Category Archives: Free Speech

A STUDY of free speech in universities in the UK has placed Worcester in the top 20 per cent in the country.

The survey by online magazine Spiked looked at policies and actions at all 115 universities in the country and their associated student unions, ranking them with a traffic light system according to how much they were seen to restrict free speech and expression.

The University of Worcester was one of only 23 in the UK ranked green, meaning both the institution and its student union was seen to foster an environment allowing free speech. The only concern raised in the study was the universitys harassment and bullying policy, which bans conduct considered patronising or belittling, including display of materials with sexual images and/or words and ridiculing or demeaning someone in public or private, but this was considered relatively minor.

The universitys vice chancellor Professor David Green described freedom of expression as a fundamental liberty and said the institution was committed to following the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948.

In the year in which we celebrate the 800th Anniversary of Magna Carta, it is more important than ever to uphold this principle and to promote, protect and preserve all other fundamental human liberties including the rights to Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he said.

The disregard of human rights has led and is leading to the most barbarous crimes against individuals and humanity.

At the university we are proud and delighted to contribute to the worldwide movement for liberty, human dignity and human rights.

The study was prompted by a series of incidents in which speeches and other events at universities were cancelled as a result of objections by students, the widespread banning of the controversial Robin Thicke song Blurred Lines following concerns it trivialised rape and questions over anti-bullying policies seen as overly restrictive.

The report ranked 47 universities, or 41 per cent of all those in the UK, as red, including those in Aston, Coventry, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire.

Bath, Cambridge, Nottingham and Wolverhampton were among the 45, or 39 per cent, ranked amber, while the remaining 23, including York, Bolton, and Sunderland, were rated green.

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University of Worcester fares well in free speech study

Part 1: Who Is to JUDGE? Christian Free Speech Free Will God #39;s Opinion Matters.
Real Talk - Kingdom Flava with Renee. Video Highlights: - Christianity The War on Religious Free Speech. The Marketplace of Ideas Freedom of Expression....

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Part 1: Who Is to JUDGE? Christian Free Speech & Free Will God's Opinion Matters. - Video

Video #30: Free Speech Cases
May The Force Be With Us.

By: Jeremy Adams

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Video #30: Free Speech Cases - Video

Are social media postings public or private?
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in a case that examines free speech claims in the age of Facebook and Twitter. At the core of that case is the question of whether social media...

By: CBS Evening News

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Are social media postings public or private? - Video

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) In the waning days of 1964, University of California, Berkeley, students inspired by the fight for racial equality found their collective voice in challenging a campus ban on political advocacy.

On Dec. 2, following weeks of demonstrations and failed negotiations, more than 1,000 students took over the administration building in what would be the apex of the Free Speech Movement.

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Q&A: Berkeley's campus Free Speech Movement at 50

Fifty years to the day that the Free Speech Movement peaked with hundreds of arrests at UC Berkeley, students are set to occupy the university plaza.

This time, to protest tuition hikes.

A group calling itself the Open University will host a rally at Sproul Plaza on Tuesday afternoon, 50 years after student leader Mario Savio gave an impassioned speech protesting a ban on political activity.

We will continue to speak out against tuition hikes that have continued to deny Californians the right to an affordable education and against privatization of our public education, the group said in a press release.

Berkeley student activists have in the past occupied campus buildings to protest tuition increases. Coincidentally, the university is hosting its own event to commemorate the 1964 Free Speech Movement.

History students will read excerpts from statements made by movement activists during their mass trial. More than 700 students were arrested during the two-day sit-in, the largest mass arrest ever on an American university campus, according to the school.

The Free Speech Movement got its start in September 1964 after student political groups were told they could no longer use the plaza at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue for "off campus" political action. Students rebelled. An alumnus and civil rights activist who was on campus was arrested by campus police and placed in a police car. Students swarmed the car, deflated its tires, and thousands took over the plaza. For 32 hours, the car was the center of a rally.

