The school deans said Brashier was prohibited from “soliciting” her materials or even discussing concealed carry on campus. They even went so far as to order her to destroy all of her pamphlets.

Perhaps the CCAC deans need a refresher course in Constitutional law. It just so happens that pamphleteering is explicitly protected by the First Amendment. In the 1938 Supreme Court Case Lovell v. City of Griffin, the Court ruled that such activity fell under freedom of the press, writing:

The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest. The press in its connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.

I previously wrote about another student who was harassed by school officials and campus police after advocating for concealed carry in a speech class.

“If you were walking down the street and saw someone harassing a child, would you just walk by and look the other way? If that person was telling the child the world would be better off if they just killed themselves, would you ignore it?”

Well … no, but my response probably wouldn’t be to craft an overbroad, facially unconstitutional bill that targets far more than just “cyberbullying.” But then again, I’m not Rep. Sanchez. (For you critical thinkers out there, Sanchez’s rhetorical question is called a false dichotomy.)

Bonus points to Sanchez for including the phrase “so-called free speech” in her article. It really shows her true colors when it comes to the First Amendment.

Also, Hat tip to Reason, where you can find a more thorough shellacking of Sanchez’ Maginot Line of an argument.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, named after a 13 year-old girl who committed suicide after falling victim to a cruel Myspace prank, would make it a felony to transmit “in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior.”

As is wont to happen when lawmakers grandstand on a current issue, the proposed bill is a legal train wreck – a half-baked piece of legislation that, if it weren’t almost guaranteed to be stricken down as unconstitutional, would be seriously dangerous to free speech.

For example, law professor Eugene Volokh can think of six examples off the top of his head where the bill would encroach on protected First Amendment speech. Under the proposed bill, perhaps even this blog post could be considered “cyberbullying.” Rep. Sanchez might find my calling her legislation “half-baked” and “a legal train wreck” emotionally distressing, and I could be prosecuted in federal court.

What’s startling to me about the bill, though, is the similarity in the language to many of the oppressive speech codes found at universities throughout the country. In particular, notice the part about “substantial emotional distress.” Just like so many confused university administrations, Rep. Sanchez seems to believe that it aught to be illegal to make someone feel bad.

The bill is essentially the uber-version of all those speech codes. It would, for all intents and purposes, make criticism of anyone illegal. Well, hey, at least we would all be living in the ”inclusive, respectful atmosphere” that universities try so hard (and sometimes illegally) to foster, right?

Hat tip to Reason.

“As the enactment does not reflect an appreciation of the Silent Majority’s [the student organization that publishes the paper] constitutional right to the exercise of free speech, I reject it altogether and recommend that it be rescinded in its entirety,” wrote Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life Esther Terry.

The administration might also punish one of the people who flagrantly stole copies of the paper.

The past few weeks have been a PR disaster for UMass Amherst with regards to the First Amendment. For example, Cathy Young has a column over at Reason lambasting the university for its recent treatment of speaker Don Feder, a conservative journalist.

As Feder began to speak, the protesters hissed and hooted. At one point, a group of them noisily turned around their chairs to face away from the podium. Finally, a woman in the audience interrupted Feder, rising to shout out a statement about the murder of a transgendered African-American woman. Feder asked the police to escort her out; from the video, it appears that she walked out on her own, to the cheers of her fellow protesters, and even paused to wave to her friends and yell a derogatory comment to Feder.

[...]

A genuine liberal would be embarrassed by these actions. But in some quarters, intolerance of dissent is now a cause for self-congratulation. When Feder remarked that he had spoken on numerous college campuses and had never experienced anything of the sort, one student could be heard shouting, “Go UMass!”

It’s good to see the university finally do the right thing, but with problems like these one wonders how much the students, faculty and administration really value freedom of speech.

All of these incidents I’ve been blogging about are all the more shameful, considering that universities are supposed to be vanguards of free thought and expression.

Here’s the other cases the Chronicle found:

The incident marks the third time in recent weeks that large numbers of a student newspaper have been misappropriated. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two campus police officers admitted trashing hundreds of copies of the student newspaper, The Tech. The issue featured an article about a fellow officer who had been arrested on drug charges. And late last month, nearly all copies of an issue of the Utah Valley University student paper went missing. Two women later came forward to say they had taken the papers for an art project.

