Free Speech | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 59
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Free Speech Tag

Welcome to your modern American college campus. Where the biggest mouths -- almost always left-wing -- shout down and shut down voices they don't like. Today it was NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Prior to his appearance on campus, there was a petition drive demanding cancellation:
1) We demand that the lecture be cancelled. 2) We demand that the honorarium set aside for the lecture be donated to organizations working to end racial profiling and police brutality in Providence and in New York City. 3) We demand transparency in the Taubman Center for Public Policy's decision-making process for inviting speakers to campus.
According to the Brown Daily Herald, protesters against the NYC stop and frisk policy disrupted and caused the talk to end after just 30 minutes. The feature image above was posted to Facebook and shows protesters outside the building where the speech was to be held. Protesters were encouraged by protest organizers to "Bring Drums." Inside the auditorium there was loud shouting until the event was closed. https://twitter.com/BlogDailyHerald/status/395282152700391424

We've written before about the travails of the Canadian Blazing Cat Fur blog against laware utilizing Canadian "hate" laws. Now Ezra Levant, another Canadian blogger and outspoken critic of radical Islamic tactics in Canada, is fighting in court over a lawsuit filed several years ago, as reported in the Globe and Mail:
Controversial television journalist Ezra Levant will find himself in court Oct. 15 to answer for a series of blog posts in which he repeatedly called a Canadian Islamic Rights activist a liar. Mr. Levant, who hosts a daily show on Sun News Network, wrote the posts while covering unsuccessful human rights complaints against Maclean’s magazine for its coverage of the Islamic community over a two-year span. Mr. Levant’s posts were critical of Khurrum Awan, a member of the Canadian Islamic Congress who spoke at the Canadian Human Rights Commission hearings and served as its youth president. In his statement of claim filed to Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Mr. Awan said Mr. Levant suggested he was “a liar, a perjurer, an anti-Semite, a con artist, unfit to be a lawyer and has acted in a conflict of interest.” “The plaintiff has suffered mental distress, humiliation and loss of reputation,” reads the statement of claim filed by lawyer Brian Shiller of Ruby Shiller Chan Hasan Barristers. “The plaintiff has been shunned by former friends, ridiculed in various publications and is the subject of odium and contempt.” In his statement of defence, Mr. Levant suggests any damage to Mr. Awan’s reputation was self-inflicted.
In an October 15, 2013, column at Sun News, Price of freedom is high, Levant explained the history of lawfare against him:

In light of "questions" by both Lindsay Graham (since clarified) and Dick Durbin as to whether bloggers are entitled to First Amendment protection, I thought these two videos might be worth watching. Floyd Abrams (btw, father of Dan Abrams, television legal commentator and proprietor of Mediaite...

From Linda, spotted in Manchester, TN, near the forum at which government officials were speaking as to whether criticism of Islam could be a civil rights violation and the free speech counter-protest over the attempt to criminalize speech and shut down political discourse. Because the photo was at...

Are bloggers entitled to constitutional protection, Dick Durbin wonders out loud. I have a better question, are Senators entitled to anything? https://twitter.com/realmyiq2xu/status/339112015907938304 ...

Amidst all the scandals exposed these past two weeks, one is being ignored by the mainstream media and most of the conservative media as well -- the actions of the Department of Justice and Department of Education to force colleges and universities to impose anti-free speech codes. We...

From Trochilus Tales, NJ Superior Court Judge: Blogger Protected By State Shield Law: A New Jersey Superior Court Judge, Karen M. Cassidy, A.J.S.C., has issued a written opinion (posted by CountyWatchers, here and hereafter cited as "decis") quashing a subpoena that had been issued by the...

I really try not to get into Twitter arguments. But when Bridgette Dunlap of Fordham Law School objected to my tweet linking to an article at The Daily Caller, OPINION: Shame and censorship at Fordham, well, I took the bait. Bridgette, a post-graduate public interest Fellow, was one...

On Thursday afternoon, November 8, 2012, a Facebook event page went live announcing that the Fordham College Republicans were bringing Ann Coulter to speak at the university. By late the next afternoon the event was canceled, after a wild and threatening liberal reaction which worried both the University and the Fordham Republicans, and led to concerns over security for the event.  I detail below the interactions which led to the cancellation. The cancellation received national attention in part because the President of the University, Father Joseph M. McShane, weighed in with a public condemnation of the Coulter invitation in a blast e-mail at 2:17 p.m. on November 9 sent to students, faculty, alumni and parents.   While ostensibly declining to cancel the event, Father McShane's statement lambasted the Fordham Republicans as lacking sound "judgment and maturity" even as the University welcomed Peter Singer, an advocate of infanticide, to campus. While the  leadership of the Fordham Republicans has maintained that the decision to cancel was made prior to and was not related to Father McShane's email, the timing was not so simple.  Father McShane's e-mail condemnation was sent as a majority of the Board of the College Republicans was voting, via text messages, to cancel, but long before the decision was finalized or conveyed to the administration or the community.  Father McShane's letter forced their hand and obviated further discussion, including participation by a Board member who was unavailable at the time and who opposed cancellation. No statements questioning the "judgment and maturity" of the students attacking the Fordham Republicans were issued by the Fordham administration.  No statements were issued demanding "civility" on the part of those clamoring for Coulter to be kept off campus.  Instead, the Fordham administration sided with the unruly feeding frenzy.  Shame on Fordham. The Fordham Republican leadership reacted in haste and without due deliberation because they were unprepared for the over-the-top reaction compounded by a public shaming by the University administration.  The membership is deeply divided and bitter over the cancellation and the manner in which it was accomplished. The end result was that students did not get to hear and challenge Coulter on her views and prior statements.  Intellectual cowardice not courage prevailed.

There is a reason we have been focusing on the cancellation of Ann Coulter's speech at Fordham, in which the President of the University, Father Joseph McShane, publicly shamed the College Republican's for inviting her, then reveled in their apology and request for forgiveness. President McShane's statements...

Fordham Republicans v. Coulter: The College Republicans regret the controversy surrounding our planned lecture featuring Ann Coulter. The size and severity of opposition to this event have caught us by surprise and caused us to question our decision to welcome her to Rose Hill...

I am still trying to obtain an interview with Father Joseph M. McShane, President of Fordham University, who spoke out forcefully condemning the invitation by the Fordham Republicans to Ann Coulter. Robert Shibley of The FIRE notes at College Insurrectionthat Fordham defends its invitation to infanticide supporter...

We posted previously how the Fordham College Republicans cancelled Ann Coulter's appearance after severe criticism from the university President, College Republicans at Fordham Rescind Invitation to Ann Coulter After Being Attacked by University President. We noted a lament by a student, Fordham College Republican — “we...

High school teacher Debbie Polhemus took her own stand against free speech yesterday when she covered pro-Israel advertisements in a Washington, D.C, metro station with yellow sticky notes. Polhemus was not arrested or cited for vandalism. In a similarly convoluted line of reasoning to New York...