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Free Speech Tag

The National Lawyers Guild is a leftist group with chapters at numerous law schools. The City University of New York (CUNY) Law School Chapter of NLG led the protests against and disruption of the lecture by Prof. Josh Blackman, as we documented in “F*ck the law” – CUNY Law students attempt shout-down of conservative law prof.

A Fresno State professor named Randa Jarrar commented on Twitter following the death of former first lady Barbara Bush, "Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal. [expletive] outta here with your nice words."

Disruptions of conservative speakers, even at law schools, has become a common tactic. We've documented dozens of such incidents. The tactic, even when it doesn't prevent the speech completely, is not merely the expression of disagreement. It's an infringement of the speaker's right to speak, and the audience's right to hear that speech.

Ever since  YouTube without any warning took down Legal Insurrection's YouTube account in January 2017, I've been well aware of the power liberal-leaning high tech oligopolies have over our ability to communicate with each other. The account was restored after a fairly massive news coverage of the takedown. That wake up call has come into further focus in the past year, after repeated instances of non-liberal voices being stifled and shut down in a variety of social media locations.

Gallup and the Knight Foundation released a survey of college students on the issue of free speech. The full report (pdf.) is here. I discuss the highlights below. Liberal writers at Vox and elsewhere are furiously trying to preempt the fallout from the survey arguing that a majority of students say they support free speech. The results of the survey, however, show that generic support for free speech is not reflected in student willingness to let free speech happen.