for the restriction of obscenity and fighting words.[citation needed]

Free speech zones have been used at a variety of political gatherings. The stated purpose of free speech zones is to protect the safety of those attending the political gathering, or for the safety of the protesters themselves. Critics, however, suggest that such zones are "Orwellian",[1][2] and that authorities use them in a heavy-handed manner to censor protesters by putting them literally out of sight of the mass media, hence the public, as well as visiting dignitaries. Though authorities generally deny specifically targeting protesters, on a number of occasions, these denials have been contradicted by subsequent court testimony. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed, with various degrees of success and failure, a number of lawsuits on the issue.

Though free speech zones existed prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush, it was during Bush's presidency that their scope was greatly expanded.[3] These zones have continued through the presidency of Barack Obama; he signed a bill in 2012 that expanded the power of the Secret Service to restrict speech and make arrests.[4]

Many colleges and universities earlier instituted free speech zone rules during the Vietnam-era protests of the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, a number of them have revised or removed these restrictions following student protests and lawsuits.[citation needed]

During the 1988 Democratic National Convention, the city of Atlanta, Georgia set up a "designated protest zone"[5] so the convention would not be disrupted. A pro-choice demonstrator opposing an Operation Rescue group said Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young "put us in a free-speech cage."[6] "Protest zones" were used during the 1992 and 1996 United States presidential nominating conventions.[7]

Free speech zones have been used for non-political purposes. Through 1990s, the San Francisco International Airport played host to a steady stream of religious groups (Hare Krishnas in particular), preachers, and beggars. The city considered whether this public transportation hub was required to host free speech, and to what extent. As a compromise, two "free speech booths" were installed in the South Terminal, and groups wishing to speak but not having direct business at the airport were directed there. These booths still exist, although permits are required to access the booths.[8]

WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity saw a number of changes to how law enforcement deals with protest activities. "The [National Lawyers] Guild, which has a 35-year history of monitoring First Amendment activity, has witnessed a notable change in police treatment of political protesters since the November 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. At subsequent gatherings in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, and Portland a pattern of behavior that stifles First Amendment rights has emerged".[9] In a subsequent lawsuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that "It was lawful for the city of Seattle to deem part of downtown off-limits... But the court also said that police enforcing the rule may have gone too far by targeting only those opposed to the WTO, in violation of their First Amendment rights."[10]

Free speech zones were used in Boston at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The free speech zones organized by the authorities in Boston were boxed in by concrete walls, invisible to the FleetCenter where the convention was held and criticized harshly as a "protest pen" or "Boston's Camp X-Ray".[11] "Some protesters for a short time Monday [July 26, 2004] converted the zone into a mock prison camp by donning hoods and marching in the cage with their hands behind their backs."[12] A coalition of groups protesting the Iraq War challenged the planned protest zones. U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock was sympathetic to their request: "One cannot conceive of what other design elements could be put into a space to create a more symbolic affront to the role of free expression.".[13] However, he ultimately rejected the petition to move the protest zones closer to the FleetCenter.[14]

Free speech zones were also used in New York City at the 2004 Republican National Convention. According to Mike McGuire, a columnist for the online anti-war magazine Nonviolent Activist, "The policing of the protests during the 2004 Republican National Convention represent[ed] another interesting model of repression. The NYPD tracked every planned action and set up traps. As marches began, police would emerge from their hiding places building vestibules, parking garages, or vans and corral the dissenters with orange netting that read 'POLICE LINE DO not CROSS,' establishing areas they ironically called 'ad-hoc free speech zones.' One by one, protesters were arrested and detained some for nearly two days."[15] Both the Democratic and Republican National parties were jointly awarded a 2005 Jefferson Muzzle from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, "For their mutual failure to make the preservation of First Amendment freedoms a priority during the last Presidential election".[13]

