The dangers for American college students and professors posed by Joe Biden’s presidency are not necessarily tied to a specific piece of legislation that he supports. Rather, the dangers arise from the ideologies of identity politics and cancel culture that are endemic throughout his platform.
Choosing to focus primarily on other issues, President Biden avoided saying much about free speech and academic freedom, leaving it to be addressed by his political allies and in the media. Virtually to a one, those associates pressed loudly for cancel culture, identity politics, and the triumph of the far-left agenda over any form of free speech or religious liberty.
The results of this far-left activism have been hostility and crackdowns on First Amendment freedoms on many college and university campuses across the country.
Three quick examples from Alliance Defending Freedom’s own clients suggests just how poisoned the atmosphere has become for free speech and religious liberty at our four-year institutions:
<a href="https://www.adflegal.org/case/denton-v-thrasher" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.adflegal.org/case/denton-v-thrasher&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611425413622000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFbl3AlMAkDAEZcl87f4Q1D_Do5sA">Jack Denton</a>, president of the student senate at Florida State University, was removed from office simply for sharing his personal, Catholic religious beliefs in private text conversations with other Catholic students.
<a href="https://www.adflegal.org/case/josephson-v-bendapudi" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.adflegal.org/case/josephson-v-bendapudi&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611425413622000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGyie2hbcdl2yTtSzWMUSKlfIrbCQ">Dr. Allan Josephson</a> led the division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville for nearly 15 years. He was fired because, during a panel discussion on gender dysphoria, he affirmed widespread scientific studies suggesting that medical professionals should seek to understand and treat the psychological issues that often cause gender confusion, rather than rushing children into more radical, aggressive treatments like puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.
Officials at Ohio’s Shawnee State University punished <a href="https://www.adflegal.org/case/meriwether-v-trustees-shawnee-state-university" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.adflegal.org/case/meriwether-v-trustees-shawnee-state-university&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611425413622000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGHwKbPbLB4CGmFREl-2c79zWuJJA">Dr. Nicholas Meriwether</a> for declining to address a male student as a woman, as the student demanded. Dr. Meriwether offered to use any specific name the student requested but explained that using feminine terms would violate his Christian and philosophical convictions. The university rejected the proffered compromise and instead punished Dr. Meriwether.
None of these students or faculty were being unreasonable. In fact, all of them were engaged in behaviors that even a very few years ago would have been seen as routine and innocuous. But times have changed—and, sadly, progressives among the new president’s supporters have made it abundantly clear that they not only fully endorse but are aggressively pushing for those changes.
Anyone who has watched the events of the last six months, or listened to the speeches of those on the far left, or watched the televised debates during the primaries or general election, would be hard pressed to find evidence that Biden would be willing to support any one of ADF’s clients or anyone in situations like theirs. One can always hope, but Biden hasn’t done this so far. If he ever does, he will have a friend at the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. But if he opposes us on free speech, <a href="https://www.adflegal.org/stand-for-freedom" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.adflegal.org/stand-for-freedom&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611425413622000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFYhpoRt48fC78wGX4kXQcJRZBVeA">he will have no greater foe in America’s courts</a>.
Biden may not have actively endorsed the erosion of the First Amendment on America’s college campuses, but don’t let that put you at ease. Campus anti-free-speech activists who believe they now have a like-minded executive branch in Washington may sense a window of opportunity.
But this would be a serious mistake on their part, because the courts have not looked kindly upon ignoring the First Amendment’s guarantees. This is amply demonstrated by the 435 victories that we on the ADF Center for Academic Freedom team have chalked up on college campuses across the country over the past 14 years. Those who love freedom understand the challenges ahead. But we will continue to stand for the freedom of everyone—not just a chosen few—to speak and live peacefully in accordance with their beliefs.
Tyson Langhofer is senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.adflegal.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611425413622000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHmwf-97_igE3d0g0U_WGvJJz_pyw">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/AllianceDefends" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/AllianceDefends&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611425413622000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEWN02B9pocjrlNbCk7IxBOXVYgrQ">@AllianceDefends</a>).
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

