Free Speech | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 55
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Posted by Mike LaChance on February 26, 2016 38 Comments
We reported earlier this week that conservative author Ben Shapiro was banned from speaking at California State University LA by the school's president. The school then relented and said Shapiro could come after all. Then things got crazy. Students who wanted to hear Shapiro speak had to be ushered quietly into the lecture hall through a back door while unhinged student activists and faculty members screamed and tried to force their way through a police barricade protecting the front door.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 25, 2016 14 Comments
The University of Missouri canned the professor captured on video confronting student journalists during a protest last year, the Washington Post reported. According to the Columbia Daily Tribune:
Assistant Professor Melissa Click, captured on video calling for “some muscle” to remove reporters from a campus protest site, was fired Wednesday by the University of Missouri Board of Curators, Chairwoman Pam Henrickson said in a prepared statement. The board voted 4-2 in favor of termination during a closed session in Kansas City, with Henrickson and curator John Phillips opposing the move, UM System spokesman John Fougere wrote in an email Thursday. Curators David Steelman, Donald Cupps, Maurice Graham and Phil Snowden voted in favor of firing Click.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 24, 2016 17 Comments
Conservative author and speaker Ben Shapiro has been banned from making an appearance at California State University Los Angeles by the school's president. Shapiro would apparently present too great a threat to the safe spaces of CSULA's sensitive snowflake students. Christine Rousselle reported at Townhall:
Conservative Writer Ben Shapiro Banned from CSULA Early Tuesday morning, conservative writer Ben Shapiro revealed on Twitter that his planned speech on February 25 at California State University-Los Angeles had been canceled by the university's president.

Posted by New Neo on February 18, 2016 13 Comments
This is potentially disturbing and seems to be part of a trend in Western Europe:
Following a report of a series of alleged offensive online posts relating to Syrian refugees living in Rothesay on Bute, Police Scotland confirmed on Tuesday that a 40-year-old man, understood to be from the Inverclyde area, had been arrested under the Communications Act... Following the arrest, Insp Ewan Wilson from Dunoon police office said: “I hope that the arrest of this individual sends a clear message that Police Scotland will not tolerate any form of activity which could incite hatred and provoke offensive comments on social media.”
In the United States, the only way this sort of arrest might be justified would be if the social media postings were used to specifically call for an imminent act of violence against refugees. That would be tantamount to enforcing our own very limited "incitement to riot" exceptions to our free speech policies.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 28, 2016 12 Comments
University of Missouri professor Melissa Click who famously called for "some muscle" to remove a student journalist from a campus protest was charged with assault on Monday and has now been suspended. Reuters reports:
Missouri suspends professor who called for 'muscle' against student reporter A University of Missouri communications professor who called for "some muscle" to get a student journalist to back off during campus protests in November, was suspended by the school on Wednesday, days after she was charged with misdemeanor assault. The university's board of curators said Melissa Click was suspended with pay pending further investigation and it ordered an investigation to determine promptly whether additional discipline would be appropriate.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 07, 2015 55 Comments
Following the San Bernardino terrorist attack that resulted in the murder of fourteen, Lynch made clear her concern was not for the victims nor the rise in violent terrorism attacks. Her concern? Hate speech.
When we talk about the First amendment we [must] make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not American. They are not who we are, they are not what we do, and they will be prosecuted.
Rightly, those Constitutionally concerned flipped a lid. Monday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch expanded on comments she made last week.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 22, 2015 12 Comments
Polling released by Pew late last week reiterates a disturbing trend among the millennial crowd -- the desire to censor free speech. Pew looked specifically at statements offensive to minorities.
We asked whether people believe that citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups, or whether the government should be able to prevent people from saying these things. Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups, while 58% said such speech is OK. Even though a larger share of Millennials favor allowing offensive speech against minorities, the 40% who oppose it is striking given that only around a quarter of Gen Xers (27%) and Boomers (24%) and roughly one-in-ten Silents (12%) say the government should be able to prevent such speech.
The findings also show women are more likely to want government censorship of offensive speech than men and that the belief in limited free speech increases as level of education decreases.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 17, 2015 39 Comments
Dartmouth College students who are part of the Black Lives Matter movement recently staged a protest which invaded a school library. As we reported yesterday at College Insurrection, some students who were trying to study allege physical assault. Campus Reform has the details:
Dartmouth students lead profane Black Lives Matter protest Black-clad protesters gathered in front of Dartmouth Hall Thursday night, forming a crowd roughly one hundred fifty strong. Ostensibly there to denounce the removal of shirts from a display in Collis, Dartmouth's student center the Black Lives Matter collective began to sing songs and chant their eponymous catchphrase. The band then marched into Baker-Berry Library. “F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” “F*** you and your comfort!” “F*** you, you racist s***!”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 15, 2015 19 Comments
Two generations of far leftist Humanities and Social Sciences faculty proselytizing, in which every student except for straight Christian white males is a victim of systemic discrimination and repression, have finally paid off. We, or rather they, have created a cadre of little bullies who demand the repression of other students' expression and thoughts, in order to implement a new order on the campuses based on the feelings and sensitivities of the crowd. From Yale to Mizzou to dozens of other campuses, mob rule rules. Aleister summarized a week's worth of such thuggery in Madness Week at College Insurrection, and Cornell student Casey Breznick got to the core of the problem in Snowflake Protesters — Struggling to find a Struggle:
The more recent developments of the ridiculous notions of trigger warnings and safe spaces are only the latest manifestations of this self-defeating endeavor to placate the increasingly deranged mindset of the most perturbed and eccentric of students....

