There are many groups, no doubt, on every university’s campus that someone else on the campus thinks are wrong. The point of Freedom of Speech is to get the government out of the business of deciding what is good and what is bad, and state universities are agents of the state.”

True, but understand that being an agent of the state is not the same as ‘being the held to the same standards as a legislature or a judiciary would be’. The army is also an agent of the state, but there’s nothing with there being, say, ‘free speech’ constraints against backtalking against your superior officer. Similarly, a public university is funded by the state, but it is allowed to its own policies to achieve what it sees to be its social objective. A university’s job isn’t merely to ‘protect’ its students, but also to make them comfortable and welcomed to a degree far beyond the obligations of the other arms of the State. If this means a particular group of lowlife antagonizers get censored, if you want to call it that, in a manner that would be blatantly illegal if done by the federal government, then that means the university has committed an infraction with about the moral gravity of double parking.

I don’t know the specifics, but are they going to keep the group from making its statements, or stop the university’s endorsement of it? For students to not want their student fees to fund hate speech doesn’t mean that the hate speech can’t be made.

For the university’s behavior to be censorship doesn’t require that the group can’t make their statements. Taking away money that goes to every other group is more than sufficient, and I hope they win a nice fat suit against the university.

There are many groups, no doubt, on every university’s campus that someone else on the campus thinks are wrong. The point of Freedom of Speech is to get the government out of the business of deciding what is good and what is bad, and state universities are agents of the state.

SFSU is planning to conduct a hearing after which that group could lose certain rights they had previously. That’s censorship, not merely criticism.

I don’t know the specifics, but are they going to keep the group from making its statements, or stop the university’s endorsement of it? For students to not want their student fees to fund hate speech doesn’t mean that the hate speech can’t be made.

*yeah, i dunno either

Done!

I stuck in the live preview because it was quick and easy; I may look into replacing it with a “preview” button, though, because I know some folks’ computers slow down when they hit the “live preview” javascript.

This thread was before my time, so apologies if you’ve answered this elsewhere, but where did the preview option go?

So the issue then is that the right is claiming censorship instead of claiming an attempt to silence?

Censoring:

Your article will not be printed. You will be forbidden to appear in public. Your printing press will be confiscated.

Attempting to silence:

“Hey, shut up!” When you appear in public, I will boo your speech. I will tell my friends that your newspaper is wicked and they should not read it.

Your article will not be printed. You will be forbidden to appear in public. Your printing press will be confiscated.

There is a big difference between censoring & attempting to silence.

I believe that there are very few types of speech that are not protected, such as yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Strictly speaking, yelling fire in a crowded theater is protected speech. However, falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech.

I believe that there are very few types of speech that are not protected, such as yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Ann Coulter certainly called it treasonous. She was not the only one.