Free Republic

Faculty said they felt trapped in an ‘alternate reality’ when trying to navigate the college’s ‘toxic’ DEI environment.. College students attending universities with restrictive speech codes are used to walking on eggshells and keeping their heads down on campus out of fear of committing social suicide or experiencing violence. In the disordered world of contemporary higher education, Jewish students receive limited, if any, support from school administrators amid explicit calls for violence against them, while other students face punishment for banal infractions like rolling a “free speech ball” around campus. But if you are shocked at how students are subject...

Most college students in the United States should be able to expect that freedom of expression will be upheld on their campuses. Public institutions are legally bound by the First Amendment, and the vast majority of private institutions promise their students free speech rights. However, FIRE’s annual review of our Spotlight database of speech codes reveals most schools maintain policies that infringe on those rights. Of the 486 schools included in FIRE’s Spotlight database, 94 earn an overall “red light” rating for maintaining policies that clearly and substantially restrict free speech. 324 earn an overall “yellow light” rating for maintaining...

A UK police force has backed down and announced it is scrapping its so-called hate crime awareness courses following backlash over the arrest of a British ex-serviceman, Sky News host Rowan Dean says. "Last week a British ex-serviceman was threatened and harassed by the British police for reposting an anti-transgender meme on Twitter," Mr Dean said. Mr Dean said Reclaim Party Leader Laurence Fox and the party's Chairman Harry Miller attended the scene in defence of the army veteran. "Harry was arrested – and then released," he said. "The police realising they had gone too far backed down. And only...

The P.C. culture of the '80s and '90s didn't decline and fall. It just went underground. Now it's back. The 1994 movie PCU, about a rebellious fraternity resisting its politically correct university, was a milestone. Not because the movie was especially good—it wasn't. It was a milestone because it showed that political correctness had officially become a joke. The derisive term "P.C." had referred to a genuine and powerful force on campus for the previous decade. But by the mid-1990s, it had become the butt of jokes from across the political spectrum. The production of a mainstream movie mocking political...

“Too many universities and school systems are about radical left indoctrination, not education. Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt status and/or funding, which will be taken away if this propaganda or act against public policy continues. Our children must be educated, not indoctrinated!” -President Trump on free speech on college campuses. Remember that part in the previous section where I mentioned that because universities take public funding (even many private ones), they have to follow federal policy? Well this is one way they enforce their rules. By using the power of the purse. So, if...

Twitter's planned October surprise is here. With mere weeks to go before Americans head to the polls, the social media company unveiled new speech codes further editorializing content on their platform to interfere in U.S. elections. Under the guise of stopping whatever it declares to be "misinformation," Twitter announced on Friday that the tech giant is implementing temporary speech codes that will last until Americans cast their ballots. Starting Oct. 20, users will be required to add comments before being allowed to retweet posts (speech). The goal of the new speech codes is to slow the spread of certain speech...

WTNH) — One of the UConn students charged with saying a racial slur outside campus housing will be in court on Thursday. RELATED: College student seeks to have racist slur charge erased 21-year-old Ryan Mucaj is expected to enter a plea. Mucaj and 21-year-old Jarred Karal were arrested after that video surfaced of them yelled that slur. They’re both charged with racial ridicule for the October incident. The pair could face up to 30 days in prison.

The Department of Justice sided with college students reprimanded for promoting free speech by slamming Jones County Junior College’s “Orwellian,” “draconian,” and “unconstitutional” treatment of them in a Statement of Interest filed on Monday. The DOJ made explicitly clear that public colleges cannot “trample” on their students’ First Amendment rights. In a news release from the DOJ announcing the Statement of Interest filing, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division clearly stated, “Repressive speech codes are the indecent hallmark of despotic, totalitarian regimes. They have absolutely no place in our country, and the First Amendment outlaws all...

Over the past 10 years, Facebook’s guidelines on what content should be banned has grown from one page to 1,400, which is more pages than many Bibles. Laurence Dodds of the Telegraph newspaper of London went inside the room where the social-media giant decides what its 2.3 billion users can and cannot see, the Media Research Center noted in a blog post. The book is only for the internal use of some 15,000 content moderators. Dodd said the Content Standards Forum — comprised of representatives from Facebook’s policy, research, software design and content moderation teams — meets every two weeks...

