Free speech
About a year ago, an organization called the Leadership Institute and Turning Point, USA, two groups active on the University of New Mexico campus, planned to host speaker Riley Gaines. Gaines is a former championship swimmer who now advocates for keeping biological men out of women’s sports. The groups submitted their request to the University. The University said they would allow Gaines to speak, but that the organizations were required to use and pay for university security services, rather than relying on the private security Gaines travels with. The university security service estimated that the security would require every campus police officer and that the bill would be over ten thousand dollars. This was prohibitively expensive for the sponsoring organizations. When the conservative organizations asked security services for more specifics, the service advised that they had no set standards for when university security must be used, or for how much security would be necessary. Remarkably, the security director advised that he charged similarly high fees for other conservative speakers, but did not charge any fees for the recent campus screening of the Barbie movie. The conservative organizations sued arguing that if Barbie gets to go free then so do they.
A Federal District Court Judge for the District of New Mexico agreed this week that the Leadership Institute and TP USA made a good case for going forward with their lawsuit. You can read the decision here. The Judge wrote, “Plaintiffs have shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their overbreadth claim because the security fee policy does not contain limiting language that includes ‘narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards,’ and it does not include anything to prevent UNM administrators from exercising their discretion in a content-based manner.” Translation: the lawsuit can go forward because it looks like the University is using a vague security policy to censor speech on campus.
More free speech
This week, Former Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at a panel at the World Economic Forum and was remarkably candid about his disdain for free speech. Addressing issues about social media, Kerry said, “You know there’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etc. But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda, and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence. So, what we need to do is win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” You can watch the clip here.
When Mr. Kerry says “disinformation” he means conservative viewpoints he disagrees with. And he very plainly states that if given control, people that think like him plan to formalize the censorship of conservative speech. He is right in one respect, however. The First Amendment does stand as a major block to that effort. Thank goodness.
Still more free speech
Stanford University has a new president, Jonathan Levin. At his inauguration, Levin spoke about recommitting the university to the free speech principles upon which it was founded. Stanford’s motto, Levin reminded the students, is “The wind of freedom blows.” His speech comes at a time when wokism and cancel culture dominates college campuses. It comes at a time when many universities have abandoned core principles and embraced leftist political activism. On this point, Levin said, “To be clear, we want Stanford’s students and faculty to engage with the world. We expect them to wrestle with social and political issues. We hope they will have an influence on the direction of society, pursue public service, and tackle pressing issues of our time. Yet the university’s purpose is not political action or social justice. It is to create an environment in which learning thrives.” Let’s hope he is able to follow through on his vision. You can read the entire speech here.
Crime
Starting this week, it became a crime to keep an unregistered chicken in the U.K. No kidding. Click here if you don’t believe me. If you own a chicken in Britain, even just one, you must register it with the government. Many Brits are complaining about this. Some disagree that it’s any of the government’s business. One lady, Jane Howorth, of the British Hen Welfare Trust, expressed concern that the registration requirement would deter people from accepting rescue chickens. As an aside, if you are moved to “rehome” a chicken, you may follow this link to the BHWT website. The site also has fun games and activities related to chicken rescue.
I guess the U.K. is serious about chickens. In contrast, I was in the Salem, Indiana Post Office this week and a shipment of chickens had recently arrived. We have many Amish in our community, and they commonly buy chickens and have them shipped through the postal service. As I stood in line, I enjoyed a chorus of chirping chicks in the background. Occasionally, a rooster would crow. No registration required. God Bless America.
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