US-PROTEST-RACISM

What Biden’s Presidency May Mean For First Amendment Freedoms On Campus

First Amendment

Free Speech

Joe Biden

Readers Pass

The dangers for American college students and professors posed by Joe Biden’s presidency are not necessarily tied to a specific piece of legislation that

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“Justice is the handmaiden of truth, and when truth dies, justice is buried with it.” —Ravi Zacharias
When journalist Abigail Shrier published a scholarly book examining the sudden explosion among young women of a formerly rare condition known as gender dysphoria, she knew her research would meet pushback. In fact, she welcomed it, because she believes that rigorous discussion is an essential part of the search for truth. What she did not expect was that, rather than address the merits of her argument, her opponents would seek to get her book pulled from shelves.
But that is exactly what happened.
A customer who disagrees with Shrier complained to Target — one of the stores carrying her book — and instead of upholding freedom of speech and encouraging the customer to write his or her own response to Shrier’s argument, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/13/target-swiftly-bans-book-on-behalf-of-anonymous-twitter-user-crying-transphobia/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/13/target-swiftly-bans-book-on-behalf-of-anonymous-twitter-user-crying-transphobia/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHBHXuowFsMVE9ZXju94scGTPQ3KA">Target buckled</a>, apologized, and yanked the book off its shelves.
There’s a name for that: censorship. And it is happening more and more in our country. Every time someone’s work or reputation is destroyed by so-called “cancel culture,” that is an example of censorship. Every time a celebrity is shouted down for sharing a less-than-trendy opinion, that is censorship. And every time a professor, scientist, journalist, or researcher faces pressure to suppress or distort their research to fit a certain narrative, that is censorship.
Gender ideologists who argue that gender is fluid and indefinable — like those who sought to punish Shrier — are particularly quick to cancel those who disagree with them. But Shrier is not the only professional whose work has been censored by adherents of gender ideology.
Dr. Nicholas Meriwether is a respected professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio. He works hard to create an atmosphere of true academic freedom in his classroom, one where all ideas are welcome and get the rigorous, civil discussion and debate they deserve.
Many of his students loved this atmosphere. One <a href="https://www.adflegal.org/blog/professor-was-forced-endorse-ideology-against-his-beliefs-so-he-sued" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.adflegal.org/blog/professor-was-forced-endorse-ideology-against-his-beliefs-so-he-sued&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGRtek1dyJ24YfLo96ZH5X9DwHmbA">wrote</a> to Dr. Meriwether:
<blockquote>You and I saw eye-to-eye on very little and that made those arguments all the more valuable to me. If you had only made a half-hearted attempt at a counterpoint or (far worse) neglected to even mention an opposing position in order to spare my feelings, you would have been fundamentally undermining my education. I thank you for showing me enough respect to bring your “A-Game” to every in-class debate.</blockquote>
Unfortunately, not everyone valued Dr. Meriwether’s thoughtful, balanced approach. One student, a male who identified as a woman, demanded to be addressed by Dr. Meriwether as a woman. When Dr. Meriwether did not immediately agree to this demand, the student became aggressive, circling the professor, shouting expletives in his face, and threatening to get him fired. The student then complained to the university.
Even though Dr. Meriwether offered a compromise that would have respected everybody (he agreed to call the student only by name, and refrain from using any pronouns to refer to the student), the school punished him. School administrators claimed that Dr. Meriwether “created a hostile environment,” and that he discriminated against the student, not for anything he said or did, but simply for declining to use female pronouns to refer to the male student. They issued a letter of reprimand threatening “further corrective actions” if he did not acquiesce to all student demands about pronouns.
In other words, the university told a well-respected professor that unless he endorsed its gender ideology in his classroom (contrary to his belief that sex is biological and binary), he would face “corrective action.”
