They are rights negotiated out of the barrel of a rifle.
The author is an idiot, but he represents a large group of influential idiots running academies, think tanks and businesses.
The threat of bad ideas is obvious to us and would, if there were a free market of ideas, have been disposed of long ago and recognized for trash today. Instead our government school system which reaches deep into graduate school repackages this stupidity and insulates it promulgators from harm or retribution.
Excellent comment! Exactly "right"!