Free speech zones were commonly used by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks and through the 2004 election. Free speech zones were set up by the Secret Service, who scouted locations where the U.S. president was scheduled to speak, or pass through. Officials targeted those who carried anti-Bush signs and escorted them to the free speech zones prior to and during the event. Reporters were often barred by local officials from displaying these protesters on camera or speaking to them within the zone.[16][3] Protesters who refused to go to the free speech zone were often arrested and charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and/or resisting arrest.[17][18] A seldom-used federal law making it unlawful to "willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in ... any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting" has also been invoked.[19][20]

Civil liberties advocates argue that Free Speech Zones are used as a form of censorship and public relations management to conceal the existence of popular opposition from the mass public and elected officials.[21] There is much controversy surrounding the creation of these areas the mere existence of such zones is offensive to some people, who maintain that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution makes the entire country an unrestricted free speech zone.[21] The Department of Homeland Security "has even gone so far as to tell local police departments to regard critics of the War on Terrorism as potential terrorists themselves."[17][22]

The Bush administration has been criticized by columnist James Bovard of The American Conservative for requiring protesters to stay within a designated area, while allowing supporters access to more areas.[18] According to the Chicago Tribune, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal court in Washington D.C. to prevent the Secret Service from keeping anti-Bush protesters distant from presidential appearances while allowing supporters to display their messages up close, where they are likely to be seen by the news media.[18]

The preliminary plan for the 2004 Democratic National Convention was criticized by the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU of Massachusetts as being insufficient to handle the size of the expected protest. "The zone would hold as few as 400 of the several thousand protesters who are expected in Boston in late July."[23]

In 1939, the United States Supreme Court found in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization that public streets and parks "have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions." In the later Thornhill v. Alabama case, the court found that picketing and marching in public areas is protected by the United States Constitution as free speech. However, subsequent rulings Edwards v. South Carolina, Brown v. Louisiana, Cox v. Louisiana, and Adderley v. Florida found that picketing is afforded less protection than pure speech due to the physical externalities it creates. Regulations on demonstrations may affect the time, place, and manner of those demonstrations, but may not discriminate based on the content of the demonstration.

The Secret Service denies targeting the President's political opponents. "Decisions made in the formulation of a security plan are based on security considerations, not political considerations," said one Secret Service spokesman.[24]

"These [Free Speech] zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, 'The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.' The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a 'designated free-speech zone' on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine 'people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views.'"[18][25] District justice Shirley Trkula threw out the charges, stating that "I believe this is America. Whatever happened to 'I don't agree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'?"[16]

At another incident during a presidential visit to South Carolina, protester Brett Bursey refused an order by Secret Service agents to go to a free speech zone half-a-mile away. He was arrested and charged with trespassing by the South Carolina police. "Bursey said that he asked the policeman if 'it was the content of my sign,' and he said, 'Yes, sir, it's the content of your sign that's the problem.'"[18] However, the prosecution, led by James Strom Thurmond Jr., disputes Bursey's version of events.[26] Trespassing charges against Bursey were dropped, and Bursey was instead indicted by the federal government for violation of a federal law that allows the Secret Service to restrict access to areas visited by the president.[18] Bursey faced up to six months in prison and a US$5,000 fine.[18] After a bench trial, Bursey was convicted of the offense of trespassing, but judge Bristow Marchant deemed the offense to be relatively minor and ordered a fine of $500 be assessed, which Bursey appealed, and lost.[27] In his ruling, Marchant found that "this is not to say that the Secret Service's power to restrict the area around the President is absolute, nor does the Court find that protesters are required to go to a designated demonstration area which was an issue in this case as long as they do not otherwise remain in a properly restricted area."[27]

Marchant's ruling however, was criticized for three reasons:

