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With Governor Roy Cooper (D) taking no action on the bill, the state of North Carolina has enacted the Restore Campus Free Speech Act, the first comprehensive campus free-speech legislation based on the Goldwater proposal. That proposal, which I [Stanley Kurtz (Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center)] co-authored along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of Arizona's Goldwater Institute, was released on January 31 and is now under consideration in several states. It's fitting that North Carolina should be the first state to enact a Goldwater-inspired law.
[...] The North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act achieves most of what the Goldwater proposal sets out to do. It ensures that University of North Carolina policy will strongly affirm the importance of free expression. It prevents administrators from disinviting speakers whom members of the campus community wish to hear from. It establishes a system of disciplinary sanctions for students and anyone else who interferes with the free-speech rights of others, and ensures that students will be informed of those sanctions at freshman orientation. It reaffirms the principle that universities, at the official institutional level, ought to remain neutral on issues of public controversy to encourage the widest possible range of opinion and dialogue within the university itself. And it authorizes a special committee created by the Board of Regents to issue a yearly report to the public, the regents, the governor, and the legislature on the administrative handling of free-speech issues.
Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450027/north-carolina-campus-free-speech-act-goldwater-proposal
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:43AM (2 children)
Out of mod points, so I'll comment instead of upvoting:
This.
Universities are places where young adults are rapidly maturing in a formative phase in their lives. I get it, everyone wants a piece of the pie. But the university is under no obligation to allow that. Their job is to make sure people get educated and research happens. Anything beyond that is up to the institutions and their sponsors.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:11PM
Thank you, finally someone who gets it, that universities are not places for people to endlessly argue left vs. right political issues or worse, arguing about whether the Holocaust happened or whether white nationalism is a good thing or not. If students want to argue that stuff on their own, that's their right, but that shouldn't be something a reputable university fosters by granting generous auditorium space and publicity. They really should stick to things like having eminent scientists lecture, or other academic arcana. If someone wants to hear Ann Coulter or her buddy Ahmadinejad speak, let them book some other venue for that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:41AM
Almost all universities have free speech policies or at least the pretense to such. Inviting speakers is a key exercise of free speech. And it's worth noting free speech is part of the job of making sure people get educated and research happens.