For a number of years, we have had a problem on our college campuses with free speech. Conservative speakers have been shouted down or prevented from giving commencement addresses. This is not new; it goes back a few years. In 1992, Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey was prevented from giving a speech at Cooper Union.
The New York Times reported on October 3, 1992:
Knots of demonstrators in the college’s Great Hall, where Abraham Lincoln spoke on slavery in 1860, prevented Governor Casey from delivering his speech, “Can a Liberal Be Pro-Life?” at the Cooper Union School of Architecture. Nat Hentoff, a writer for The Voice who introduced Governor Casey, repeatedly begged and scolded the demonstrators to let the Governor speak. “Murderers have no right to speak,” demonstrators shouted back, referring to arguments that women will die in illegal abortions if abortion is outlawed.
Because Governor Casey was pro-life, he was shouted down by demonstrators. He was also blocked from giving his pro-life views at the Democratic convention which nominated Bill Clinton in July 1992.
Now the anti-free-speech people are trying to shut down the Republican presidential primary.
Yesterday The Washington Times reported the following:
Moveon.Org is conducting fundraising activities from the Chicago protests against Donald Trump that prompted the Republican presidential front-runner to cancel a rally there Friday, and promises that more disruptions are on the way.
“Last night, without consulting local police, Donald Trump abruptly cancelled a rally in Chicago in the face of massive and overwhelmingly peaceful student-led protests,” MoveOn.org wrote in an email Saturday to members. “We’re being flooded with aggressive emails and social media posts from Trump supporters. Some of them are threatening. We refuse to be intimidated by Donald Trump, Fox News, or anyone else.”
So let me get this right–Moveon.Org is promising more disruptions and then accusing Donald Trump and Fox News of threatening them?
The article further quotes the email:
“We’ve been ramping up our efforts for months — from the ‘We Are Better Than This’ ad we helped organize in The New York Times in December, to our collective advocacy for refugees under attack from the GOP, to the support we provided students in Chicago last night by printing signs and a banner and recruiting MoveOn.org members to join their peaceful protest. We need to double-down in the face of direct attacks on our community,” the email read.
There is nothing peaceful about these protests. They are orchestrated by the same people who put together Occupy Wall Street and the anarchists that routinely disrupt economic summits. This is an effort to shut down free speech that the protesters disagree with. Because our colleges no longer practice free speech, it doesn’t occur to our young people that other people have the right to speak. The roots of this problem go back to the failure of our educational system to teach our rights under the U.S. Constitution and also to instill basic values into our children.