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from the when-the-First-Amendment-isn't-clear-enough dept.
On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent.
It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.
In other cases — as with conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of California, Berkeley last week — the event is called off.
Now, a handful of states, including Illinois, Tennessee, Colorado and Arizona, have passed or introduced legislation designed to prevent these incidents from happening. The bills differ from state to state, but they're generally based on a model written by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Arizona.
The model bill would require public universities to remain neutral on political issues, prevent them from disinviting speakers, and impose penalties for students and others who interfere with these speakers.
The author of the model bill argues that the neutrality stipulation is necessary for public institutions funded by tax dollars, "who shouldn't be forced to subsidize speech that they disagree with." In response to the legislation, a Democratic North Carolina legislator criticized the bill as an unnecessary "regulation of a constitutional right." The story also mentions that "Critics say this kind of legislation could hinder a university's ability to regulate hate speech on campus," but the bill author responds that hate speech is "not well-defined in the law."
Although the proposed legislation varies by state, the model bill linked above recommends a number of initiatives, from clear campus policies on protecting free speech to severe disciplinary actions for students who interfere with that right. Perhaps the strongest section of the model bill would require that "Any student who has twice been found responsible for infringing the expressive rights of others will be suspended for a minimum of one year, or expelled" (Section 1.9).
In other free speech news, USA Today reports that the FCC is launching an investigation into an "obscene" joke by Stephen Colbert concerning Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which caused a Twitter firestorm and led to a trending #FireColbert hashtag. While the joke was sexually explicit, the offensive word was bleeped in broadcast. CNN has argued that the FCC is merely doing its job in investigating "a number" of complaints, but Slate notes the high legal threshold that would be necessary for a fine in this case, given the late hour of the broadcast and the three-pronged test for obscenity.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Sunday May 07 2017, @10:09PM (1 child)
My opinion is normally more or less this: If it allows the government to silence dissent easily under a false pretense. I don't want it.
I didn't want the intimidating legal profiling for the same reason. Your idealism is far from reality I'm sorry to say. The reality is that it's another excuse to staple people's mouths shut by a horrible state with long running corruption [wikipedia.org] problems at all levels.
In other words yes, per my Russian handler's orders I am fine with russian hackers and BLM thugs. Which sound like a new subway sammich promoted by DMX. Badass.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Sunday May 07 2017, @10:28PM
You have my full agreement on that principle. The solution to horrible people saying horrible things is good people pointing out how awful they are, and then everyone laughing at them and ignoring them. Not using force against them, not invoking the state.
When, however, they do initiate force, it's legitimate to retaliate with the state force as one option. This can already be done using existing laws against assault, battery, deprivation of civil rights, etc. for the most part. (I'm also of the opinion we have quite enough laws on the books already and any new laws should be required to simplify the existing law rather than simply adding onto the incomprehensible bulk of it.)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?