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Free Speech Tag

A professor at the University of Toronto recently spoke out against the use of genderless pronouns like "ze," angering left wing students in the process. People held a rally on campus to defend the professor and free speech, but campus activists showed up and intimidated people. They also used a "white noise" machine to drown out speakers. Now the activists are claiming they were the ones who were attacked. The College Fix reported:
Transgender activists attack free speech rally to defend professor who won’t say ‘ze’ Students at the University of Toronto say their student government is fabricating hate crimes, while ignoring attacks made on free speech advocates at an event last week.

Starting this month, Brown University is hosting a lecture series on the importance of freedom of expression. Anyone who has been following news out of Rhode Island's only Ivy League school for the last few years will appreciate the richness of that. A Brown alum named Rob Montz described the situation in an op-ed at USA Today:
What happened to American universities? On October 11, Brown University is hosting the first in a new series of lectures on the proper balance between “freedom of expression, tolerance, and inclusion” on college campuses.

Last month, Syracuse University (SU) made headlines when a faculty member in the Religious Studies Department dis-invited an award-winning Israeli NYU Professor and filmmaker from a campus event out of fear of offending the political sensibilities of her BDS-supporting colleagues (see our prior posts covering the story). At the time, pro-BDS faculty signed a petition (subsequently posted onto Facebook) denying that any pressure to disinvite the filmmaker had existed and expressing their commitment to free speech and academic freedom. But now many of these same professors, keen on moving the campus in a BDS direction, are making demands that call into question this articulated devotion to a campus community open to free expression.

The Young America's Foundation chapter at the University of California Los Angeles is hosting a lecture by conservative feminist Christina Hoff Sommers but campus feminists find that offensive and took it upon themselves to tear down campus flyers. The YAF blog reports:
WATCH: CSULA Feminists Tear Down YAF Fliers for Sommers Lecture Thursday morning, members of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at California State University- Los Angeles (CSULA) caught a pair of disgruntled feminists on camera tearing down flyers advertising the group’s lecture with Christina Hoff Sommers scheduled for Oct. 4.

The University of Tennessee  at Knoxville apparently doesn't want to take on the leader of the Army of Davids. We reported the other day that UTK was "investigating" Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit over the tweet suggesting that drivers surrounded by the violent racist mobs of rioters on Charlotee highways "run them down," Twitter suspends Instapundit for suggesting people not become victims of racist thug rioters (Update): Instapundit Tweet Charlotte Riots Any reasonable person would have understood that tweet to mean that if threatened with deadly force by the rioters, you could escape by driving through the mob. That tweet and advice was consistent with the law of self-defense.

The saga of the two John Doe investigations of Scott Walker, his supporters and almost the entire Wisconsin conservative movement has been covered here dozens of times. It was a nasty, vicious investigation which saw military-style raids in the middle of the night. (note: Michael Lutz in this interview from late April 2015 committed suicide in late July). Here are some key posts in our extensive coverage of the John Doe investigation: