Turning The Tables on Campus- Anti-Free Speech Codes, A Creative Strategy to Use Progressives’ Anti-Free Speech Codes

Do you think that the First Amendment protects your right of free speech at American colleges and universities?  Think again.  The political Left – or as Kirsten Powers labels them, the “Illiberal Left” in her insightful new book, “The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech”, has been working tirelessly to clamp down on free speech rights on campus, and viciously attacks anyone who doesn’t parrot their radical progressive beliefs and world view.

According to scathing new report from FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, more than half of America’s colleges and universities – 55% - maintain severely restrictive speech codes—policies that clearly and substantially prohibit protected speech. These speech codes often include entirely unconstitutional “free speech zones”, where free speech is only permitted in extremely restricted areas and at restricted times, as governed by the schools. 

This anti-free speech movement has been fueled significantly by the Obama Administration to undermine both students' and faculty free speech rights here in the US. There is a  “federal blueprint” - in the form of a joint letter from the Departments of Education and Justice to the University of Montana - states that only an overly broad definition of sexual harassment—"unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature"—will now satisfy federal statutory requirements. This explicitly includes "verbal conduct," which is otherwise known as free speech.  Now, everyone on a college campus has the “right not to be offended”.  Huh?

Ask someone on a date who says no?  You may be guilty of sexual harassment.  Make a sexually charged joke as part of your comedy act?  Yes, that could be harassment, and expect heavy-handed disciplinary action from the university. Dare to assign a book that a student might find offensive?  Gotcha – harassment, and your tenure as a professor is now in jeopardy.

No wonder why great comedians like Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld have made headlines with their refusal to perform on US college campuses, citing the overly PC student audience with no tolerance for the slightest offense.  How does any comedy act possibly work under such impossible restrictions? We’re raising an entire generation of thin-skinned intolerant youths who will graduate with the expectation that they must never be offended by anyone when they leave college for the real world.

Just a couple of examples of these atrocious anti-free speech codes, according to a FIRE report:  At the public University of South Carolina, their campus speech code prohibits “teasing,” “ridiculing” and “insulting”.  The taxpayer-funded University of Connecticut requires all students and employees to “refrain from actions that intimidate, humiliate, or demean persons or groups, or that undermine their security or self-esteem.”   Really? So if you dare “insult” a progressive’s political views, or say anything critical in a class debate that undermines another student’s self-esteem, you’ll be cited and potentially disciplined or expelled.  What an education!

FIRE has done incredible work with many successes filing lawsuits against schools across America to protect free speech and combat these unconstitutional campus speech codes. 

Here’s another innovative idea:  let’s use these preposterous speech codes against these schools, until they wise up and rescind them on their own.  It will be cheaper than fighting a lawsuit, potentially more effective, and ideally embarrass the daylights out of these schools’ administrations – with the desired outcome of the anti-free speech codes being rescinded, one by one.

Here’s some ideas to try out:

-       You’re a “right to life” female student feeling threatened and your religious beliefs violently attacked – by attending a class where the issue of “choice” and abortion is discussed by progressive students and faculty.  You are having nightmares of doctors aborting and killing your unborn baby, and your security is severely threatened. All discussion and speech supporting “pro-choice” and abortion must be immediately banned on campus.

-       You’re a college male and have been made to feel demeaned and abused sexually by women on campus who have checked you out working out at the campus gym. These women’s dashing glances are surely sexual in nature.  You demand that no women be allowed in or near the campus gym, in order to preserve your rights and dignity and prevent this obvious sexual harassment.

-       You’re a woman who is feeling threatened while taking a class on the religion of Islam.  In this class, the Koran is required reading material, and it describes Mohammed’s marriage to a 6 year old girl and sex with her when she was 9, and countless other stories of Mohammed’s sanctioning of child rape, sex slaves and wife beating. You demand that the entire subject of Islam, and copies of the Koran, be completely banned from university as demeaning hate speech.

-       You’re a female student who has been asked out on a date by a male student. You feel extremely offended, humiliated and insulted when other students find out about this, because you believe your are clearly a “10”, whereas this man is, in your view, only a lowly “5” at best and no match for you.  Not a single other student should ever suffer from such an embarrassing encounter - you demand a complete and permanent ban on ANY college males asking ANY females out on a date so this never happens again.

-       You’re a Christian male student who is feeling intimidated and demeaned by liberal students and professors for expressing your religious points of view on family values and God.  You demand that all criticism of your faith and politically conservative beliefs ceases immediately, lest you feel demeaned and your self esteem lowered.

If you’re a student at one of these anti-free speech college campuses, try beating progressives at their own game by making them take some of their own bad medicine, and see how fast they change their intolerant speech codes.

http://news.yahoo.com/annual-report-shows-most-colleges-remain-anti-free-124822505.html

http://mic.com/articles/14516/5-worst-freedom-of-speech-violations-on-us-college-campuses

http://mic.com/articles/14516/5-worst-freedom-of-speech-violations-on-us-college-campuses