Free Republic

We have often discussed how cities and universities will use the threat of protests to block or shutdown free speech, particularly of conservative speakers or groups. We now have a major decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that could prove an important precedent in resisting the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. In Meinecke v. City of Seattle, the court ruled against Seattle in a case involving the arrest of a pro-life protester. Matthew Meinecke was harassed by Antifa and other counterprotesters, but police arrested Meineche when he refused to yield...

When I was a journalist, I loved Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s assertion that the Constitution and the First Amendment are not just about protecting “free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” But as a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech, I came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier. Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to...

Berkeley’s mayor is pressuring the town’s flagship university to cancel its upcoming “free speech week” just days after the school’s chancellor vowed to defend the First Amendment on campus. As Campus Reform previously reported, University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ welcomed students to campus last week with a forceful defense of free speech, vowing to “hold accountable” those who use violence to shut down speakers.

Even lifelong men and women on the Left are becoming concerned about the oppressive political climate on American college campuses. Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at the New York University's Stern School of Business, spoke about the roots of campus rage in light of the mob and "heckler’s veto" at Middlebury College and the University California-Berkeley. The Wall Street Journal published the interview, conducted by Bari Weiss, entitled, “The Cultural Roots of Campus Rage.” Haidt warned about this "new religion" of "true believers" in ideology. These believers "have reoriented their lives around the fight against evil,"...

Monks at a Lowcountry monastery are looking for a new source of income. Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery on the Cooper River, announced Thursday it will cease its egg production business following pressure from an animal rights group. The phaseout of the industry, which has sustained the brothers for more than 40 years, comes after attacks by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Earlier this year, and again this week, PETA charged that the birds at Mepkin Abbey were caged in cramped quarters and suffered inhumane practices. PETA urged shoppers to boycott Mepkin Abbey eggs, which are sold at...

Some Columbia University students who disrupted a speech in October by Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist with a wild protest could be expelled. The school's President Lee Bollinger says the students are being charged with breaking the school's code of conduct, and they will meet with a dean who will decide their fate. Bollinger also says protesters who do not attend Columbia are now banned from campus. Gilchrist was forced to cut his speech short.

MADISON, WI (AP) -- Madison police did not violate the civil rights of a Monroe pastor when they told him to take his anti-homosexual banners off highway overpasses in 2003, a federal appeals court ruled. The ruling Monday by a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, upheld a December ruling by U.S. District Judge John Shabaz. That court said it was the spectacle and the traffic hazard the protest caused, rather than the message, that prompted Madison police to remove Ralph Ovadal, pastor of Pilgrims Covenant Church, and his group. The banners stating...

Bill O'Reilly is covering the Columbia University controversy where leftists protesters rushed the stage during his top-of-the-hour Talking Points segment, and one of the speakers, Marvin Stewart, is being interviewed.

HEALTH Minister Tony Abbott says he is disappointed by the cancellation of a debate at a New South Wales university on the Government's controversial voluntary student unionism (VSU) legislation due to police concerns over his safety. Mr Abbott has been forced to withdraw from today's debate at Sydney University after the NSW Police Service admitted it could not guarantee his safety. In an unprecedented move, a senior NSW police officer wrote to Mr Abbott instructing him to cancel his debate with Labor MP Julia Gillard due to an unacceptably high risk of violence by protesters. But Mr Abbott today said...