FIRE statement on campus censorship during nationwide protests

America s colleges are playing host to these same discussions. As a nonpartisan civil liberties organization committed to defending the free speech rights of college students and faculty members, FIRE is here to hold universities accountable to their moral and constitutional obligations, which in times of crisis are at their most, not least, important. Yet during this volatile time, FIRE has already seen a troubling number of institutions abandon these obligations, choosing to investigate and punish controversial speech.

Public universities are government agencies, legally required to uphold the First Amendment rights of students and faculty. While private institutions are usually not similarly bound by law, the vast majority of them promise free expression to students and faculty, and are therefore bound morally and contractually to honor those promises. These guarantees mean nothing, nor will they long endure or be respected, if they protect only those whose opinions happen to be in favor on a particular campus.

via www.thefire.org

You may have noticed that I have removed all references to my small but undeniably cute university on this blog, by the express permission of the Ringmaster of these law school oriented blogs, whose law school, according to some, is even cuter than my own. This is my one might say feeble attempt to buy me a few more years of what used to be regarded as good ol’ freedom of speech. We’ll see how that goes. But let me be clear, as a good Christian, or perhaps I should clarify, bad Christian, I love everybody, just as my torts teacher back at Yale, loved everybody, except perhaps his old property teacher, whom I agree, really was an absolute pill. Even those odious maggots in the Chinese Communist Party, I love in some way I am still trying to figure out. I hope I have made myself clear.