Posted on 04/08/2005 3:50:04 AM PDT by StoneGiant
Freedom of speech at UNH — and the lack thereof
By WENDY McELROY
Guest Commentary
ON MARCH 22, University of New Hampshire student David Huffman spoke out in The New Hampshire, UNH’s student newspaper, against being excluded from an on-campus public event. He was excluded for being male. The incident spotlights the shell game being run on state campuses across North America under the guise of free speech.
As a student, Huffman’s fees paid for the public forum from which he was barred. As taxpayers, his family underwrote his being treated like a black in the pre-bellum South.
Critical commentary on the incident has dwelled upon freedom of speech. But such commentaries miss the deeper point that “freedom of speech” and “tax-funding” are antagonistic concepts.
But, first, the facts of the Huffman incident:
On March 10, a “Patriarchy Slam” was held by the radical Feminist Action League (FAL) in a room reserved by a second and recognized student group. (The significance of this is that the free room was used in violation of UNH policy.) Posters across the campus advertised the meeting as a public event, with no indication of “women only.”
Patriarchy Slam expressed radical anti-male feminism. For example, some FAL members wore scissors around their necks as they sang in praise of castration. One member, who identified herself as Mary Man-Hating-Is-Fun, told the gathering, “Ever since I learned to embrace my feminist nature, I found great joy in threatening men’s lives. because I see them for what they are: misogynistic, sexist, oppressive and absurdly pathetic beings who only serve to pollute and contaminate this world.”
Huffman claims that the coordinator advised him “as a man I would be intimidating.” Thus, when the open-microphone segment began, Huffman was instructed to leave even though he had caused no disruption. Other men remained but, according to Huffman, he was told they had “allegiance to the FAL.”
Moreover, he explains, FAL “confiscated my program. Evidently, they do not want the public knowing what was said that night. What I heard was a hate rally.”
Huffman is a journalist for the privately funded conservative student paper Common Sense (www.commonsenseunh.com); FAL claims he was excluded as a journalist, not as a man. But, then, why was Shannon O’Neil, a female reporter for The New Hampshire, allowed to stay?
Moreover, Anne Lawing, vice president for student affairs at UNH, comments, “This was a public event, and to turn anyone away is simply wrong. If you’re a man you shouldn’t be turned away. If you’re a reporter, you shouldn’t be turned away.”
Lawing also raises freedom of speech. “We’re talking about their rights (FAL’s rights) and the First Amendment.”
But FAL members have no First Amendment right to express themselves at taxpayer expense at a venue that has been improperly obtained. FAL has no First Amendment right to exclude well behaved “others” from public property because of their views. (FAL member Nicole Whalen later stated, “women didn’t want to speak in front of him (Huffman)” because “we knew he was a conservative writer from ‘Common Sense,’ and we knew his intentions weren’t genuine.”)
When asked if a fratboy event that called for the mutilation of female genitalia would be tolerated, Lawing replied, “We have so much data that shows that fraternities have been violent with women in the past and the instances of women being violent to men happen so infrequently.”
Unbiased research shows that women commit violence with significant frequency. Moreover, so-called “hate speech” does not become actionable at UNH only if accompanied by a record of criminal assault.
Freedom of speech in the private sphere means that you have the right to express yourself at your own expense. But everyone is forced to pay for the UNH campus, and so everyone should have an equal right to speak. That’s the theory.
But implementing this theory is impossible. A podium is a limited good that must be “assigned” by authorities. In short, even if unlimited access to scarce podiums were possible, the authorities would not permit it. This is the contradiction inherent in trying to reconcile the terms “free speech” and “tax funding.”
The solution is simple: privatize. Just as Huffman’s conservative paper is privately funded, so, too, should scissor-wielding feminists be forced to finance their own pro-castration agenda. That would be freedom of speech. That would constitute the exercise of First Amendment rights.
Wendy McElroy writes a column on feminism for FOX News.
UNH has been sliding into a pit of PC and liberal degenercy for the last decade. A friend's son was threatened by black students for articles on how race-based preferences for room assignments were discriminatory. It was no surprise when no one in the administration would take action on the threats. Glad I never had anyone attend there.
It's amazing that anyone takes those fem loonies serious. If it wasn't for the synchophants in the press that reverently repeat every word and cover every activity that has a "feminist" claim to it, those clowns would be permanently reduced to the laughingstock that they are.
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