According to FIRE:
"In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to order that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent. In a letter yesterday, the government mandated a breathtakingly broad definition of sexual harassment that makes virtually every student in the United States a harasser, completely ignoring the First Amendment."
Appears to be another example of left-wing political correctness trumping the Bill of Rigths. This may be a false alarm, (FIRE is usually reliable). However, false alarms are better than no alarms when the Bill of Rights in involved. Stay tuned.
To begin with, it's not the DOJ's role to regulate free speech. And second, IMHO, the federal's education department is a useless and wasteful overreaching duplication of states' independent affairs. It's then apparent our central government has not only violated the U.S. Constitution's 1st and 10th amendments, but are progressively whittling away the other rights in between.
ReplyDeleteYes, Lukioff's point that speech in disagreement is supposed to hurt is valid, but speech that is nothing more than sexual terrorism deserves appropriate response. Which would you prefer, that the bully monster be given adequate warning, or that his instrument be removed without it? I think your ideological absolutism is showing.
ReplyDelete44 & Ridge: Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteRidge: Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor I believe that threats, terroristic threats or other verbal crime are protected by the First Amendment. However, it is well established that mere abusive, offensive, racist, sexist, etc. speech alone is protected. This is neither ideology nor absolutism. It is well-established constitutional law. The Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, and public officials taken an oath to support and defend it. FIRE is a well-respected organization that stays within established law when making its challenges.