Other professors face even harsher repercussions. For nearly 15 years, Dr. Allan Josephson served as the chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville. His careful research and hard work made the program nationally renowned. But when this psychiatrist and researcher, speaking from 35 years of experience, made <a href="https://www.adflegal.org/blog/university-effectively-fired-professor-after-he-spoke-conservative-think-tank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.adflegal.org/blog/university-effectively-fired-professor-after-he-spoke-conservative-think-tank&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEJZyqRwLTBCmc7WMAAT0hFuh30TQ">a well-researched, well-founded statement</a> at a Heritage Foundation panel on the proper treatment of childhood gender dysphoria, his whole career went up in smoke.
Dr. Josephson said that, rather than rushing children into irreversible and damaging medical procedures like hormone blockers and “sex-change surgeries,” doctors should work to understand the underlying psychological issues that often accompany gender dysphoria. This statement would have been noncontroversial just a few years before and is backed by reliable research; <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/02/21092/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/02/21092/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFH-iF38u0Atv-yZJmFWjV09m0tOw">many</a> researchers have pointed out that between 80 and 95 percent of children with gender dysphoria eventually come to accept their biological sex. But that didn’t stop the University of Louisville from demoting Dr. Josephson to the level of junior faculty member and later refusing to renew his contract.
This kind of censorship hurts everyone, from the scientists who seek knowledge through research, to the journalists who report on that research, to parents with children suffering from gender dysphoria. Professionals must be able to pursue truth to help people suffering from gender dysphoria, but the dangerous culture of censorship prevents this.
The problem is widespread and widely recognized. In an article in Clinical Psychiatry News, two psychiatrists write about the threat that gender ideology-based censorship poses to the whole practice of psychiatry. They criticize Dr. Josephson’s censors, saying, “If psychiatry chooses to produce or dismiss psychiatric diagnoses based on the inherent political inconvenience of said diagnoses, rather than their scientific and medical basis, the entire field will rightly be called into question.”
Fortunately, not all attempts to censor scientifically based opinions about gender dysphoria are successful. After Target yanked Shrier’s book, they received enough complaints that just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-reverses-course-will-sell-book-critical-of-transgender-movement" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-reverses-course-will-sell-book-critical-of-transgender-movement&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEkUc7Bk3f03igCVY-AQzNeUcUufw">one day later</a> they returned the book to shelves. And Drs. Meriwether and Josephson are fighting the censorship of their universities. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, these professors are <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/meriwether-v-trustees-shawnee-state-university" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://adflegal.org/case/meriwether-v-trustees-shawnee-state-university&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFa-vhn_EzF2svgAXAV0sPbxSDqkA">standing</a> <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/josephson-v-bendapudi" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://adflegal.org/case/josephson-v-bendapudi&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFwnABj6yWHSDHHs1MciMiDm90cLw">up</a> for their right—and everybody else’s right—to hold differing opinions, to research and test those opinions, and to share them with others.
Censorship is a loss for everybody: scientists, psychiatrists, philosophers, medical doctors, and researchers. Parents and children. Teachers and administrators. Society as a whole loses when censors are able to silence certain opinions, because this censorship keeps us from having robust discussions about vital issues. It keeps us from being able to make wise, informed decisions about our bodies and our minds. And, worst, it keeps us from participating in the crucial human quest for truth.
Tyson Langhofer is senior counsel at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.adflegal.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHdFILsXgrEXGux2nDCsolWX0VJGg">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/AllianceDefends" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/AllianceDefends&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1606854859405000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG1p0olQyii96kKeJU_oyHJG6NPjQ">@Alliance Defends</a>) and the director of its Center for Academic Freedom.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

