Robert Post is a law professor at Yale, and he was dean of the law school until a few months ago. He ought to understand the Constitution. Nevertheless, he penned an article for ultra-liberal Vox entitled "There is no 1st Amendment right to speak on a college campus". Post argues that a university has to engage in determining "proper content" of what gets said on campus to promote proper education of the students. Wow!
Let's break down what the First Amendment actually means. Simply put, the government cannot take any steps to limit the free speech of the American people. We start with "government" and what it means. The courts have interpreted "government" to include all the instrumentalities of the government. In other words, every public university is clearly part of the government. If the University of California at Berkeley or Ohio State wants to limit free speech, the Constitution says it cannot. The next issue is whether or not a private university that is heavily funded by the public constitutes the "government". There is no point in describing exactly where the line is drawn but suffice to say that some so-called "private schools" are considered the government as well.
The next question is what constitutes "free speech". It is not acceptable or protected speech to engage in a crime. For example, walking into a bank and yelling "This is a robbery!" is not protected speech. The line can be hard exactly to define in certain circumstances, but it is clear that political speech is protected. Advocating for one policy or another is the essence of protected free speech.
So what of Post's argument that a university can determine proper content before allowing speech? It flies in the face of the established meaning of the First Amendment. If Penn State or the University of Connecticut want to bar left wing or right wing speakers from campus in the name of "proper content", they would be acting illegally. That's not a difficult concept to grasp. Post certainly knows the rules; you don't get to be dean of Yale Law School without understanding them. Nevertheless, Post is pushing a bogus argument to justify a totalitarian approach towards speech. Why do liberals feel so threatened by those who do not agree with them? Is it because they know that they cannot win in the battle of ideas? Or is it that the totalitarian impulses of the left are so strong that they just feel compelled to extinguish freedom of the individual whenever they can?
Let's break down what the First Amendment actually means. Simply put, the government cannot take any steps to limit the free speech of the American people. We start with "government" and what it means. The courts have interpreted "government" to include all the instrumentalities of the government. In other words, every public university is clearly part of the government. If the University of California at Berkeley or Ohio State wants to limit free speech, the Constitution says it cannot. The next issue is whether or not a private university that is heavily funded by the public constitutes the "government". There is no point in describing exactly where the line is drawn but suffice to say that some so-called "private schools" are considered the government as well.
The next question is what constitutes "free speech". It is not acceptable or protected speech to engage in a crime. For example, walking into a bank and yelling "This is a robbery!" is not protected speech. The line can be hard exactly to define in certain circumstances, but it is clear that political speech is protected. Advocating for one policy or another is the essence of protected free speech.
So what of Post's argument that a university can determine proper content before allowing speech? It flies in the face of the established meaning of the First Amendment. If Penn State or the University of Connecticut want to bar left wing or right wing speakers from campus in the name of "proper content", they would be acting illegally. That's not a difficult concept to grasp. Post certainly knows the rules; you don't get to be dean of Yale Law School without understanding them. Nevertheless, Post is pushing a bogus argument to justify a totalitarian approach towards speech. Why do liberals feel so threatened by those who do not agree with them? Is it because they know that they cannot win in the battle of ideas? Or is it that the totalitarian impulses of the left are so strong that they just feel compelled to extinguish freedom of the individual whenever they can?
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