Universities Encourage Mob Censorship By Blaming The Victims | HuffPost

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It is becoming increasingly popular - and effective - to impose security fees on student groups that seek to host a controversial speaker, or to express an unpopular view. By extorting those who seek only to exercise their legal rights, universities are blaming the victims and encouraging the bullies.

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Calgary lawyer and president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (www.JCCF.ca)

Calgary lawyer and president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (www.JCCF.ca)

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Canada's university presidents are helping to spread the cancer of mob censorship.

Western University is the latest offender, imposing a $1,040 security fee on students who are hosting University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson. Dr. Peterson made national headlines for refusing his university's edict to use gender-neutral pronouns.

Universities point to the violent mobs that gather to silence politically incorrect speech. Universities blame the speakers and their audiences. But blame rightfully lies with criminals who threaten violence, and with mobs that intimidate and shut down the events of those with whom they disagree.

University presidents reinforce the sentiment which says "I can't stand what you're saying, so I will silence you." Rather than teaching students how to think and debate, universities create a daycare where young adults are "safe" from having their beliefs challenged.

It is becoming increasingly popular -- and effective -- to impose security fees on student groups that seek to host a controversial speaker, or to express an unpopular view. For example, free speech has been priced out of existence at the University of Alberta, which charged a student pro-life club security fees of $17,500 to erect a stationary display on campus for a day or two. Predictably, the event was cancelled.

While it's true that certain neighbourhoods invite gangs and crime, we don't single out residents of high-crime neighbourhoods for additional police fees. By extorting "security fees" from those who seek only to exercise their legal rights to express their opinions and to listen to others, universities are blaming the victims and encouraging the bullies.

There is no legal right to silence those you disagree with by disrupting their speaking engagements and shutting down their events.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir knew better. When asked to place a curfew on women to help end a series of rapes, she replied: "But it is the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay at home."

In 1957, U.S. President Eisenhower grasped the difference between the illegal demands of a mob, and the freedom of citizens to exercise their legal rights. He ordered federal troops to escort nine black students into Little Rock Central High in furtherance of the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education. This court ruling to de-segregate American schools was highly unpopular in the American South. When school started in September, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus sided with the large, jeering and violence-threatening mob surrounding the school, which until then had been attended only by whites. Maintaining his popularity with voters, Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to keep the now-famous "Little Rock Nine" out of Central High.

Rather than pander to the mob, Eisenhower sent federal troops to uphold the rule of law, declaring: "This challenge must be met, and with such measures as will preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully protected rights, in a climate permitting their free and fair exercise ... the troops are there pursuant to law." To the chagrin of Faubus, federal troops arrived in Little Rock on September 24. The troops protected the black students from the hostile mob, and ensured the Nine's safe entrance into Central High.

University presidents should ponder "the free and fair exercise" of "lawfully protected rights" enjoyed by "the people as a whole." Expressing your opinions on campus and listening to speakers are fundamental legal rights. There is no legal right to silence those you disagree with by disrupting their speaking engagements and shutting down their events.

What if president Eisenhower had demanded that the Arkansas Nine should pay for the costs of the federal troops? What if he had blamed these blacks for "provoking" the hostile mob? Yet Western University president Amit Chakma does exactly this: demanding that the victims of intimidation, who merely seek to exercise their legal right to speak and to listen, must pay for the bad behaviour of an angry mob.

Golda Meir understood the difference between those who engage in misconduct and those who are victimized by it. If Golda Meir were president of Western University, she would say "But it is the mob which attacks free expression. If there is to be a security fee, let the mob pay for it."

Calgary lawyer John Carpay is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (www.jccf.ca).

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Perhaps out of determination to sap as much fun out of one of the nation's oldest sporting rivalries as possible, Harvard shot down the Yale Freshman Class Council's (FCC's) approved design for the T-shirts honoring the storied annual football game between the rival schools. For the 2011 game, the FCC selected this design poking fun at Harvard's famous dropouts, parodying Bill Gates, Matt Damon, and Mark Zuckerberg as "liking" the design. In a somewhat surreal decision, Yale's licensing office told the FCC that it had to run the design past Harvard's licensing office -- which in turn killed the design, stating that it would not "permit the use of Harvard's trademarks with third-party trademarks or celebrity names." In other words, Yale required its students get permission from the target of its satire before satirizing them, giving the butt of the joke veto power over the joke. The FCC removed the names from the final design (and Harvard trounced Yale, 45-7).

Harvard Business School: Cartoon Criticism Prompts Administrative Pressure, Resignation(02 of10)

In 2002, Harvard Business School (HBS) wildly overreacted to a cartoon that appeared in the school's student newspaper, The Harbus. The cartoon criticized the school's Career Services office for a computer meltdown surrounding the business school's interview week -- understandably labeled by some in the school as "hell week." The cartoon prompted administrators to call the The Harbus' editor-in-chief, Nick Will, into a meeting to warn him that he potentially violated Harvard's "community standards" for publishing the cartoon and would be held responsible for future objectionable content in The Harbus. He was instructed that The Harbus should provide more "positive" coverage to HBS and steer clear of "questionable content" in the future. Rather than accept these demands, Will chose to resign two days after the meeting. After the dean of the business school sent a warning to all students, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE, where I work) sent a letter to Harvard administrators, reminding them of Harvard's extensive promises of free speech. Soon after, the dean announced that charges would not be forthcoming, promising instead to reaffirm the school's commitment to freedom of expression.

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Sinclair Community College, in Dayton, Ohio, rightfully earns its place on this list for its treatment of the protesters at a June 2012 “Stand Up For Religious Freedom” rally in protest of new health coverage mandates. Police were photographed and recorded ordering attendees at the rally to put down their signs, saying that SCC policy prohibited their use. Remarkably, as an article in SCC’s own student newspaper pointed out, SCC officials freely admitted to having this across-the-board prohibition on signs in place since 1990. That’s more than 20 years of censorship...and that was their best excuse! Worse still, SCC doesn’t actually publish this sign ban in any of their materials, choosing instead to expansively interpret the Campus Access Policy to fit its needs. SCC hasn’t been shy in enforcing the ban, either, using it to suppress peaceful protest of members of a GLBT rights group at a recent on-campus event—ironically, one hosted by the same group that staged the religious freedom rally in June. SCC now finds itself the subject of a First Amendment lawsuit and, if the record of college speech policies being challenged in court is any indication, its chances of prevailing are very slim.

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In the second position, we have a case of a college literally judging a book by its cover. As Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) student Keith John Sampson worked his way through his degree in 2008, he had a habit of reading books during his lunch. When a co-worker saw him reading this book — which celebrates the defeat of the Klan in a 1924 street fight with Notre Dame students — Sampson was reported to the administration and subsequently found guilty of racial harassment without even so much as a hearing. It took the combined efforts of FIRE, the ACLU, and The Wall Street Journal to get IUPUI to back down. You can read more about this astounding case in my Huffington Post articles about it over the years and in Unlearning Liberty.

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