CROATIA-RIGHTS-TRANSGENDER-DEMO

The Death Of Truth

Cancel Culture

LGBTQ

Transgender

“Justice is the handmaiden of truth, and when truth dies, justice is buried with it.” —Ravi Zacharias When journalist Abigail Shrier published a scholarly

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Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University law professor, recently published two articles, each one about a professor under fire for his classroom speech. But he treats the two professors vastly different, illustrating the double standard that is far too prevalent in today’s free speech debates. He, like too many, says: I support free speech, unless I disagree with you.
Koppelman’s Aug. 12 blog post defended Stanford Law Professor Michael McConnell, who read a historical quotation to his constitutional law class that included the “n” word. Numerous faculty and students condemned him, and some called for him to be punished.
Why does Koppelman vigorously <a href="https://balkin.blogspot.com/2020/08/michael-mcconnell-and-n-word.html">defend</a> McConnell? Because he employs a similar teaching methodology. Like McConnell, he also delves into America’s history of slavery and racism in his constitutional law class. He requires his students to read decisions like Plessy v. Ferguson, which defended racial segregation, and other “awful, racist stuff, blandly clothed in the dry language of legal argumentation.” He then invites them to attack the courts’ reasoning. He believes that every lawyer must develop the ability to anticipate the arguments of the other side and respond to them. His philosophy is: “If you can’t read or hear stuff that enrages you, don’t be a lawyer.”
Koppelman acknowledges some faculty and students disagree with his philosophy. He admits he could be the next victim of an outrage campaign. He understands how easily students could accuse him of being “insensitive,” “showing a lack of respect,” and being “complicit in systemic racism.” They could insist he “need[s] to be held accountable” because his “lack of sensitivity has needlessly harmed [his] students.”
But Koppelman rightly rejects these risks because “this informal norm-setting, enforced by ad hoc groups of students, creates massive uncertainty about where the line is drawn.” This “ethic can and sometimes does degenerate into crude virtue signaling and mob justice,” which is “in some ways worse than administrative censorship, because it is decentralized and unpredictable, the censorship of all against all.” This thinking “damages education whenever it happens” because it “creates an atmosphere of intimidation in which the free exchange of ideas is impossible.”
But when assessing speech he dislikes, a very different and dismissive Koppelman emerges. Five days after defending McConnell, he derided Dr. Nicholas Meriwether, a long-time philosophy professor at Shawnee State University who is involved in a free-speech <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/512306-free-speech-gone-wild-the-meriwether-case" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/512306-free-speech-gone-wild-the-meriwether-case&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598573322095000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGidjRg8gZbVtB-vcoSv1U10C_6BQ">lawsuit</a>.
In 2018, a male student in Meriwether’s class demanded to be referred to as a woman. Meriwether politely declined but sought to accommodate the student by simply using the student’s last name and avoiding pronouns for this student. The university and student rejected this reasonable compromise. Instead, the university demanded that Meriwether either refer to this student as female, or refer to every student solely by name and stop using any pronouns at all — for every student, both on and off campus. Meriwether respectfully declined because both options required him to endorse philosophies he believes are false, and the latter is impossible and every slip would lead to more punishment.
