If a student were to walk off the Harvard campus and onto a street in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and argue for the genocide of Jews, the U.S. Constitution would bar prosecuting her for hate speech. If the same student left her perch on the sidewalk and returned to the Harvard campus to continue […] … learn more→

For decades, U.S. courts have ruled that public school students “do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate,” as the Supreme Court said in 1968. In that case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, the justices held that high school students who were suspended for protesting […] … learn more→

After a high school cheerleader in Pennsylvania dropped a series of F-bombs about her school in a Snapchat post over a weekend in the spring of 2017, she was suspended from the cheerleading team and sued the school district, claiming the suspension violated her First Amendment rights. Social media has an ever-growing presence in students’ daily lives. As a […] … learn more→

Free speech, a staple of modern democracy, has become the focal point for political and cultural forces impacting the university. Universities thrive in an environment of open inquiry. But recent controversies in universities around the globe expose the difficulties of crafting a strong position on free speech in this polarized time. Partly these controversies are a demonstration […] … learn more→

I write often of the culture of fear on campus…because I get reminders how that fear only increases: Making jokes at Portland State gets you reported to its bias response team I know, “I was just joking” is the age-old cry of the bully, and I was very much a target of the endless anti-intellectual […] … learn more→

I’ve mentioned many times the lockdown the Left (aka “Progressives,” among other names for them) has on our campuses, but you sure don’t read about it much in the news. I hardly cover specific cases, myself, unless it leads to a riot or something. Thus, I understand if the gentle reader doesn’t believe me when […] … learn more→

Free speech is in the news. Not least because several leading universities have adopted a “model code” to protect it on campus. And then there’s the Israel Folau saga, and debate over whether his Instagram post was free speech, or just hate speech. If the Bible is to be believed, humans have sought knowledge since Eve. They have […] … learn more→

Trump recently issued an executive order denying Federal funds to campuses which restrict free speech. It’s a bit toothless, since it would only affect research funds (i.e., not the bread-and-butter of student loan money), and doesn’t define “restrict” well…but it highlights that we clearly have a problem on our campuses, even as I acknowledge that […] … learn more→

It has now become customary for academics to debate the line between free speech and hate speech. Yale, for instance, recently hosted a panel discussion whose central topic was the difference between hate speech and free speech and “the point where one shifts into the other.” The distinction has already been debated throughout the academy, […] … learn more→

The idea of universities being a “safe space” was until recently an issue that was unique to the US. Now the UK has experienced an upswing in incidents in which so-called “safe space” policies have reportedly threatened the right to free speech in British universities. Closely tied to the concept of “no-platforming” – where speakers […] … learn more→