Posted on 11/16/2001 1:15:21 PM PST by rw4site
ROBERT Jensen is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, but if a gaggle of irate Texans get their way, he won't be for long. He's one of a handful of academics who are protesting the war in Afghanistan and have been denouncing it loudly at campus rallies. He's gone so far as to call the United States a terrorist nation ("U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts," Outlook, Sept. 14) and to opine that our conflict abroad is a "war of lies, the culmination of a decade of U.S. aggression."
As Gregg Easterbrook reported recently in the Wall Street Journal, a letter-writing campaign is calling for the university to fire Jensen. Other campuses are similarly aflame. New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser recently denounced the City College of New York as "a breeding ground for idiots" after several faculty members voiced similar anti-American opinions.
Conservative pundits have pounced on this issue with a vengeance, arguing that while the First Amendment gives professors such as Jensen the right to say what they like, it doesn't shield them from the consequences of saying it.
This is true sometimes but not always. What really matters is whether the consequences are incidental or severe.
Incidental consequences are often unpleasant; the kinds of reactions you can expect when you say something asinine or unpopular in public. People ostracize you, write letters denouncing you, call you an idiot, as Peyser did the New York professors. This is fair play. After all, the critic has a right to free speech as well.
Severe consequences are something else altogether. They include things such as putting a gun to the speaker's head or threatening the speaker's livelihood. Firing professors such as Jensen for things they say at anti-war rallies falls into this category. You can fire a professor because he's a bad or unqualified teacher, but you shouldn't be able to fire him because he expresses unpopular views. Otherwise, the First Amendment would be meaningless. After all, how free can your speech be if your job is in peril if you say the wrong thing?
Yanking advertisements from network television shows should also be unconstitutional. This happened recently to Bill Maher, host of the late-night talk show Politically Incorrect, after he said a few politically incorrect things about the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack.
Why do I believe that rescinding ad revenue constitutes censorship? Don't advertisers have the right to advertise when and where they please?
Because Maher's show depends on advertising money for its survival, the advertisers were not just registering their discontent (they could have done that in a written statement), they were knowingly jeopardizing the show and thereby attempting to silence the speaker by forcing him off the air.
Of course, there is no law that prevents advertisers from revoking their support for shows. But if we are going to remain true to the spirit of the First Amendment, we should pass one.
A show's livelihood should not depend on its purveyance of correct speech, even when we're at war.
Advertisers should be forced, by contract, to commit their advertisements for a specified amount of time, regardless of what happens on a show. Either that or the networks should use a small portion of all advertising revenues for an insurance fund to cover pullouts. Otherwise Madison Avenue is, in effect, playing Big Brother.
Denouncing someone for his views is kosher. But intimidation and coercion -- including the kind of economic coercion that threatens jobs and livelihoods -- are censorship, however you spin it.
Does this "reporter" then believe that I can come to work and call asian-americans "gooks" and not be fired? After all, I have a free-speech right to say unpopular things, and there should be a law that I cannot be fired for saying such things. Of course, my employer could be continually sued for not stopping me, but the free-speech law would not allow them to fire or discipline me. This is brilliant. I geuss I could walk up to the president of the company and call him an **shole and be protected by the free-speech job guarantee law. What a wonderful world this would be.
Or, as I would surmise, does the reporter believe that only certain opinions should be protected with this free-speech job-guarantee law? I.e., he and his liberal friends would decide what speech deserves the job-guarantee protection. I wonder.
Are you saying that rewarding professors for conforming to the views dominant at certain moment (such views will be used as a standard of promotion/dismissal/retention) and pusnishing those who differ will improve the quality of education? And will it increase freedom in Amercian society?
Advertisers should be forced, by contract, to commit their advertisements for a specified amount of time, regardless of what happens on a show. Either that or the networks should use a small portion of all advertising revenues for an insurance fund to cover pullouts. Otherwise Madison Avenue is, in effect, playing Big Brother.
Amazing. Make speech free by forcing others to pay for it, whether they want to or not. Move over, Orwell...
regards
I'm not a Holocaust-denier, but some would limit any discussion about actual numbers, motivations, etc. to only the Received Truth.
Better watch out, agreeing with me can get you banned around here.
Chilling effect on free speech? No, but it might make some of these free riders think a bit before flapping their gums a bit.
Clearly, you have no clue what the University is supposed to be about. Professors should not be just a bunch of hirelings giving the expensive job training. Tenure is a way to secure the free inquiry and experimentation at the price of toleration of many idiots, loonies etc. But the edifice of Western civilisation has some costs. Keep your hand away you ignorant barbarian!
They are free to speak,a s long as they don't advocate treason or insurrection, etc.
They do NOT, however,
have an absolute "RIGHT" to a "JOB" (that is a bizarre notion and reflects spoiled, confused, fuzzy, and appallingly ARROGGANT(!) thinking),
--- and they have the responsibility of being ACCOUNTABLE for their views and must,
--- like the men they never are,
be accountable and take the CONSEQUENCES of expressing their opinions,
just as Throeau and otthers have always said was the case!
They are free to speak,a s long as they don't advocate treason or insurrection, etc.
They do NOT, however,
have an absolute "RIGHT" to a "JOB" (that is a bizarre notion and reflects spoiled, confused, fuzzy, and appallingly ARROGGANT(!) thinking),
--- and they have the responsibility of being ACCOUNTABLE for their views and must,
--- like the men they never are,
be accountable and take the CONSEQUENCES of expressing their opinions,
just as Throeau and otthers have always said was the case!
They are free to speak,a s long as they don't advocate treason or insurrection, etc.
They do NOT, however,
have an absolute "RIGHT" to a "JOB" (that is a bizarre notion and reflects spoiled, confused, fuzzy, and appallingly ARROGGANT(!) thinking),
--- and they have the responsibility of being ACCOUNTABLE for their views and must,
--- like the men they never are,
be accountable and take the CONSEQUENCES of expressing their opinions,
just as Throeau and otthers have always said was the case!
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