Meanwhile, the student remained in Meriwether’s class and earned a high grade. Ignoring this, university officials formally reprimanded him. To them, by using standard English, Meriwether discriminated and created a hostile environment. They warned him that if he continued, he would face more punishment. After they denied his grievance, Meriwether filed suit to protect his rights and prevent further punishment.
Unlike his robust defense of McConnell, Koppelman blithely dismisses Meriwether’s free speech rights as “silly stuff.” He ignores that, as with issues of race, there is a debate raging in academia and society about sex and gender identity. Gone are his (rightful) concerns that censoring one side of the debate will result in “informal norm-setting, enforced by ad hoc groups of students, creat[ing] massive uncertainty about where the line is drawn,” even though this is exactly what happens when universities allow students to force professors either to use certain terms or to purge certain terms from their vocabulary based on each student’s subjective offense.
By advocating for censoring Meriwether, Koppelman seeks to deny Meriwether’s students the opportunity to learn about and respond to philosophical ideas they disagree with. This would disserve these students and deprive them of one of the hallmarks of higher education.
Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to Meriwether’s former students. One wrote:
“I’m a queer person. Your personal convictions could not be any further from mine. It doesn’t matter, though. I respect you, and I respect the ideas that you bring to the table of the marketplace of ideas. You made me think. That’s hard to come by these days.”
Another, a self-described atheist, wrote:
“Insulating students from intellectual scrutiny in the name of avoiding offense would be doing them a disservice. You and I saw eye-to-eye on very little and that made those arguments all the more valuable to me. . . . I hope that more people can [rein] in their emotions and see the benefit in having their ideas stress-tested by an earnest lover of wisdom.”
These students powerfully express why I and my colleagues at Alliance Defending Freedom are representing Meriwether and why everyone should cheer him on as <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/meriwether-v-trustees-shawnee-state-university" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://adflegal.org/case/meriwether-v-trustees-shawnee-state-university&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598573322096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNESOjG-k1TDnf5m6sRtP25Sdey3xQ">he defends free speech</a>: to ensure that public universities remain a marketplace of ideas, not an assembly line for one type of thought.
Tyson Langhofer is senior counsel for <a href="https://adflegal.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://adflegal.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598573322096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH-pyBFz6qVMaLgle6hmrgM4qdxCA">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/AllianceDefends" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/AllianceDefends&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598573322096000&amp;usg=AFQjCNElfPBNhTHsUUWnwLfDe-xFA1XkJw">@AllianceDefends</a>) and director of its Center for Academic Freedom, which represents Dr. Nicholas Meriwether.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Protest art