In 2003, the ACLU brought a lawsuit against the Secret Service, ACORN v. Secret Service, representing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). "The federal court in Philadelphia dismissed that case in March [2004] after the Secret Service acknowledged that it could not discriminate against protesters through the use of out-of-sight, out-of-earshot protest zones."[29] Another 2003 lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia, ACORN v. Philadelphia, charged that the Philadelphia Police Department, on orders from the Secret Service, had kept protesters "further away from the site of presidential visits than Administration supporters. A high-ranking official of the Philadelphia police told ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director Stefan Presser that he was only following Secret Service orders."[21][30] However, the court found the ACLU lacked standing to bring the case and dismissed it.[31]

The Secret Service says it does establish 'public viewing areas' to protect dignitaries but does not discriminate against individuals based on the content of their signs or speech. 'Absolutely not,' said Tom Mazur, a spokesman for the agency created to protect the president. 'The Secret Service makes no distinction on the purpose, message or intent of any individual or group.' Civil libertarians dispute that. They cite a Corpus Christi, Texas, couple, Jeff and Nicole Rank, as an example. The two were arrested at a Bush campaign event in Charleston, West Virginia, on July 4, 2004, when they refused to take off anti-Bush shirts. Their shirts read, 'Love America, Hate Bush'... The ACLU found 17 cases since March 2001 in which protesters were removed during events where the president or vice president appeared. And lawyers say it's an increasing trend.[32]

The article is slightly mistaken about the contents of the shirts. While Nicole Rank's shirt did say "Love America, Hate Bush", Jeff Rank's shirt said "Regime change starts at home."[33]

The incident occurred several months after the Secret Service's pledge in ACORN v. Secret Service not to discriminate against protesters. "The charges against the Ranks were ultimately dismissed in court and the mayor and city council publicly apologized for the arrest. City officials also said that local law enforcement was acting at the request of Secret Service."[34] ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Chris Hansen pointed out that "The Secret Service has promised to not curtail the right to dissent at presidential appearances, and yet we are still hearing stories of people being blocked from engaging in lawful protest," said Hansen. "It is time for the Secret Service to stop making empty promises."[34] The Ranks subsequently filed a lawsuit, Rank v. Jenkins, against Deputy Assistant to the President Gregory Jenkins and the Secret Service. "The lawsuit, Rank v. Jenkins, is seeking unspecified damages as well as a declaration that the actions leading to the removal of the Ranks from the Capitol grounds were unconstitutional."[34] In August 2007, the Ranks settled their lawsuit against the Federal Government. The government paid them $80,000, but made no admission of wrongdoing.[35] The Ranks' case against Gregory Jenkins is still pending in the District of Columbia.[36]

As a result of ACLU subpoenas during the discovery in the Rank lawsuit, the ACLU obtained the White House's previously-classified presidential advance manual.[37] The manual gives people organizing presidential visits specific advice for preventing or obstructing protests. "There are several ways the advance person" the person organizing the presidential visit "can prepare a site to minimize demonstrators. First, as always, work with the Secret Service to and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route. The formation of 'rally squads' is a common way to prepare for demonstrators... The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform... As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."[37]

The use of free speech zones on university campuses is controversial. Many universities created on-campus free speech zones during the 1960s and 1970s, during which protests on-campus (especially against the Vietnam War) were common. Generally, the requirements are that the university is given advance notice and that they are held in locations that do not disrupt classes.

In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that non-disruptive speech is permitted in public schools. However, this does not apply to private universities. In September 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Sam Cummings struck down the free speech zone policy at Texas Tech University. "According to the opinion of the court, campus areas such as parks, sidewalks, streets and other areas are designated as public forums, regardless of whether the university has chosen to officially designate the areas as such. The university may open more of the campus as public forums for its students, but it cannot designate fewer areas... Not all places within the boundaries of the campus are public forums, according to Cummings' opinion. The court declared the university's policy unconstitutional to the extent that it regulates the content of student speech in areas of the campus that are public forums".[38]

In 2007, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education released a survey of 346 colleges and Universities in the United States.[39] Of those institutions, 259 (75%) maintain policies that "both clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech."

