“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.

It’s sad to see how gleeful these kids are about silencing speech. I hope one day they grow up and realize that such petulant displays of entitlement are rather unbecoming in anyone over the age of five. Luckily, FIRE is on the case, so they may get their comeuppance in short order.

Beth Sheeran, a student at Spokane Falls Community College and a member of their Christian Club, has filed suit against her school after they barred her organization from posting pro-life literature in a campus display case. Apparently, Sheeran’s message was discriminatory because it did not include a pro-choice viewpoint.

The school’s Director of Student Funded Programs threatened Sheeran and her counterparts with expulsion if they did not also show pro-choice statistics with their display. This director is also part of SFCC’s Stop the Hate Committee, and said that someone could take the statistics Sheeran cited as hate.

I have to wonder if the same fate would befall a campus gay rights organization. Would they be asked to present anti-gay viewpoints? I think they probably wouldn’t. Apparently it’s hateful to cite statistics opposing abortion, but not to threaten the students doing so with expulsion from the college.

Of course, this is all absurd, and it didn’t take long for Pomona to realize it was facing a PR disaster. As FIRE notes (see link above), this victory is in large part due to the writing of Charles Johnson, a member of the Collegiate Network:

This case was broken wide open by Charles Johnson of the blog Claremont Conservative, who pointed out that the February 19, 2009, lecture was publicly advertised and that the students had ceased videotaping the event when asked to do so, contrary to official reports.  Johnson also noted that Pomona College had taken no similar action against truly disruptive events on campus in recent years.

Kudos to Johnson and the rest of the crew at the Claremont Conservative and Claremont Independent. This is the kind of watchdog journalism that makes independent college publications so vital.

Unfortunately, the actions at Pomona, while extreme, are not an isolated case. One of the growing trends at college campuses, which I’ve witnessed at the University of Oregon, is the idea of “safe space.” (For example, check out the LSU Safe Space Campaign.)

The deans at Pomona explained that the abortion discussion was “an opportunity for students from across the Claremont Colleges to learn about deeply personal narratives regarding the experience of abortion … in a supportive and safe space.” The deans then wrote that by questioning the presenters, the students were “attempting to create an antagonistic space,” “intimidate participants,” and “chill the free exchange of ideas.”

From what I can discern, a “safe space” is simply a place where no one disagrees with you. And while there is nothing wrong with having supportive place where minority groups can gather, applying this kind of idea to public forums and public spaces is simply not in line with the spirit of the First Amendment.

Apparently University of Tulsa, which is a private school, promises its students all the free speech rights of a public university. Those of you who go to public universities know what a ringing endorsement that is. And Tulsa follows through on this promise, with a speech code that looks innocuous at first but is really so broadly construed that just about anything can—and does—become abuse.

Good work FIRE for once again pointing out how academia, which is supposed to be about exchanging ideas, is really more about exchanging ideas approved by The Establishment than anything else.

Harsanyi isn’t so much arguing against our hypersensitivity as a culture but rather the role of government in it all. As he writes in his closing graph:

Feel free to be indignant and hurt. Feel free to boycott and to cast nasty aspersions on the decency of those who offend you. But let’s keep government out of it. If we’re not careful, the war against offensive speech could morph into a war against free speech.

I would go a step farther and say everyone should just stop being big crybabies, but I wouldn’t want Al Sharpton to call down fire and brimstone on me.

Lopez’s presentation was on Christianity and included a section about his belief in traditional marriage. In response, his professor told him to “ask God” what his grade was. Furthermore, when Lopez appealed to the dean, he was threatened with expulsion, along with vague mentions of “hate speech.” Classy.

The story has been picked up by the L.A. Times, FIRE, Volokh Conspiracy and Townhall. Professor Volokh’s post is especially good:

Professors doubtless have a vast degree of flexibility in grading students, even in viewpoint-based ways. For instance, if a law student is told to construct the best possible argument in support of position X (as I often require on my exams), he may be graded down for instead constructing an argument opposing position X. [...]

Nonetheless, this flexibility can’t be unlimited, I think: When a professor refuses to give a grade, or (to take a hypothetical) even if the professor gives a low grade but for a reason that pretty clearly falls outside the academic subject matter of the class (for instance, because a student in a speech class expressed political viewpoints that the professor disapproved of), that violates the First Amendment.

This is pretty spot on. Professors do have latitude in the classroom. For example, I had a Writing 122 teacher in community college whose gentle, liberal ways made him cringe when anyone so much as raised their voice. He made several topics off-limits for opinion papers, such as abortion and gay marriage, arguing that they were too controversial and didn’t make for good papers. (In a sense, I feel like he was trying to avoid a situation like Lopez’s.) I disagreed, but it was the teacher’s prerogative to determine the curriculum.

On the other hand, Lopez’s professor was actively censoring him. He punished Lopez not for the quality of the presentation or its adherence to the rules (it was open-ended assignment), but rather the content of Lopez’s speech. That’s unacceptable.

You can read Lopez’s official complaint against the school district here. It includes the grading sheet on which the professor wrote “Ask God what your grade is” and “Proselytizing is unacceptable in public schools.” Lopez is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.