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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.


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  • (Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday February 15 2018, @11:28PM (1 child)

    by insanumingenium (4824) on Thursday February 15 2018, @11:28PM (#638525) Journal
    I understand that you were trying to identify something which is by definition abhorrent, but if there is someone who is pushing it, clearly there is someone who disagrees about its abhorrence. Put another way, I don't think it is any more ethical to disenfranchise a minority of one than any other minority opinion.

    I think that you are putting a false reason behind free speech, we don't have freedom of speech so that we can advance human knowledge, we have it because anything else is tyranny

    I referenced TMB precisely because he doesn't believe in censorship, even those comments that you claim are modded to oblivion, I can and sometimes do read.

    If a venue can exclude "certain" speech, how can you define that as anything other that limiting speech itself?
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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 16 2018, @02:51PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 16 2018, @02:51PM (#638816) Journal

    My remark about advancing human knowledge is merely an attempt to attach a level of value to certain 'speech' if you wish to dignify it as such.

    I don't consider it disenfranchising anyone if venues are allowed to refuse to host them. They can still speak. People can still listen. That is the right you are so concerned about. People don't have to listen. Other people don't have to pay to host your speech or pay for security for it. You can speak all you want. People can listen all they want.

    Certain venues might welcome you to speak if they aren't so utterly and complete repulsed by it, and the associated costs.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.