Posts Tagged ‘freedom of speech’
Washington State gets message on bias reporting protocols; will other universities?
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org The advent of bias reporting protocols on university campuses is viewed by FIRE as a pernicious threat to student speech, and with good reason. Universities that maintain and operate such policies typically encourage students and others on campus to report, often anonymously, occasions in which they experience [...]
Urgent Message From Ron Paul and Campaign For Liberty’s John Tate
Liberty Alerts, Ron Paul and Campaign For Liberty Dear Liberty Activist, The FEC has launched a pair of investigations on Campaign for Liberty. Both are meritless, but could seriously disrupt our growing program. Please read Campaign for Liberty [...]
University of Illinois Professor Fired For Standing By Catholic Teaching on Homesexuality — Steve Farrell
By Steve Farrell Calling it hate speech, the University of Illinois has fired a Catholic professor hired to teach an introductory course on Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought for responding to a student question about why homosexuality is immoral under Natural Law. The professor, Ken Howell answered in his email: "Natural Law says [...]
God-given Privileges — David O. McKay
Prophet Statesmen, David O McKay Next to life we express gratitude for the gift of free agency. When thou didst create man, thou placed within him part of thine omnipotence and bade him choose for himself. Liberty and conscience thus became a sacred part of human nature. Freedom not only to think, but to speak and to act is a God-given [...]
House Narrowly Passes Gag Order (DISCLOSE) Act
Liberty Letters, Gun Owners of America "Now the NRA are the big defenders of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the right to bear arms. But yet they think it's all right to throw everybody else under the table so they can get a special deal, while requiring everyone else to comply with all the rules outlined in this bill, and [...]
Online Society, Offline Civilization: How the Internet is Ushering in the End of the Age — Selwyn Duke
By Selwyn Duke When people discuss the overall effects of the Internet, they will weigh the good and the bad. On one side, they may mention how the Web, along with talk radio, has broken the stranglehold over public opinion the mainstream media once enjoyed; on the other, they may cite the pernicious effects of pornography, cyber-bullying or [...]
Victory: University of Idaho Drops Charges of Harassment and Discrimination for ‘Offensive’ Speech
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org, Peter Bonilla After FIRE intervened, the University of Idaho (UI) abandoned disciplinary charges of "harass" and "discrimination" against student Alexander Rowson relating to political statements he made at two campus events. On or about March 30, during César Chávez Day at UI, there was a musical [...]
Democrats Attack the First Amendment With Disclose Act — Alan Caruba
By Alan Caruba House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has lately taken to saying that the failure to pass the Cap-and-Trade Act would be “immoral.” I suggest that the White House and the Democrat congressional leadership and members haven’t a clue when it comes to determining the morality of anything. They are so politically corrupt that they [...]
Pelosi Trying to Shove DISCLOSE Act Through Congress Once Again
Liberty Alerts, Gun Owners of America The Washington Post corroborates what Gun Owners of America has been hearing on Capitol Hill. Top Democrat leaders in the House are trying to make another go at the DISCLOSE Act... and they think they are very close to getting the votes to pass it. According to the Post article from [...]
Threat to Free Speech Lights a Fire in the Grassroots
Liberty Alerts, Gun Owners of America -- Vote has been temporarily postponed; keep up the heat! “he NRA -- on whose board of directors I serve -- rather than holding steadfastly to its historic principles of defending the Constitution and continuing its noble fight against government regulation of political speech instead opted for a [...]
To Speak and Write What We Think — Thomas Jefferson
Liberty Letters Quote of the Day, Thomas Jefferson During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, [...]
Free Speech Gag Bill Moving In House
Liberty Alerts, Gun Owners of America The ability of American citizens to communicate with their elected officials is one of the most important rights that help preserve our freedoms. In fact, of all the forms of speech protected by the First Amendment, political speech is at the top of the list. This is exactly what the Supreme Court [...]
Elena Kagan and the First Amendment — Dennis Behreandt
by Dennis Behreandt The Obama administration and the Democrats are openly hostile to the First Amendment. On that issue, here is the scoreboard so far: 1. In remarks to graduates of Hampton University on May 9, the President said that the free flow of information enabled by new technologies like the iPad "is putting pressure on our country [...]
