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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, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday August 11 2017, @03:28PM (2 children)
#1: Shouldn't a university simply have a policy that says this anyway, if this is an actual problem or common occurrence? Honestly, blowing an air horn in a crowd can damage the hearing of people next to you in a crowd, so this should be illegal just on that basis alone.
#2: This is already illegal: it's assault, threats, etc. In every state in the union, this can get you thrown in jail.
#3: Sounds like a university policy is needed here.
#4: Again, this is already illegal. You can't legally threaten someone. Conservatives usually claim that "hate laws" aren't needed because we already have laws on the books forbidding assault, intimidation, murder, etc., and that those laws should simply be enforced when someone does it to someone just because they're racist. Why is it different here? Why do we need more laws to criminalize things which are already criminal?
and the universities and police/security either tacitly or actively allowed them with not a whit of interference.
Maybe what we really need is some laws which punish the police when they turn a blind eye to violent crimes being committed right in front of them. Honestly, I think this is the root of the problem right here: our police totally suck (in various ways), and we need more laws to punish them when they fail.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 11 2017, @03:56PM (1 child)
Fair nuff but the university administration that explicitly requested the police and security do nothing needs to be held accountable as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 11 2017, @04:43PM
If you can prove that, then sure. Police who let violence go unchecked should not only be fired, but prosecuted for aiding and abetting. Those who give orders to police to do such things should get even worse punishments.