LANGHOFER: Free Speech On Campus: A Tale of Two Professors

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Education

Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University law professor, recently published two articles, each one about a professor under fire for his classroom

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&#8220;If you ain&#8217;t first, you&#8217;re last.&#8221; This obviously untrue (but humorous) statement was made famous by Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell&#8217;s NASCAR-driving character in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. This was the last piece of advice that Ricky&#8217;s father gave him before he walked out of his life.
So in a misguided effort to make his father proud, Ricky adopted this statement as his life&#8217;s mission. Ricky became obsessed with winning. For a while, this life principle seemed to serve Ricky well. Ricky became the top driver in NASCAR. He became wealthy, married a &#8220;smokin&#8217; hot wife,&#8221; and had two children.
Yet, unsurprisingly, Ricky&#8217;s success didn&#8217;t last. Ricky&#8217;s narcissistic focus on winning caused him to take unnecessary risks on the track, which led to a horrific crash and the downfall of his career. It also ruined his relationship with his best friend and led to his divorce, while his two boys became unruly &#8212; albeit, highly entertaining &#8212; brats.
Chaos, brokenness, and failure are the unsurprising result of a person who builds his life on a lie.
The same can be said for a culture or society that embraces a lie.
Regrettably, a large, growing, and influential portion of our society has recently embraced another dangerous lie: &#8220;Speech is violence.&#8221;
This obviously untrue (and not-so-humorous) assertion was not posited by a movie star in a Hollywood comedy. Rather, it&#8217;s a commonly held belief by students and faculty at colleges throughout the country. And as we begin Free Speech Week, it&#8217;s a really good time to note that this is becoming more common.
For example, Lisa Feldman Barrett, a respected professor of psychology and emotion researcher at Northeastern University, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">published an essay on this topic in The New York Times</a> last year. Barrett made the following assertion: &#8220;If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems that speech &#8212; at least certain types of speech &#8212; can be a form of violence.&#8221;
When examined closely, Barrett&#8217;s argument sounds an awful lot like it came from the mind of Ricky Bobby. Barrett argues that if words can cause stress, and stress causes harm, then words are a form of violence because they cause harm. But this idea is bunk. In <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=F_xtDwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA95&amp;lpg=PA95&amp;dq=%22the+coddling+of+the+american+mind%22+%22breaking+up+with+your+girlfriend%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=6etSTSG8kv&amp;sig=UFy6U6lf2IVe7Ynsb9JX5hmst14&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjrm5ye35reAhWy1FkKHdtCDrAQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=%22the%20coddling%20of%20the%20american%20mind%22%20%22breaking%20up%20with%20your%20girlfriend%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Coddling of the American Mind</a>, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt take Barrett&#8217;s argument and swap out &#8220;words&#8221; for other actions that cause stress such as &#8220;breaking up with your girlfriend&#8221; or &#8220;giving students a lot of homework.&#8221;
Both of these actions can cause stress, and stress can cause harm, so both can cause harm. But this does not mean that these are violent acts.
For anyone familiar with the chaotic events that have erupted on college campuses over the last several years, the consequences of believing in this lie are apparent. And often, schools make things worse by imposing censorious speech codes or marking off stifling &#8220;speech zones,&#8221; such as at Kennesaw State University, where students <a href="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10631" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">were only allowed free speech</a> on 0.08 percent of the 405-acre campus before the Alliance Defending Freedom <a href="http://www.centerforacademicfreedom.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Center for Academic Freedom</a> got involved.
When students are taught that speech is violence, then students will believe that engaging in actual violence to prevent speech that the students disagree with is justified because it is self-defense.
Sadly, the chaos and violence we&#8217;ve seen on college campuses hasn&#8217;t convinced many students of the madness behind the &#8220;speech is violence&#8221; trope. Several days after one high-profile incident, UC-Berkeley&#8217;s leading student newspaper published a series of five op-eds under the theme, <a href="http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/violence-self-defense/comment-page-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Violence as Self-Defense</a>. One of the essays <a href="http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/check-privilege-speaking-protests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">justified the violence as follows</a>: &#8220;Asking people to maintain peaceful dialogue with those who legitimately do not think their lives matter is a violent act.&#8221;
What these students fail to comprehend is that if words are equivalent to violence, and thus actual physical violence is justified in responding to pure speech, then civil society as we know it will no longer exist. If we as a free people can no longer advocate for change in society through the spoken word &#8212; even offensive words &#8212; then the only option left to enact such change is through violence. And as the incident at Berkeley demonstrated, that is not an attractive option.
At the end of Talladega Nights, Ricky Bobby&#8217;s absentee dad reappears to disabuse Ricky of his life&#8217;s motto. &#8220;Well that don&#8217;t make any sense at all,&#8221; he tells him. &#8220;You can be first, you can be second, you can be third, fourth &#8230; you can even be fifth!&#8221;
The &#8220;speech is violence&#8221; trope is every bit as misguided as Ricky Bobby&#8217;s operative life mission. The major difference is that this is happening in real life, and it is tearing apart major portions of our society as we speak.
It&#8217;s time we follow Ricky Bobby&#8217;s example and ditch this poisonous idea once and for all.
Tyson Langhofer is senior counsel with <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alliance Defending Freedom</a>, where he directs the ADF Center for Academic Freedom.

