Principled Opposition to Trump’s Free Speech Order is A Farce
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It’s an unfortunate sign of the times that President Trump has to sign an executive order just to ensure that college students can exercise their First Amendment rights.
Critics are already slamming President Trump’s announcement of a new executive order withholding federal research grants from colleges and universities that fail to protect free speech on campus, but their objections are considerably off the mark.
Free expression is absolutely fundamental to the quest for knowledge, and guaranteeing this crucial right is a legal obligation of public colleges and universities.
The critics’ first line is to continue the farce, popular among liberal journalists, of pretending that there is no widespread silencing of conservatives or broader free speech crisis on America’s college campuses. Terry Hartle, of the American Council on Education, told The Washington Post that President Trump’s order is “a solution in search of a problem” and that free speech controversies are “relatively infrequent.”
No one paying close attention to the ongoing saga at the University of California, Berkeley can take that claim seriously, not even liberals . The recent assault against a conservative activist at UC Berkeley is just the latest of many acts of hostility perpetrated against conservatives on that campus in recent years -- a trend that has only been encouraged by the administration’s willingness to blame conservatives for violent reactions to their ideas.
Unfortunately, even administrators who recognize the importance of action to preserve free expression on campus, such as University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer, have reacted critically to President Trump’s announcement.
It was Zimmer who formed the committee that issued the so-called “Chicago Principles,” which are a perfect starting point for the coming executive order. Yet, Zimmer now says he fears “the precedent of the Federal government establishing its own standing to interfere in the issue of speech on campuses” and “the inevitable establishment of a bureaucracy to enforce any governmental position.”
With all due respect to Zimmer, those precedents have long since been established. Indeed, an executive order requiring schools to respect free expression and do their part to protect students from violent campus radicals before they get federal research money would hardly be the first time the government has “interfered” on campus or used bureaucracy to make sure publicly funded universities uphold certain social ideals.
For decades, the federal government has used the power of the purse to mandate principles far less central to the traditions of American liberty and academic freedom than free speech. Merely allowing students to accept federal financial aid subjects colleges to onerous federal mandates governing their approach to issues such as non-discrimination.
Under the Obama administration, federal bureaucrats got much more aggressive and shameless in using this power to enforce progressive orthodoxy on campus. Without any new legislation from Congress, President Obama’s Department of Education began threatening to cut off loans for institutions that refused to “ put an end to rape-permissive cultures” by doing away with all notions of due process for people accused of sexual assault.
Schools were told to that, to keep the funding most institutions need to function, they could no longer use a “proof beyond reasonable doubt” standard, or even allow the cross-examination of accusers in any sexual assault case. As a result, male students were frequently expelled and disgraced without even the most basic of all legal protections, the presumption of innocence.
Again without any new legislation from Congress, the Obama administration also decided that existing law against sex discrimination automatically applies to gay, transgender, and “gender non-conforming” students. As a result, any school not allowing male transgender students into women’s dorms, or not permitting same-sex relations and marriage among their students risked losing its federal funding.
Even as the Trump administration rolls back many of these excesses , Christian institutions of higher learning are fearful that existing laws could enable a future administration to revoke their federal funding or tax-exempt status if they don’t agree to violate their own religious principles.
Left-wing groups are already working to revoke religious exemptions to these rules, calling them “licenses to discriminate.”
Unlike the Obama administration’s use of federal funds as a means of compelling colleges to engage in certain behaviors, President Trump’s proposed executive order only demands that they uphold their existing obligation to ensure free expression on campus. Rather than imposing burdensome and confusing new rules, most universities will be able to comply with the order by eliminating existing restrictions on speech , such as deceptively-named “free speech zones” that limit free expression to tiny, out-of-the-way areas of campus.
Institutions that receive millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and in some cases billions of dollars in taxpayer research funding, must do their part to ensure the free exchange of ideas in American higher education. President Trump’s executive order mandating that they do so shouldn’t be necessary, but it is long overdue.
Autumn Johnson is a second-year law student at Liberty University School of Law.
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“Even as the Trump administration rolls back many of these excesses , Christian institutions of higher learning are fearful that existing laws could enable a future administration to revoke their federal funding or tax-exempt status if they don’t agree to violate their own religious principles.
Left-wing groups are already working to revoke religious exemptions to these rules, calling them “licenses to discriminate.”
Unlike the Obama administration’s use of federal funds as a means of compelling colleges to engage in certain behaviors, President Trump’s proposed executive order only demands that they uphold their existing obligation to ensure free expression on campus. Rather than imposing burdensome and confusing new rules, most universities will be able to comply with the order by eliminating existing restrictions on speech , such as deceptively-named “free speech zones” that limit free expression to tiny, out-of-the-way areas of campus.
Institutions that receive millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and in some cases billions of dollars in taxpayer research funding, must do their part to ensure the free exchange of ideas in American higher education.”
The is no such thing as principled opposition to free speech nor to President Trump’s plan to preserve it in places of higher education where the free exchange of ideas is most important. This is a positive blow against censorship and the use of coercion to block points of view from being heard.