When Commies Are Patriots — Steve Farrell
By Steve Farrell If you haven't stepped inside a college classroom of late, you ought to. There you will see your taxes doing some of their "best" work; there you will discover whence cometh the appellation "rebel" so graciously attached to America's Founding Fathers. I first heard it in an undergraduate Early American history class nearly [...]
Victory for Free Speech at University of Wisconsin: Antiwar Panel to Be Held Tonight
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org by Adam Kissel After canceling a panel of antiwar speakers last Friday, University of Wisconsin - Madison (UWM) has reversed its decision, and the event will proceed tonight as planned. The university also will not charge an unconstitutional security fee to any of the student or academic sponsors of the [...]
FIRE Chairman Harvey Silverglate in the WSJ
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org by Robert Shibley FIRE Co-founder and Chairman Harvey Silverglate has written an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal tackling the First Amendment issues at stake in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which goes before the high court on Monday. Harvey asks: [...]
Duke Keeps Pro-Life Group Out of Women’s Center During ‘Week for Life’
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org DURHAM, N.C., March 29, 2010—Duke University's Women's Center has canceled an event about motherhood because the sponsor was engaging in pro-life expression elsewhere on campus. A Women's Center representative told Duke Students for Life (DSFL) that "we have a problem" and an ideological "conflict" with the [...]
Montana Not Covered by Bill of Rights — T.F. Stern
by T. Fraser Stern Yesterday I posted my thoughts regarding the Supreme Court case which will determine how the 2nd Amendment, more specifically, how the right to keep and bear arms will be interpreted. I tend to run long winded, each critical word placed properly, often repeated for effect; hopefully leaving little if any doubt as to my [...]
Liberty Counsel Files Brief with High Court Supporting Privacy for Signers of Marriage Petition
Liberty Alert, Liberty Counsel Washington, DC – Today, Liberty Counsel filed an Amicus Brief with the United States Supreme Court supporting the privacy of proponents who signed a petition in favor of Referendum 71, which placed on the ballot the question of repealing the recent law giving all the privileges of marriage to homosexual [...]
Report Reveals Threats to Free Speech at North Carolina’s Universities
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, announced yesterday the release of its report on the state of free speech on North Carolina's college campuses (PDF). The report, titled Do North Carolina Students Have Freedom of Speech?, examines the publicly available [...]
U. of Northern Colorado Squashes Free Speech?
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for January 2010: the University of Northern Colorado. The University of Northern Colorado's (UNCO's) Residence Handbook prohibits "Bias Motivated Incidents," which include any "inappropriate jokes" that are motivated by bias. The policy also provides that Any [...]
Ohio U Disses F.I.R.E.
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org Ohio University (OU) student reporter Rebecca McKinsey does my home state proud with an excellent article in the university's student newspaper, The Post, about FIRE's red-light rating of Ohio University and its comparable ratings of other Ohio schools. Most noteworthy is the research that McKinsey evidently did [...]
FIRE Files Amicus Brief in 'McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands'
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org On December 22, FIRE filed an amicus curiae brief in the case of McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands. FIRE's brief asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to clarify its landmark decision in DeJohn v. Temple University, 537 F.3d 301 (3rd Cir. 2008), and reverse a ruling by a federal [...]
University of Minnesota Backs Down From Ideological Screening
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org MINNEAPOLIS, December 23, 2009—In response to sustained pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities has backed away from its plans to enforce a political litmus test for future teachers. The plans from its College of Education and Human Development [...]
Pope Benedict Defends Religion and Morality's Vital Role in Public Life
by Steve Farrell A week ago, on the South Lawn of the White House Pope Benedict observed, As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful [...]
When is Religion Forced, by Steve Farrell
Have you heard this one lately? "Don't shove your religion down my throat!" In this hypersensitive age, who hasn't? All too frequently, such denunciations come in response to the free exercise of religious speech in a public place or public forum or, even more often than we suppose, in protest to like speech in privately owned media, in [...]
Enemies of Tyranny: Faith, Reason, and the First Amendment, by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 21, Series Finale One of the great changes in thinking spawned by the American Revolution was that reason and revelation could and should work together to produce men and women of sufficient moral character for an experiment in self-government to succeed. Founder and second U.S. president John Adams wrote: [...]
Liberty Letters: De Tocqueville on the Christian Influence for Equality
The religion which declares that all are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law. Religion is the companion of liberty in all its battles and all it conflicts; the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. - Alexis de Tocqueville, as quoted in Edwin Hall's "The [...]