LANGHOFER: What Ricky Bobby Can Teach Us About The ‘Speech Is Violence’ Trope

Constitution

“If you ain’t first, you’re last.” This obviously untrue (but humorous) statement was made famous by Ricky Bobby, Will

LANGHOFER: What Ricky Bobby Can Teach Us About The &#039;Speech Is Violence&#039; Trope

https://www.dailywire.com/news/langhofer-what-ricky-bobby-can-teach-us-about-tyson-langhofer/

With so much of the daily news cycle focusing on civility &#8212; or lack thereof, in most cases &#8212; you don&#8217;t have to do much digging to see there&#8217;s a problem in much of America&#8217;s public life.
But while most of the recent coverage has to do with overt, sometimes violent, harassment of public officials or similarly vehement attempts to squelch speech on public university campuses, that&#8217;s not the only way civil discourse is currently under threat.
On campus at far too many public universities, a kinder, gentler way to silence dissenting points of view is in full effect. Rather than allowing itself to be caught flat-footed when a &#8220;controversial&#8221; (i.e., conservative) speaker arrives on campus, administrators craft and implement vague, ambiguous policies that allow them to preemptively muzzle both the message and the messenger.
Universities may argue that these policies are intended to prevent ugly situations like the one that occurred in 2017 at Middlebury College, but make no mistake: They&#8217;re every bit as damaging to public dialogue in the long run, since they deprive public university students from interacting with a different point of view. And they punish students that are simply trying to engage in civil dialogue rather than focusing on preventing other students from engaging in lawless and physically violent behavior.
That&#8217;s exactly what happened with Ben Shapiro at a 2017 event at the University of Minnesota. Invited to speak by a student group called Students for a Conservative Voice, Shapiro and his on-campus hosts informed university administrators of their plans five months in advance of the speaking engagement.
Hoping to involve as many classmates as possible, Students for a Conservative Voice reserved a centrally located auditorium at the university&#8217;s Minneapolis campus, a perfect venue to showcase a prominent conservative on a campus starved for ideological diversity.
But in the run-up to the event, university administrators stepped in. Citing their &#8220;Large Scale Events Policy,&#8221; administrators deemed Shapiro and his mainstream conservative viewpoints &#8220;controversial&#8221; and, therefore, too much of a security risk to honor the request from Students for a Conservative Voice.
Instead, administrators downgraded the event&#8217;s capacity (from over 1,000 to just over 400) and banished it from a central location at the Minneapolis campus to an isolated building in St. Paul. When the student group, which had been working alongside Young America&#8217;s Foundation to bring Shapiro to campus, reached out to administrators for clarification and reconsideration, they were told the Large Scale Events Policy allows the university to impose restrictions on select events at the university&#8217;s sole discretion.
But the policy does not answer the obvious questions like &#8220;How do we define controversial?&#8221; or &#8220;How big is a large-scale event?&#8221; but instead, rests all authority on the feelings and perceptions of a small group of university officials.
As a sort of cruel irony, the policies allow for a kind of embodiment of Shapiro&#8217;s worst nightmare: Feelings that don&#8217;t care about the facts.
Of course, the polite dismissal of dissenting viewpoints isn&#8217;t limited to one incident at the University of Minnesota. As director of the Center for Academic Freedom (part of Alliance Defending Freedom), I watch scenarios like this play out on an everyday basis.
But through our work, I&#8217;ve also had the privilege of seeing nearly 400 victories in support of campus free speech. As a result of our efforts, public university policies have been changed and their campuses reopened to all points of view &#8212; not just those favored by school administrators.
That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m hopeful as we <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10579&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1531017520825000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE6U1aOMH10YckFfgbTXBSqL335IA" href="http://adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10579" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">start up the legal process</a> on behalf of Shapiro, Students for a Conservative Voice, and Young America&#8217;s Foundation. I&#8217;m hopeful that, through cases like this, America&#8217;s public universities will correct their current course and recommit themselves to fostering the kind of diversity that can only come through wrestling with a wide spectrum of ideas, opinions, and perspectives.
&#8220;The cornerstone of higher education is the ability of students to participate in the &#8216;marketplace of ideas&#8217; on campus,&#8221; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.adfmedia.org/files/YAF-KalerComplaint.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1531017520826000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFO1OWdpda1qU4u4jEMfnX-yLYwCw" href="http://www.adfmedia.org/files/YAF-KalerComplaint.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">we write on the opening page of our lawsuit</a>. &#8220;That marketplace depends on free and vigorous debate between students and the ability to offer diverse and competing views on current and age-old topics.&#8221;
At its best, the public university campus is a vibrant marketplace of ideas, where tomorrow&#8217;s civic leaders learn not what to think, but how to think. But we can&#8217;t very well expect a college grad to grapple with complex issues &#8212; or engage in civil discourse &#8212; if they never have the chance to interact with the other side.
Again, university students are tomorrow&#8217;s leaders. There&#8217;s no upside to protecting these students from viewpoints and ideas they may not like. The more we try to censor ideas and speech on campus, whether overtly or through nebulous policies, the worse our public discourse is going to get.
Tyson Langhofer is senior counsel with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.adflegal.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1531017520826000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEPD1BYiatnmNLU9XKQR0VaKkwpsw" href="http://www.adflegal.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alliance Defending Freedom</a>, where he directs the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.centerforacademicfreedom.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1531017520826000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGGWrJ2JYDl8OHpz4DgxmZCKrCbbg" href="http://www.centerforacademicfreedom.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ADF Center for Academic Freedom</a>.