Oh come off it Xx. You're just fine with censorship, coercion and blocking points of view if it's done in the name of religion. Your seed proves that fact.
It drips with hypocrisy.
That’s a complete and total misrepresentation of my position. I don’t advocate the censorship, blocking or coercion of any political or religious or science point of view. I favor the free expression of all points of view from any source on all those issues. I never have advocated the silencing of any political point of view, and am openly pro proselytizing so I wouldn’t silence any other point of view and I’m most certainly not a so called pro science fascist bigot who would freely content control and censor all opposing points of view. I’m as far away from pro censorship/community standards as anyone can be.
I have 4 letters for you Xx. SPLC. You desperately try to censor, block and coerce their 'POV' every fucking chance you get.
Here's 4 more. MBFC. The same...
I disagree that either of those organizations are 'partisan' yet YOU insist that they are and that is part of your basis for attacking them ad nauseam.
I have also read comments where you have claimed that Atheism and secularim are forms of religion and you've advocated for the censor, block or coercion of both.
As for progressives, I don't even want to think of how much you'd like to stifle their voices.
How do I censor, control, or block the SPLC? I don’t. As long as they don’t materially affect others they are fine. Opposing their bigotry and censorship toward and of other legitimate groups, they are fine. I promote heavily the groups they attack and support their lawsuits to protect ourselves from the SPLC and it’s hate filled bigotry. If the SPLC continues to target opposition groups as hate over ideological differences, I support the complete legal and economic destruction of them as an organization as well as that of every organization and business that persists in using their biased standards in own their activities. There are several self defense lawsuits out there and more coming. As to the MBFC, thanks for bringing up that 3rd party site so I can vent. It is a sick and pathetic joke. There is no organization online more bigoted and biased than that one as it progressively moves more conservative and religious sites into its controversial categories. There are probably no people or organization in America that I have less respect for or more sheer contempt for. They are the epitome of fascist bigoted bias. No one outshines them in that regard. None the less, as much as I almost hate them and even though I have no respect for anything they say about anything, I do not advocate silencing them or censoring their content. It’s too bad that they are all about censorship. I’m not. As to your presumptions about what I’d do with progressive expressions, they are just that, presumptions. I’m totally in the libertarian camp when it comes to free expression and opposing limitations on them. Next?
Yet you admit that you DO.
BTW, I note that you changed 'coerce' to 'control'.
By lending your voice to those groups and funding their cause, you are culpable for their actions.
SPLC uses the exact same tools to 'attack' YOU that YOU use to 'attack' them.
You label their lawsuits as attempts to censor, coerce and block you with 'hate filled bigorty', while the groups you support file the same kind of lawsuits and you deny that they are attemps to censor, coerce and block SPLC and their donors.
But that's not censor, control or blocking the SPLC Xx?
The cognitive dissonance is palpable.
Bullshit Xx. You've stated that you've filed complaints against them and to them. You've demanded the censor of their content as part of NT's CoC, you've tried to control or block their influence here too many times to count.
Your animus for progressives isn't a presumption Xx, you document it here almost ever day.
An example of your stated desire to limit the free expression of progressives is your constant demand for conservative voices to have outsized recognition.
Your advocation of the Jefferson dystopia is a perfect example.
Your tiny minority screams at the sky and insists that it qualifies them to censor over 39 MILLION voices so you can annex an outsized portion of the state.
Your comments incessantly describe an opinion of progressives with phrases like 'sheer contempt' and attack their religious views by labeling them with your favorite pejorative, 'secular'.
All of that vitriol is based on WHERE people LIVE in your state and has a goal of censoring, coercing and blocking the voice of the 'coastal' progressive majority in your state for the desires of the few.
Sorry but me freely expressing my point of view is in no way censoring the point of view of anyone else. It is the SPLC and by extension MBFC that are the ones engaging in censorship of the expression of others by their words and actions.
You vocal advocation is equivalent to theirs.
Not here it isn’t.
Why is here different Xx?
🤬 The answer can only be spoken of in HD or Meta. Ask me there....
Actually, I think that the answer is that it's NOT. You've posted you opposition to SPLC and MBFC ad nauseum with great fan fair. You've dedicated entire seeds/Metas to bashing them.
So actually, you're right, your position has a far more outsized effect here than either SPLCs or MBFCs.
Actually I don’t.
You wouldn't.
Even as the Trump administration rolls back many of these excesses , Christian institutions of higher learning are fearful that existing laws could enable a future administration to revoke their federal funding or tax-exempt status if they don’t agree to violate their own religious principles.
Cool, let's block Liberty University from receiving federal funding if it doesn't stop its censorship and use of coercion to block points of view from being heard!
Principled Opposition to Trump’s Free Speech Order is A Farce
The farce is in the Executive Order (mere grandstanding per the usual) written for something already covered in the Bill of Rights.
But if you truly feel your right to free speech is being curtailed, dial 202-546-0738 for the D.C. office of the A.C.L.U., I am sure they will be happy to make your case.
I would call the ACLJ instead.