Well, the story keeps getting worse. FIRE reports that the Student Government Association (SGA) at UMass Amherst, acting with blatant disregard for the First Amendment, has threatened to shut down the paper unless it apologizes to the woman who stole its issues. (She was mocked in the issue in question – apparently the impetus for her juvenile actions.) On top of that, the SGA refused to hear a resolution put forward by a student senator that would rescind the illegal action. The senator was then removed by police after he protested the SGA’s violation of its own bylaws (not to mention the Constitution).

I’ve seen some horrible actions by student governments. In fact, the publication I write for at the University of Oregon, the Oregon Commentator, was almost shut down by the student government in a similar incident. However, this has to take the cake. From the FIRE blog, here is the senator’s first-hand account. It’s long but well worth the read.

The speaker refused to put the bill on the agenda (when he’s not in a position to decide according to our Bylaws). I approached him and he said he took it off because he “didn’t like it.” I explained that that didn’t matter, that it wasn’t in his purview to decide, and he refused to change his mind and put it on the agenda (I had been told that it was on the agenda, and never informed that it was off till the meeting was about to start).

So, I left the meeting and printed it off again and moved “to add a main motion not previously considered to the agenda” [but] the speaker said that it wasn’t a legal bill (even though lawyers signed off on it). I then moved to “overturn the decision of the speaker.” He refused to hold that vote and moved on. I then rewrote the bill taking into account his points, however invalid. I then returned to the Senate and “asked to add a main motion not previously considered to the agenda.” He asked to see it, I brought it up, he looked at it, and he said “NO” and threw it to the ground. I then picked it up and asked to “overturn the decision of the speaker.” He refused to hold the vote (again violating the Bylaws).

I then asked to add it to the agenda again in between every motion, and the speaker refused to say yes or no (again violating the Bylaws). I explained that he had to say yes/no and then allow the Senate to overrule if it felt compelled. He refused. After 10 more questions he told me I was out of line, even though I had broken no bylaw. I then walked up to the podium and asked to add it to the agenda, and he refused to say yes/no and then told me to leave. I then explained to him that it was not in his purview to ask me to leave and the merits of my arguments. He then said I should leave immediately. I explained I would only leave if the Senate followed its procedure requiring the Senate to vote to kick me out. I said barring the Senate voting, “I will only leave if taken out by police.” So the speaker called the police and they escorted me out of the meeting while the meeting was placed in recess. Meanwhile many Senators agreed with me and wanted to hear my arguments. All I wanted was a vote one way or the other. I passed out the sheets I have enclosed [the resolution and his explanation for it] as well as the letter from FIRE (as FIRE asked me to do). The Senate as a whole WANTED to hear the bill.

The police then refused me entry to the Senate meeting. I explained that I was required to be inside and that only the Senate could kick me out. University officials came, Byron Bullock and the RSO attorney, and agreed with my analysis but the police refused me entry three separate times, barring me from voting or bringing this to the agenda.

So that is what happens when you try to stand up for free speech.

From the FIRE blog post:

According to one eyewitness, he discovered a woman standing on a stack of issues, refusing to allow community members the opportunity to grab a copy. When he approached her, “She and others [said] that they have taken the papers and that they will be distributing them instead of us.” After notifying the campus police, the detective who arrived let the eyewitness take back the papers from the thief. As the eyewitness attempted to take the hostage issues back to where they belonged, “the woman and others then forcefully grab[bed] handfuls of them from my arms – IN FRONT OF THE POLICE DETECTIVE – who had displayed her badge.” Perhaps most troubling was that the police officer reportedly did nothing to intervene in this scuffle.

FIRE also reports that the university administration, exercising some remarkable jurisprudence, told the paper that it was perfectly fine for people to steal their issues, since they were free anyways. I’ll keep that in mind next time I want to eat a whole tray of free samples at Costco. In the meantime, let’s hope that UMass Amherst reverses this horrible, stifling decision. There is no excuse for such activities in a country that supposedly values freedom of speech.