LANGHOFER: Public Civility, On-Campus Censorship At Odds In Shapiro Lawsuit

Ben Shapiro

Young America's Foundation

With so much of the daily news cycle focusing on civility — or lack thereof, in most cases — you don’t have to do much digging to see

https://www.dailywire.com/news/langhofer-public-civility-campus-censorship-odds-tyson-langhofer/

Anyone that has ever watched a mafia movie is likely familiar with a protection racket. A bunch of neighborhood thugs extort money from local businesses by &#8220;convincing&#8221; the businesses, usually through violence or threats of violence, that the thugs will protect them from being harmed by other thugs. But it is clear to everyone that the only real threat posed to the businesses is the thugs themselves.
Public universities throughout the country are increasingly employing a similar scheme to shut down unpopular (i.e., conservative) speech on campus. We&#8217;ll call it the &#8220;speech protection racket.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s how it works.
A conservative student group on campus announces that it is hosting a conservative speaker to discuss an important political topic from a conservative viewpoint. Liberal students and faculty on campus begin throwing a fit. Because&#8230;you know&#8230;they are too tolerant to allow opinions to be voiced on campus that other students might disagree with.
Having failed in its responsibility to impart the value of free speech on its campus, the university learns that these students and faculty are planning to disrupt or even prevent the event from happening through violent protests. This is when the university makes the student group an offer that it can&#8217;t refuse.
Literally.
The conservative student group must pay the university to provide security for the event to prevent the violent mob of its own students and faculty from harming the people attending the event, or they can&#8217;t host the event. The kicker is that, many times, the security fee is so large that the student group could not pay the fee even if they wanted to.
UCLA is the latest university employing this racket. The Bruin Republicans, a recognized student organization at UCLA, is hosting a speech by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, a UCLA alumnus, on November 13, in a speech entitled &#8220;The Rise of Campus Fascism.&#8221; After approving the event, the university informed the Bruin Republicans that the group would be required to pay for security because UCLA considers Shapiro&#8217;s views to be controversial, and other students and faculty may protest during the event.
UCLA then asked the group to sign a contract in which the university would agree to cover the security costs, but only if at least 70% of the attendees at the event were UCLA students, faculty, or staff. Otherwise, the student group would be required to cover the entire cost of security. Furthermore, the officers of the group would be personally liable if the group was unable to pay.
To top it off, the university wanted the students to sign the contract before it provided an estimate as to the cost of the security. The school did provide the not-so-comforting statement that the cost would be so large that there is &#8220;no way&#8221; that the student group would be able to pay it, so it better make sure they meet the 70% requirement.
Although the policy that UCLA is applying has been in force since 2009 and, according to its terms, it is supposed to apply to every event hosted by all 1,200 student groups at UCLA, in practice the university has only applied the policy on four prior occasions. And two of those prior occasions were to Bruin Republicans&#8217; events. So out of the tens of thousands of events that student groups at UCLA have hosted since 2009, the policy has been applied five times, and three of those times were to events of the Bruin Republicans.
Now you see why it&#8217;s called a racket.
You can also see why the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held these types of policies to be unconstitutional. The First Amendment prohibits the government from regulating speech based on its content or the message it conveys. This principle applies to laws that attempt to censor certain viewpoints as well as laws that impose a financial burden on those viewpoints. In Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, the Supreme Court held that &#8220;[s]peech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob.&#8221;
But, unlike most mafia movies, this story should have a happy ending. This week, Alliance Defending Freedom <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10402&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1509128571365000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHgGeIuJKHMUAisjmgXyYsNtPAhvQ" href="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10402" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sent UCLA a letter</a> on behalf of the Bruin Republicans, whom we represent, explaining that this policy is unconstitutional. The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.centerforacademicfreedom.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1509128571365000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGC7MxQrQULzbE9NAIWwKm03igZLw" href="http://www.centerforacademicfreedom.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ADF Center for Academic Freedom</a> has a strong record of success &#8212; about 90% &#8212; against policies like these that violate students&#8217; First Amendment protected freedoms.
Our response on behalf of Bruin Republicans to the university&#8217;s &#8220;offer&#8221;? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Tyson Langhofer is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and its Center for Academic Freedom, which represents Bruin Republicans in its dispute with UCLA.

LANGHOFER: UCLA’s Speech Protection Racket

Antifa

Conservatism

Liberalism

Anyone that has ever watched a mafia movie is likely familiar with a protection racket. A bunch of neighborhood thugs extort money from local businesses

LANGHOFER: UCLA&#039;s Speech Protection Racket

https://www.dailywire.com/news/langhofer-uclas-speech-protection-racket-tyson-langhofer/

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