The movement peaked Dec. 2 with an overnight demonstration of about 2,000 people, including folk singer Joan Baez. Gov. Pat Brown ordered police to clear the administration building; 773 people were arrested.

Savio, one of the student leaders of the movement, gave a memorable speech: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop."

For breaking California news, follow@JosephSerna.

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UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement at 50: Tuition protest planned

Washington The US Supreme Court grappled on Monday with the thorny issue of how far the First Amendment stretches to protect offensive and frightening speech when the speaker claims his statements are meant in jest and delivered in the form of rap lyrics.

The case is potentially important because it could test the outer boundaries of First Amendment protection of threatening communications that put others in fear for their safety.

It is also important because it arises in the context of comments posted on Facebook. It provides the justices with their first opportunity to examine free speech issues that are increasingly arising in the fast-paced world of social media, where careless or malicious comments can achieve vast circulation in an instant.

The issue arises in the case of Pennsylvania man Anthony Elonis, who was convicted of writing a series of threatening posts on his Facebook page. The posts included menacing comments directed at his estranged wife and at an FBI agent who came to his home to investigate the Facebook posts.

Mr. Elonis maintains that his posts were protected speech because, as rap lyrics, they were artistic expression. He also argues that he never intended that his comments would be taken as an actual threat that would put others in fear for their lives.

The Facebook site included repeated notices that the content was strictly for entertainment and that the posts were not meant to pose a threat to anyone, Washington appellate lawyer John Elwood told the justices.

But some members of the court seemed skeptical.

This sounds like a road map for threatening a spouse and getting away with it, Justice Samuel Alito said.

The question in the case is when menacing comments cross the line separating free speech that is protected under the First Amendment from true threats that can be prosecuted as a crime.

Although the First Amendment protects a wide swath of speech, Americans are not free to say anything they like. For example, it is illegal to falsely yell Fire! in a crowded theater. It is illegal to make false, malicious statements about someone with the intent to harm their reputation. And Congress passed a law making it illegal to deliver true threats that place someone in fear.

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Are Facebook rants threats or free speech? Supreme Court takes up case. (+video)

WASHINGTON In its first case testing the limits of free speech on social media, the Supreme Court showed little interest Monday in extending new protections to people who post messages threatening to kill or hurt others.

The justices sharply questioned the lawyer for a Pennsylvania man who was sent to prison for posting on Facebook about killing his ex-wife and cutting the throat of an FBI agent who investigated the threat.

Citing the 1st Amendment, attorney John Elwood said prosecutors should have been required to prove that the messages were not only perceived as threatening, but that his client, Anthony Elonis, intended to scare and intimidate the individuals.

Elonis, a former amusement park worker, insisted that he did not mean to frighten his ex-wife and that the rants were merely a way to blow off steam.

None of the justices appeared to agree.

"How does one prove what's in somebody else's mind?" asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, returning to the bench just days after being hospitalized last week to treat a heart blockage.

In this case, she said, a "reasonable person [would] think that the words would put someone in fear."

The case of Elonis vs. United States has drawn attention because the court's decision could further refine the outer limits of free speech in the digital age.

As a legal matter, the case does not turn on the fact that the threats were made on Facebook or the Internet. But the spread of social media has led to an explosion of caustic speech and acerbic criticism that some may see as threatening.

Most justices appeared to agree with a government lawyer who argued that online threats should to be taken as seriously as other threats.

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Supreme Court probes limits of free speech in Facebook threats case

ECTACO Partner LUX 2 PRO English Bosnian Free Speech Electronic Translator
Gt a grat dal n mazn.m http://bit.ly/1qHTCtY ECTACO Partner LUX 2 PRO English Bosnian Free Speech Electronic Translator Translate any language. Speec...

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ECTACO Partner LUX 2 PRO English Bosnian Free Speech Electronic Translator - Video

Information control and suppression of free speech by South Korea
Information control and suppression of free speech by South Korea

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Information control and suppression of free speech by South Korea - Video