Curbs on free speech are growing tighter. It is time to speak out

IN A sense, this is a golden age for free speech. Your smartphone can call up newspapers from the other side of world in seconds. More than a billion tweets, Facebook posts and blog updates are published every single day. Anyone with access to the internet can be a publisher, and anyone who can reach Wikipedia enters a digital haven where America’s First Amendment reigns.
However, watchdogs report that speaking out is becoming more dangerous—and they are right.
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Judge Rules in Favor of Christian Student Group Against NC State’s ‘Speech Permit’

North Carolina State University infringed on the free speech rights of a student-led Christian group, a federal judge has ruled. Chief U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III, calling his action “in the public interest,” issued a preliminary injunction Saturday against NC State’s speech permit policy, saying it violates the students’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
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A bit of good news for a change

Christians have just won a major legal battle. First, the backstory: For several years, it has become standard operating procedure for Christians to be threatened and attacked by Muslims at the Dearborn Arab Festival. Christians have also been threatened by the police and have been arrested for exercising their right to free speech. This piece is about an attack that occurred in 2012. (See here for video.) Now, three years later, after initially losing the court case, they've won a victory. Robert Muise and David Yerushalmi of the American Freedom Law Center report:


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The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over the freedom of conscience. In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant debt as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever spoken.


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How Government Stifled Reason's Free Speech

For the past two weeks, Reason, a magazine dedicated to "Free Minds and Free Markets," has been barred by an order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from speaking publicly about a grand jury subpoena that court sent to Reason.com.
The subpoena demanded the records of six people who left hyperbolic comments at the website about the federal judge who oversaw the controversial conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. Shortly after the subpoena was issued, the government issued a gag order prohibiting Reason not only from discussing the matter but even acknowledging the existence of the subpoena or the gag order itself.


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How Liberals Ruined College

College should be a place of new ideas and challenging views. Instead, liberals have made it a place of fear and intimidation.
The root of nearly every free-speech infringement on campuses across the country is that someone—almost always a liberal—has been offended or has sniffed out a potential offense in the making. Then, the silencing campaign begins. The offender must be punished, not just for justice’s sake, but also to send the message to anyone else on campus that should he or she stray off the leftist script, they too might find themselves investigated, harassed, ostracized, or even expelled.
If the illiberal left can preemptively silence opposing speakers or opposing groups— such as getting a speech or event canceled, or denying campus recognition for a group—even better.


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In Praise of Pamela Geller

How can any thinking and civilized person ever believe there is a wisp of truth to the proposition: "There are times when it is 'understandable' that people would slaughter others because of a cartoon"? Everyone who follows world events in the United States, regardless of their political leanings, has seen the unimaginably vile actions of ISIS against "unbelievers" and "those who defame the prophet." How can anyone take their side? To do so even to the smallest extent renders the defender equally vile. And yet, of course, that is what we have come to in the cesspool that is the American left.


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Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘Every Aspect of My Life Is in Their Hands — and They Hate Me’

‘They came with a battering ram.”
Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door.

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Litigation Is Beginning to Free Up Speech on Campus

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is busy making good on its promise to fight for students’ free speech rights through a massive litigation campaign. Since last year, FIRE’s Stand Up For Free Speech effort has filed nine First Amendment lawsuits against campuses that quash the First Amendment, according to its website. Four of the cases have already enjoyed successes in FIRE’s favor, and the others continue to wind their way through the court system. FIRE’s early victories in its litigation campaign illustrate that colleges’ limits on free speech are onerous and unconstitutional. But the battle continues.

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FCC: Broadband Providers Not Entitled to First Amendment Protections

Two weeks after passage, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally released its landmark “net neutrality” regulations Thursday morning. Among its many determinations, the FCC stated that broadband providers do not enjoy First Amendment protections because they do not have a right to free speech.  “The rules we adopt today do not curtail broadband providers’ free speech rights,” the commission said on page 268 of its decision, noting that because they merely serve as a means for others to express themselves, broadband providers are not entitled to free speech rights themselves.

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Marquette Moves to Fire Professor who Said Students Should be Allowed to Oppose Gay Marriage

Marquette University has begun the process to fire a tenured professor after he publicly said that students have the right to oppose gay marriage while in class, while also naming the professor who tried to ban it.  In a letter to Dr. John McAdams, Marquette informed the professor that the "University is commencing the process to revoke your tenure and to dismiss you from the faculty.  Marquette is taking this action after Dr. McAdams became aware that another professor, Cheryl Abbate, had banned a student from opposing gay marriage in her classroom. Parts of the incident were recorded secretly by the student.

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