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In New Haven, it’s not free speech if you hurt someone’s feelings
American Thinker ^ | 13 May, 2025 | Andrea Widburg

Posted on 05/14/2025 6:28:20 AM PDT by MtnClimber

In New Haven, Connecticut, home to Yale University, a conservative woman spent a year embroiled in the criminal justice system based on the allegation that she had hurled a racial slur at someone. Ultimately, the case was dismissed because videos proved her innocence, but the whole case perfectly illustrates how leftists are destroying free speech by redefining the line between speech and violence.

Lauren Noble, the founder of the Buckley Institute, which exists to “promot[e] intellectual diversity at Yale University,” was arrested a year ago. The charge? She allegedly used a racial slur against a parking attendant:

The charges stem from incidents that occurred on July 6, July 13 and July 27 in 2023.

The parking attendant, Gerno Allen, who is a Black man, told police Noble called him a racist slur when he encountered her alone on July 6 and July 13, 2023 at the 58 Wall St. parking lot where he worked, according to the warrant for the woman’s arrest.

He claimed Noble called him the same racist slur again on July 27, 2023 after his manager spoke to her about him, the warrant said.

SNIP

There were a few problems with this allegation and her subsequent arrest and prosecution. As Noble explains in an essay she wrote for the New York Post,

I denied it. I asked the cops to check the parking lot’s surveillance video.

They didn’t — and the state charged me first with disorderly conduct, then with three counts of breach of peace in the second degree.

[snip]

When the state finally obtained the video footage I had asked the police to view before arresting me — footage that had been accessible all along — it showed me, on multiple dates, calmly parking, getting out of my car and walking away.

No confrontation

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: leftism
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To: MtnClimber
The parking attendant, Gerno Allen, who is a Black man, told police Noble called him a racist slur when he encountered her alone

“You low-down no-good racist slur!”

21 posted on 05/14/2025 7:15:31 AM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn’t become your biography, what good is it?)
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To: Ex-Con777

😃😄🤣🤣😜😛🤪🤪🤪


22 posted on 05/14/2025 7:19:13 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: MtnClimber

So this lady was arrested for supposedly saying a naughty word. Let’s say she did say it (although she didn’t). That should get her banned from the property. But arrested? Nope.

I don’t know who first made the comment below. But he/she is very wise.

The First Amendment is meant to protect unpopular behavior. And that’s because popular behavior needs no protection.


23 posted on 05/14/2025 7:19:57 AM PDT by Leaning Right (It’s morning in America. Again.)
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To: econjack

“..the plaintiff should pay all of the defendant’s legal costs associated with the case...”

^THAT^ right there would stop a lot of that BS.
She should turn around and counter-sue the daylights out of him, the police and the company.


24 posted on 05/14/2025 7:21:54 AM PDT by lgjhn23 ("On the 8th day, Satan created the progressive liberal to destroy all the good that God created...")
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To: MtnClimber

The problem is, ANYONE can accuse anyone else of hurting their feelings.

The left even goes as far as *Silence is Violence*.

So whether you speak or not, someone’s feelings are allegedly getting hurt.


25 posted on 05/14/2025 7:45:19 AM PDT by metmom ( He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.")
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To: metmom

> The left even goes as far as *Silence is Violence*. <

Yep. And to make it more interesting (and not in a good way), the left is constantly changing the rules. We saw that during the French Revolution. What was a mandatory belief one day could lead you to the guillotine the next.

In our case:

Last year: You must buy a Tesla! If you don’t, you’re a monster.
Now: You must not buy a Tesla! If you do, you’re a monster.


26 posted on 05/14/2025 7:54:54 AM PDT by Leaning Right (It’s morning in America. Again.)
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To: MtnClimber

Been this way in the UK for some time now. But America has a 1st Amendment, and if the shitstains on the SC will do their job, we won’t have the problem here.


27 posted on 05/14/2025 7:55:17 AM PDT by Democrat = party of treason
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To: Leaning Right

Exactly.

The whole tactic is to keep the right off balance and on the defensive.

We need to stop participating in their games and bowing to their tactics.


28 posted on 05/14/2025 8:02:41 AM PDT by metmom ( He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.")
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To: MtnClimber

The existence of Yale hurts my feelings. Shut it down.


29 posted on 05/14/2025 8:04:37 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (The road is a dangerous place man, you can die out here...or worse. -Johnny Paycheck, 1980, Reno, NV)
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To: MtnClimber

Bogus headline. What happened isn’t about free speech. It’s about how white people are not only often the victims of racism but are also frequently falsely accused of it.


30 posted on 05/14/2025 8:07:31 AM PDT by unlearner (Still not tired of winning.)
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To: MtnClimber

She should obviously file a civil suit. Firstly, even a cursory examination of available evidence would have shown that she had had no interaction with the accuser. Secondly, even if she had, calling somebody a nasty name is not a crime. This was a case of malicious prosecution. She should be entitled to hefty damages.


31 posted on 05/14/2025 8:16:48 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: MtnClimber
When the state finally obtained the video footage I had asked the police to view before arresting me

About the only thing that surprises me about this story is that the video footage was preserved and not destroyed.

32 posted on 05/14/2025 8:35:02 AM PDT by libertylover (The HBM (Has Been Media) is almost all AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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To: MtnClimber

I remember a little paperback with the title, “It’s Fun To Be A Polack”. I was just a kid when one of my dad’s younger brothers happened to borrow it from a friend of his. They gathered in the basement kitchen to browse through it and it didn’t seem like such a big deal then, but hey, it was the ‘60s!


33 posted on 05/14/2025 8:40:15 AM PDT by equaviator (If 60 is the new 40 then 35 must be the new 15.)
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To: libertylover

Agree, and thankfully there was video footage to begin with. Without proof she would always be known as the lady that was mean to the black guy.


34 posted on 05/14/2025 9:28:47 AM PDT by ken in texas
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To: dfwgator

Peace Frog. Great tune!


35 posted on 05/14/2025 9:47:36 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there)
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To: MtnClimber

This is the path the UK is on. The State gets to subjectively decide if something said is a ‘crime’.

Free Speech MUST have broad reach, where the only limits are ‘calls to violence’ or ‘inciting panic that causes unnecessary harm’ (shout ‘fire’ in theater). Outside that, any restrictions mean you don’t have free speech and the State gets to imprison people for ‘hurty words’...as they subjectively interpret them. Which is an endlessly slippery slope that governments cannot be trusted with.

Anything can be contorted into some bizarrely interpreted meaning.

E.g. “Please speak English” = “interpreted as racial hatred” = “crime”

It’s nuts. You should be able to be the biggest a**hole you want, offend everyone on everything...not a crime. Everyone else has the right to hate and avoid you. Anyone that thinks the State gets to stick their nose into it doesn’t understand freedom, period.


36 posted on 05/14/2025 9:52:42 AM PDT by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing of poor moral choices among everybody)
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To: ChildOfThe60s

37 posted on 05/14/2025 10:03:31 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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