In December 2005, the College Libertarians at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro staged a protest outside the University's designated protest zones. The specific intent of the protest was to provoke just such a charge, in order to "provoke the system into action into a critical review of what's going on."[40] Two students, Allison Jaynes and Robert Sinnott, were brought up on charges under the student code of conduct of "violation of respect",[41] for refusing to move when told to do so by a university official.[40] The university subsequently dropped honor code charges against the students.[40] "University officials said the history of the free-speech zones is not known. 'It predated just about everybody here," said Lucien 'Skip' Capone III, the university attorney. The policy may be a holdover from the Vietnam War and civil rights era, he said.'"[40]

A number of colleges and universities have revised or revoked free speech zone policies in the last decade, including: Tufts University,[42]Appalachian State University,[42] and West Virginia University.[42][43] In August, 2006, Penn State University revised its seven-year-old rules restricting the rights of students to protest. "In effect, the whole campus is now a 'free-speech zone.'"[44]

Controversies have also occurred at the University of Southern California,[45]Indiana University,[46] the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,[47] and Brigham Young University.[48][49]

At Marquette University, philosophy department chairman James South ordered graduate student Stuart Ditsler to remove an unattributed Dave Barry quote from the door to the office that Ditsler shared with three other teaching assistants, calling the quote patently offensive. (The quote was: "As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.") South claimed that the University's free-speech zone rules required Ditsler to take it down. University spokeswoman Brigid O'Brien Miller stated that it was "a workplace issue, not one of academic freedom."[50][51] Ultimately, the quote was allowed to remain, albeit with attribution.[52]

For example, the Louisiana State University Free Speech Alley (or Free Speech Plaza) was utilized in November 2015 when Louisiana gubernatorial candidate John Bel Edwards was publicly endorsed by former opponent and republican Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne.[53] The Consuming Fire Fellowship, a church located in rural Woodville, Mississippi, often sends members to convene at the universities free speech alley to preach their views of Christianity. The members have often been met with strong resistance and resentment by the student body.[54][55] Ivan Imes, a retired engineer who holds "Jesus Talks" for students at the university, said in an interview, "Give the church a break. The don't understand love. They don't understand forgiveness."[56]

As of March 2017[update], four states had passed legislation outlawing public colleges and universities from establishing free speech zones. The first state to do so was Virginia in 2014,[57] followed by Missouri in 2015,[58]Arizona in 2016,[59] and Kentucky in 2017.[60]

Designated protest areas were established during the August 2007 Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America Summit in Ottawa, Canada. Although use of the areas was voluntary and not surrounded by fences, some protesters decried the use of designated protest areas, calling them "protest pens."[61]

During the 2005 WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference, over 10,000 protesters were present. Wan Chai Sports Ground and Wan Chai Cargo Handling Basin were designated as protest zones. Police wielded sticks, used gas grenades and shot rubber bullets at some of the protesters. They arrested 910 people, 14 were charged, but none were convicted.

Three protest parks were designated in Beijing during the 2008 Summer Olympics, at the suggestion of the IOC. All 77 applications to protest there had been withdrawn or denied, and no protests took place. Four persons who applied to protest were arrested or sentenced to reeducation.[62][63]

In the Philippines, designated free speech zones are called freedom parks.

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Is Free Speech So Diminished That Only Recidivists Should Be Punished? – National Review

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Stanleys important post on the free-speech provision enacted in Louisiana shows how out of touch I am. My first reaction, upon reading the part about how a second offense for shutting down a speaker mandates a one-year suspension or expulsion, was that the law needs a provision along the lines of: The mandate of a one-year suspension or expulsion penalty for a second offense should not be construed to preclude imposition of those penalties for a first offense.

To my mind, an essential purpose of the university (if the universities we now have can still be thought essential) is the free exchange of ideas, very much including ideas that students may find disagreeable or noxious. If that exchange is prevented in the university, then the university is not worth having there being plenty of ways to access and learn important information in the 21st century without attending a college campus.

