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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 15 2018, @03:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-cost-of-free-speech dept.

From Cleveland.com:

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Kent State University, facing the threat of a lawsuit, reiterated on Friday that it cannot accommodate a request to allow white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak in early May as part of his campus tour.

The university, which is based in Kent but has regional campuses elsewhere in the state, said it had responded to attorney Kyle Bristow reaffirming its earlier response that no suitable space is available for Spencer to speak between April 30 and May 12.

Bristow had told Kent State it had until the end of business Friday to agree to rent space at an "acceptable date and time" or face a lawsuit. Several other schools, including Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati, are in litigation over Spencer.

Tour organizer Cameron Padgett wanted Spencer to speak at Kent State on the May 4 anniversary of Ohio National Guard shootings that killed four students during anti-war protests in 1970. The university said early May is too busy with activities around the end of the academic year.

Bristow said last year that Spencer planned to speak March 14 on the University of Cincinnati campus, but the university said there was no contract in place, and the two sides are now in a legal standoff over the university's demand for a security fee of nearly $11,000.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday February 15 2018, @07:04PM (4 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 15 2018, @07:04PM (#638370) Journal

    The problem is this is a state supported school.

    This is a continual problem. To what extent should government money be used to determine what is available in the way of speech. The answer *ought* to be that it isn't, but this is wholly impractical. Only so many people can reasonably speak at the same time and place. And any selection is open to abuse.

    A reasonable answer might be that any speaker allowed must be requested by the students or faculty, and that the size of venue should be determined by the number of students and faculty that sign a petition requesting that speaker. This, of course, has its own problems, and is open to various kinds of abuse. But with a lot of detail work it might become a reasonable approach. E.g., I haven't mentioned costs, but it's not desirable that venues be for sale to the highest bidder. But cost recovery is important. Lots of details.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:44PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @08:44PM (#638429)

    The problem is this is a state supported school.

    No, that is not the problem at all. Do you think that Stanford, or Harvard, or Creighton should not have the same requirements for free speech, as universities? Catholic universities are Universities first, and Catholic second. The same applies to State Universities, they are not (well, should not be) propaganda instruments for the state.

    Secondly, being this is an aristarchus submission, it behooves one to check out the original, where one might see that the opening snarky comment reads: "Weaponized free speech deployed in Ohio." These alt-right types are trying to force their way onto universities for a reason, and the reason is that having a place, even a non-official invited place, at an institution of Higher Learning confers a certain legitimacy to the admittedly bonkers position being expounded. The Flat-earthers and the "Electric Universe" people would give their eye teeth just to give a talk at a real university, as would most fundie Christians (so far, they have been trying to found their own "Universities", but they are not really fooling anyone).

    So the alt-right finds some chumps, usually the College Republicans, since no one likes them anyway, to invite them on campus, and when the University community of scholars and Learned People suggest this is not a good idea, and the Administration says it is going to cost way more than it is worth, the Alt-wrongers can start crying "First Amendment", and threaten to sue, and still get all the press coverage, which is what aristarchus just helped them do. Win-win tactic for the alt-right.

    • (Score: 1, Redundant) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:04PM (1 child)

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:04PM (#638463) Homepage Journal

      Not many people know, there was something called Widmar v Vincent. Where some students at the State University were religious, they wanted to have religious meetings at the university. But VERY NASTY administrators told them "no." And our MAGNIFICENT Supreme Court gave those administrators a MAJOR SMACKDOWN!!!! Big time.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:54PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:54PM (#638499) Journal

    The problem is this is a state supported school.

    Simple - privatise it for the day of May 4.

    (GRIN)

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