Once a given, free speech now struggling for acceptance
BACK where it all began, the campus free-speech movement has come full circle to a California college town whose name was once a symbol of evil to conservatives.
Some denizens of Berkeley are openly hostile to free speech when the mouths from which it originates belong to conservatives. Meantime, conservatives are demanding that campuses should protect all forms of free speech.
Thus it is that mostly Republicans are behind a wave of free-speech state laws, which enshrine protections that were part of the fabric of this country from its founding.
Free speech is a beautiful thing. So how did it become so ugly, caught up in the polarization of ideology that has “anti-fascist” movements acting for all the world like fascists?
The easy answer is that white supremacists are the problem. Or lovers of the Old South and its honored generals and soldiers. Or conservative Christians who hold to traditional beliefs regarding same-sex marriage.
Hate speech? This also is protected by the First Amendment. Who gets to decide what forms of speech descend into the pits of hate? In the conventional wisdom, promulgated in the media, eight years of conservative dissent against Bill Clinton’s antics and actions were labeled as hate. Eight years of liberal dissent against George W. Bush were not.
None of the above can compare to what we've heard this year aimed at Donald J. Trump. He’s even been blamed for hurricanes — just as California earthquakes were once blamed on that state’s liberal bent.
Point is, speech of all forms is protected in this country to the maximum extent possible. A glaring double standard was extant when Hillary Clinton supporters marched to protest Trump’s vow to toughen libel laws (and thereby chill press freedoms) while at the same time echoing Clinton’s insistence that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision be overturned.
Free speech was at the heart of that court case, decided by a conservative majority, in favor of the constitutional right of corporations and unions to spend money to elect or defeat individual candidates.
Another double standard, noted recently in The Wall Street Journal, is that conservatives must walk on eggshells to appear hostile to extreme right-wing groups but liberals have no such mandate in expressing their admiration for leftist tyrants and dictators.
The attempted college campus silencing of conservative speakers has led lawmakers in nearly half of the states to introduce bills protecting what’s already protected by the Constitution. At least seven states have passed such laws, but recent events in Virginia have put a chill on the movement.
These laws shouldn't be necessary. College administrators must take their own steps to ensure free speech — including allowing only students with IDs to attend events and taking firm steps to punish those who disrupt or threaten an “unwanted” speaker.
In Berkeley, the free-speech movement began during the 1964-65 academic year when student protesters demanded the right to exercise free speech in oncampus political activities. Yet a few days ago on that same campus, a faculty panel couldn’t unanimously agree that free speech is a good thing.
The anti-fascist brigade must have been smiling beneath their masked and hooded faces.