We are dealing with young people, of course. Having been one, I can attest that there are many foolish things done that might warrant discipline short of suspension or expulsion. But we are talking here about behavior that undermines the core educational mission and, in many instances, does so through behavior that violates criminal laws against assault and damaging property. I dont question the proposition that there could be extenuating circumstances in the rare individual case that might warrant less severe penalties. But it seems to me that preventing scholars and other experts from engaging with students should presumptively result in suspension or expulsion.

Alas, as Stanley explains, the biggest hurdle the model Goldwater legislation faces is the mandatory penalty for a second offense. I guess Im old school when it comes to school, but I think thats nuts.

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Is Free Speech So Diminished That Only Recidivists Should Be Punished? - National Review

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After long silence, ADL defends Linda Sarsour’s right to free speech – The Jerusalem Post

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The Jerusalem Post
After long silence, ADL defends Linda Sarsour's right to free speech
The Jerusalem Post
As has been our mission for over a century, ADL will stand up against the defamation of the Jewish people and for equal justice for all, which includes robust protections for free speech in our society, the organization concluded. But, we will not ...
Right wing free speech activist supports Palestinian-American speaker despite assumption she 'hates America'Raw Story
Linda Sarsour selected as CUNY graduation speaker sparks outcryWashington Times
MILO and Pamela Geller Protest Sharia-Advocate Linda Sarsour in NYCBreitbart News
Heat Street -Middle East Eye -Algemeiner
all 17 news articles »

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After long silence, ADL defends Linda Sarsour's right to free speech - The Jerusalem Post

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Frustrated with campus discourse limits, California Republicans take on ‘free speech zones’ – Los Angeles Times

Posted: at 3:50 am

In the realm of political odd couples, state Sen. Jim Nielsen of Gerber and aspiring public interest lawyer Nicolas Tomas may be among the oddest. Tomas, a 26-year-old Democrat, is a promoter of the vegan lifestyle. Nielsen, a 72-year-old Republican, is a cattleman and dairyman by trade.

The unlikely duo found common cause in pushing back against what they see as a climate of restricted free speech on college campuses. Two years ago, Tomas sued Cal Poly Pomona for preventing him from distributing pro-vegan leaflets outside of the free speech zone a 144-square-foot area designated for such activities. Now, Nielsen is carrying a bill to dismantle the use of these zones on public campuses.

The growing number of lawsuits aimed at knocking down speech limits on campus along with recent high-profile cancellations of controversial speakers such as Ann Coulter at UC Berkeley because of safety concerns has sparked a raucous public debate over how the 1st Amendment is practiced at colleges and universities.

And California legislators, particularly Republicans, have responded with proposals to hem in the ability of schools to regulate where and how students share their views.

The motivation is just to ensure there truly is free speech on our campuses in California, Nielsen said.

Nielsen said it was a great irony that California, the birthplace of the free speech movement at UC Berkeley in the 1960s, is now facing scrutiny over how students can express themselves on campus.

Ann Coulter, free speech and UC Berkeley: How a talk became a political bombshell

But todays debate is a natural product of our polarized political landscape, said Kevin Baker, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

Its understandable that people react very strongly to ideas and speech that they find offensive frankly, that a lot of people find offensive, Baker said.

Still, he added, weve learned through history that the best response to speech that we don't agree with is more speech and more education.

The proposed measures tackle the issue of campus speech in different ways. Nielsens bill would reaffirm that outdoor spaces on campus are public forums. Institutions would only be able to impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of speech, such as barring demonstrations with bullhorns in front of the library during finals week. School policies would also need to allow for spontaneous assembly and distribution of literature, so students can react to breaking news events.

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) is carrying the Campus Free Speech Act, which would bar school administrators from disinviting speakers and establish disciplinary action for anyone who infringes on the free speech right of others.

Under the proposal, youre not allowed to just disinvite people because theyre controversial, Melendez said. You cant have mob rule.