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 14, 2015 16 Comments
Esteemed Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz addressed the controversy unfolding on college campuses like Yale and Mizzou in an appearance on the Kelly File Thursday night and called it what it is. Zachary Leshin of CNS News provides a partial transcript:
Dershowitz: ‘The Fog of Fascism Is Descending Quickly Over Many American Universities’ “These are the same people who claim they are seeking diversity. The last thing many of these students want is real diversity, diversity of ideas. They may want superficial diversity, diversity of gender, diversity of color, but they don’t want diversity of ideas.” “We are seeing a curtain of McCarthyism descend over many college campuses,” said Dershowitz. “I don't want to make analogies to the 1930s, but we have to remember it was the college students who first started burning books during the Nazi regime. And these students are book burners. They don’t want to hear diverse views on college campuses.”

Posted by Anne Segal on November 13, 2015 14 Comments
It's sobering to see such staggering ignorance about free speech and freedom in general on display on American campuses this week. The special snowflakes of the Snowflake Protests (Yale, Mizzou, etc.) are providing a window into the results of the progressive takeover of our education system -- from pre-school all the way on up to college and beyond. (Common Core will just streamline the process a little more.) Alarming, but in keeping with findings about Americans' demand for freedom, or lack thereof, detailed in The Frontier Lab's recent study, "Freedom Buzz." Ask Americans about freedom, as we did in this study, and you get what seem like familiar responses: freedom is the American Dream, the ability to worship and speak freely, or to choose your own path in life. Pretty standard. Nearly 100 hours of research interviews, and a national survey to test the findings, revealed two trends in how many Americans perceive the value of freedom.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 23, 2015 17 Comments
A Wesleyan University student named Bryan Stascavage who writes for the student paper, the Wesleyan Argus, recently penned an op-ed which was critical of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Since then, all hell has broken loose. Here's a sample of Stascavage's column:
Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think A 20-year-old man walks into a church and massacres nine people, claiming that he was afraid that America was being taken over by Black Americans, citing American race relations as evidence. About a month later, a man wears a GoPro, tapes himself walking up to a local reporter and a cameraman, and shoots them both on camera, proclaiming racial injustice in this country as his motive. Police officers are looking over their shoulders as several cops have been targeted and gunned down. The week before classes started, seven officers were killed in the line of duty; a few were execution-style targeted killings. An officer I talked to put it succinctly: “If they want to come after me, fine. Just come at me head on. Don’t shoot me in the back of my head. I’d rather go down with a fighting chance.” Is this an atmosphere created by the police officers and racist elements in society itself? Many, including individuals in the Black Lives Matter movement, believe so.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 27, 2015 9 Comments
I just received word from Caleb Rowland, the attorney for Lane Pittman, that the charges against Pittman for playing the Star Spangled Banner on the 4th of July in Neptune Beach, Florida:
Despite the delay, Mr. Pittman is pleased the State’s Attorney’s office declined to prosecute him for expressing his patriotism and exercising his First Amendment right by playing the National Anthem on Independence Day.
Full background here: Florida man arrested for playing Star Spangled Banner on 4th of July rejects plea deal In case you don't recall, here is the performance that landed Pitman in legal trouble:
Pittman posted the following message and Victory Selfie on Facebook:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 21, 2015 4 Comments
Today a California court dissolved a temporary restraining order banning the Center for Medical Progress from releasing footage showing high-ranking StemExpress executives discussing the sale of fetal body parts. The Alliance Defending Freedom issued a press release:
“The First Amendment protects every American’s free speech, regardless of how damaging the truth is for scandal-ridden organizations like StemExpress and Planned Parenthood,” said Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund President Chuck LiMandri. “Our client has the right to expose StemExpress’ role in the potentially illegal sale of aborted babies’ body parts. The court was correct in lifting this gag order, which only served to protect StemExpress’ gruesome business.” “The American people deserve to know the truth about the hideous industry that buys and sells the hearts, lungs, heads, and livers of unborn babies,” said Life Legal Defense Foundation Vice President of Legal Affairs Catherine Short. “The Center for Medical Progress should not be silenced and StemExpress and Planned Parenthood should not be able to get off the hook when there is credible evidence that they have colluded in numerous illegal activities.”
From the opinion (full opinion embedded below the fold):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2015 99 Comments
On July 4, 2015, 22 year-old Lane Pittman decided to take his electric guitar and play the Star Spangled Banner on the street outside his friend's house in Neptune Beach, near Jacksonville. Pittman says that after a police officer asked him to stop, he asked if it was okay to play on the sidewalk, and was told that was okay. And play he did:
"I don't think I ever played that song as good in my life as I did on that day. It felt right. It was an emotional roller coaster."
The crowd topped 200 people, spilling onto the street around him:
Then Pittman was, to his surprise, arrested for breaching the peace: