Sessions: Free speech ‘under attack’ at schools

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed the Justice Department into a roiling culture war Tuesday with a fierce defense of free speech on college campuses, even as he sided with President Donald Trump in condemning NFL players who protest during the national anthem.

On universities, some conservative speakers have faced crowds of angry protesters, causing violence and property damage on some campuses. In several NFL stadiums, football players have knelt to protest police killings in black communities, using their prominence as pro athletes to register silent dissent.

In a speech Tuesday at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, Sessions backed the speakers and condemned the players.

“Freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” he said. Universities that once were “a place of robust debate” were becoming “an echo chamber of political correctness and homogenous thought, a shelter for fragile egos.”

Sessions said the Justice Department will begin to intervene in court cases where the government believes colleges are violating the 1st Amendment by improperly limiting free speech.

As a start, the department filed a “statement of interest” Tuesday to back a lawsuit filed by students at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Ga. The students say they were barred from distributing Christian literature near the school library and told to stay inside the school’s two designated “free speech zones.”

Sessions said the students were “improperly constricted” and that the Justice Department will seek to “affirm the proper parameters of free speech” at the public college.

“Starting today, the Department of Justice will do its part in this struggle,” Sessions said. “We will enforce federal law, defend free speech and protect students’ free expression from whatever end of the political spectrum it may come.”

A crowd of Georgetown students and faculty protested outside before Sessions spoke. Some waved signs denouncing Sessions for his hard-line views on immigration.

In his speech, Sessions decried several incidents in which controversial speakers came under fire on college campuses.

He cited conservative radio host Ben Shapiro’s speech at UC Berkeley on Sept. 14. Police in riot gear protected the hall while hundreds of people protested outside, a group that Sessions called “a mob.”

“In the end, Mr. Shapiro spoke to a packed house,” Sessions said “And to my knowledge, no one fainted, no one was unsafe.”

Berkeley police said there were no reported injuries and no reports of any damage to property from the protest.

Sessions was less charitable to professional football players who exhibited their First Amendment rights by kneeling or linking arms during the national anthem.

He expressed strong support for Trump, who has repeatedly called for the NFL to fire those players, or for the public to boycott their games until they are punished.

Trump weighed in again Tuesday, tweeting: “The NFL has all sorts of rules and regulations. The only way out for them is to set a rule that you can’t kneel during our National Anthem!”

Later during a White House news conference, Trump called kneeling during the anthem “disgraceful.”

Sessions called it “a big mistake to protest in that fashion,” describing the players’ protests a blow to American “unity.”

“If they take a provocative act, they can expect to be condemned, and the president has a right to condemn them, and I would condemn them,” he said in response to a question from a student.

He also defended Trump’s harsh comments. “Well, the president has free speech rights too,” Sessions said.

WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY Attorney General Jeff Sessions agrees with the president that NFL players shouldn’t protest during the anthem.