Former U.S. senator and current University of Florida president Ben Sasse leads on ensuring that everyone on his campus is safe and urges other university presidents to follow his lead.
The full text of the above tweet as quoted from an incomprehensibly pay-walled WSJ op-ed:
“At the University of Florida, we have repeatedly, patiently explained two things to protesters: We will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly—but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended. In Gainesville, that means a three-year prohibition from campus. That’s serious. We said it. We meant it. We enforced it. We wish we didn’t have to, but the students weighed the costs, made their decisions, and will own the consequences as adults. We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.”
Watch Sasse on CNN (Jake Tapper does not look happy to hear common sense Constitutionalism):
University of Florida President and ex-Sen. Ben Sasse on Sunday implored colleges to take his school’s lead and stake out a balance between free speech and order as anti-Israel protests take campuses by storm.Sasse, 52, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, explained that as the head of the University of Florida, he has drawn the line between free speech and action.“I’m a First Amendment zealot,” Sasse told CNN’s State of the Union.” “We will always defend your right to free speech and free assembly. And also, we have time, place, and manner restrictions.“You don’t get to take over the whole university. People don’t get to spit at cops, you don’t get to barricade yourselves in buildings. You don’t get to disrupt somebody else’s commencement.”. . . . “We just don’t negotiate with people who scream the loudest. It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said.The University of Florida has roughly 6,500 Jewish undergraduate students, which is about 19% — the largest percentage of any institution in the country, according to the Anti-Defamation League.“I want everybody to feel safe here because I want everybody to be safe here. And I think right now everybody’s safe,” Sasse said.
Needless to say, people have thoughts.
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