Recent incidents have primarily been focused on figures from the political right Coulter at UC Berkeley or former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous at UC Davis but Melendez said the cause should not be seen exclusively as a conservative one.

Today it's one type of speaker who is getting pushback from college campuses, she said. But 10 years from now, it could be quite the opposite. That's the danger of not dealing with this right now.

Joe Cohn, legislative director at the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the Coulter and Yiannopolous incidents brought attention publicly in a way that both legislators and the general public can no longer ignore that something is happening on college campuses with regard to how free speech is valued and it isnt positive.

But proponents of Nielsens bill recognize that Coulter and Yiannopolous may not be the most sympathetic figures for free speech to the largely liberal California Legislature.

Democrats view it as bigoted speech, Tomas said. In his conversations with lawmakers, he said he tries to make a distinction between those controversial examples and less high-profile forms of speech restrictions, such as the clampdown on his distribution of pamphlets.

Scenarios such as the Coulter and Yiannopolous brouhahas are also more difficult to address in legislation. The prospect of large counter-demonstrations, with the potential for violence, presents knotty considerations for officials who must balance civil liberties with maintaining campus safety.

Instead of tackling the thorny question of regulating controversial invited speakers, Cohns nonprofit group has focused on college policies that limit expressive activities such as protests or pamphleteering to certain geographic zones on campus areas that can sometimes be small or hard to access. Other policies require students to get advance permission or permits.

Free speech zones would be the lowest hanging fruit that would have huge impact on students free speech rights across the board, Cohn said.

Such zones have prompted a spate of lawsuits. Tomas suit against Cal Poly Pomona was settled for $35,000. Earlier this month, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian group, sued on behalf of an anti-abortion group at Fresno State, after a teacher said the students chalk messages ran afoul of the schools speech zone policy.

The universitys president, Joseph Castro, said that policy had been overturned two years ago.

The universitys policy is clear: free speech on campus is not limited to a free speech zone or any other narrowly tailored area, Castro said in a statement.

But with individual UC, CSU and community college campuses determining their own policies, Cohn said there was a need for legislators to send a message to administrators that overly restrictive policies run afoul of the 1st Amendment.

After successfully pushing bills in Colorado, Virginia and several other states, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is now sponsoring Nielsens bill.

The legislation would effectively put an end to the practice of free speech zones. UC and the chancellor of California Community Colleges havent taken positions on the measure; CSU is working with Nielsen on wording tweaks.

The bill, SB 472, sailed through two policy committees with unanimous support. But a possible hitch looms: UC has estimated that enforcing the measure could add millions of dollars of costs for administrative, security and legal fees.

The potentially high price qualifies the measure for the suspense file, in which the fates of all bills pegged with a fiscal impact are decided in one hearing scheduled in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday without the typical roll call vote. The bills backers worry its suspense file status could enable lawmakers to quietly kill the proposal.

There's a natural impulse to vote for motherhood and apple pie and free speech, said Baker of the ACLU. Bills can die without a vote against them on the suspense [file].

Cohn scoffed at UCs cost estimates, noting that many courts have ruled against campus free speech zones as violating the 1st Amendment.

The idea that the bill will add costs to the state is silly on its face, he said. They already have this same liability and same legal obligation, regardless or not if the bill passes.

If the bill advances, Tomas said, he plans to continue traveling to Sacramento to lobby for Nielsens measure.

I find it really great to team up with the cattle rancher, he said. It really symbolizes the issue. Free speech at its finest is two people disagreeing with each other and saying, Let's discuss it.

melanie.mason@latimes.com

Follow @melmason on Twitter for the latest on California politics.

Pierce College student files 'free speech zone' lawsuit

Cal Poly Pomona reaches settlement with student over free speech rights

Updates from Sacramento

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Frustrated with campus discourse limits, California Republicans take on 'free speech zones' - Los Angeles Times

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