Union College president David R. Harris penned an op-ed, entitled, “A Campus Is Not the Place for Free Speech,” in which he argues that it is the role of colleges and universities to filter the conversations on campuses to provide “constructive engagement.”

Written in 1903, the University of Texas fight song’s opening lyrics are “The Eyes of Texas are upon you/All the livelong day.” Unfortunately, for many on campus, the sentiments expressed are more than just a catchy tune—it’s a frightening reality. Thanks to four policies that the school maintains—a verbal harassment ban, an Acceptable Use Policy governing internet & digital use, a Residence Hall Manual, and a “Campus Climate Response Team”—the eyes of the University of Texas really are on students, keeping tabs on their speech all the time, everywhere. First: UT’s ban on “verbal harassment.” Contained in the school’s Institutional...

(CNSNews.com) – Europe’s top human rights court has ruled that comments about Mohammed having pedophilic tendencies are not covered by the right to freedom of expression, agreeing with the assessment of courts in Austria that the remarks constituted “an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace.” A seven-judge European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) panel in Strasbourg concluded that the Austrian courts had “carefully balanced the applicant’s right to freedom of expression with the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected, and to have religious peace preserved in Austrian...

A Republican congressman from Minnesota has a long history of making deeply misogynistic comments on the radio, including lamenting that women can no longer be called "sluts." CNN's KFile reviewed several months of audio from Rep. Jason Lewis on the "Jason Lewis Show," a syndicated radio program Lewis hosted from 2009 until 2014 with the tagline "America's Mr. Right." In one instance, while arguing that "young single women" vote based on coverage of birth control pills, Lewis said those women were not human beings and were without brains. Lewis, who was narrowly elected to represent Minnesota's 2nd District in 2016,...

The Washington Post published an article Thursday that called for a constitutional amendment to ban inequality and racist speech. As part of the publication’s series published Thursday called, “Fix this democracy—now, 38 ideas for repairing our badly broken civic life,” the Post featured author Ibram X. Kendi’s proposal for “A Constitutional Amendment On Equality.” Kendi writes that the United States needs, “an Anti-Bigotry Amendment that would constitutionalize a critical principle: Group inequity is evidence of discrimination.” “The amendment would make group inequity illegal and ban the incitement of bigotry, as the incitement of anti-Semitism is banned in Germany. Claims that...

Official says incident shows need for open talks about policies to support freedom of expression Dalhousie University is withdrawing disciplinary action against a student over a post she made to Facebook in the summer about Canada 150 celebrations. A complaint was made against student union vice-president Masuma Khan, who posted "white fragility can kiss my ass. Your white tears aren't sacred, this land is." Over the summer, the student union voted 'not' to participate in Canada 150 celebrations. When the motion passed, Khan faced a backlash. That's when she posted her comments on Facebook. The university received a complaint about...

California can now start jailing people that refuse to use the preferred gender pronouns of nursing home residents after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill Thursday. The law’s effect is limited to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, but mandates that those who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse “to use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” can be slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code. Known as the “LGBT Senior Bill Of Rights,” the legislation also requires nursing homes and care facilities to allow residents...

California can now start jailing people that refuse to use the preferred gender pronouns of nursing home residents after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill Thursday.

Parents warned of elementary educators' 'brazen' indoctrination plan! The influential Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., is warning parents of “brazen” indoctrination plans being pursued by teachers, even in elementary schools. The latest instance, FRC explains, is in Florida, where a fifth-grade teacher sent home a note to parents mandating that students use only politically correct pronouns in class. “One thing that you should know about me is that I use gender neutral terms. My prefix is Mx. (pronounced Mix). Additionally, my pronouns are ‘they, them, their’ instead of ‘he, his, she, hers.'” The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported math and...

It’s not just crazy places like the University of California at Berkeley where surprisingly large numbers of U.S. college students believe that violence and shouting are acceptable methods to prevent people from saying things. Fifty-one percent of all U.S. college students believe shouting is an acceptable response to free speech, and one in five (19 percent) believe violence is an acceptable response, according to results from a national survey of 1,500 students in 49 states and DC. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents said colleges should “create a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech or expression of...

Leaders of the student newspaper at Princeton University have disbanded the publication’s independent editorial board, a move that comes after the group put forth a string of right-leaning opinions, including denouncing the women’s center for its radical feminist agenda and arguing in favor of due process.