U.S. Judge Speaks At Harvard University, Laments Censorship On University Campuses

Loretta A. Preska, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Southern New York

[From article]
Loretta A. Preska, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Southern New York, said she was concerned about reduced tolerance of free speech on university campuses in a lecture at Harvard Law School on Monday.
While Preska argued that there is widespread “decreasing tolerance for truly free expression and open debate,” she claimed that the issue is particularly problematic in educational settings.
“The limiting of public discourse is already occurring, and in my view, the most troublesome of those places is the place where the views of the future leaders of our country are formed: on university campuses,” Preska said.
Preska cited the establishment of “free speech zones,” or zones specifically set aside for protest, as an example of curtailed free speech on college campuses.
“A campus with a so-called free speech zone is one in which free speech is allowed in certain designated areas, but not any place else,” Preska said, adding that “these zones allow administrators to banish protesters to remote or marginal parts of the campus.”
Some colleges have also placed inappropriate restrictions on speech to prevent cyberbullying, according to Preska.
“The University of West Alabama has enacted a ban on cyberbullying, which it describes as ‘harsh text messages or emails.’ Colorado State University in Pueblo now defines harassment as anything that causes 'psychological and or emotional harm on any member of the university community,'” Preska said.
She said these policies, although noble in their intentions, are overbroad in their scope.
Using these examples, Preska emphasized that “speech should not be censored based on viewpoint, offensiveness, or anything else” because banning statements that are unpopular or not of the majority opinion undermines values promulgated by the Constitution.
“Not only was freedom of speech the progressive ideal on which our nation was founded, it remains something that distinguishes this nation from every other nation on the planet,” Preska said.
Some students also recognized that there are social pressures to sympathize with the most popular opinions.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/29/federal-judge-free-speech/

Federal Judge Concerned Over Campus Free Speech Restrictions
By TANYA F. DEVANI, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Harvard Crimson

March 28, 2016

Vice Presdient Lectures Human Rights Activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali About Islam

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Human Rights Activist

[From article]
In a recent interview with the Washington Examiner, human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali discussed the “real war on women” being conducted by adherents to radical Islam and the need for the American left to acknowledge that reality. During the conversation, Hirsi Ali recalled a particularly telling encounter she had with Vice President Joe Biden in which he attempted to correct her on “one or two things about Islam."
Hirsi Ali explained to the Examiner that in the left’s attempts to protect anyone they perceive as “victims of the white man,” they have failed to look honestly at the true war on women waged by radical Muslims.
“They feel all religions are the same, and they’re not,” she said. “I think if I adopt the position in good faith to multiculturalists and leftists, I would say [they take the position they do] because they see them [Muslims] as victims. They see them as victims of the white man and so they think: ‘Let’s protect them from the white man. Let’s protect them from capitalism.’… That is misguided at best and malicious at worst.”
[. . .]
“Wherever [Islamists] gain power, you see exactly what they do: The first thing they do is they chase women out of the public space, force them to cover up, beat them up, rape them, sell them into slavery,” said Hirsi Ali.
[. . .]
At a dinner in Washington, Biden attempted to correct her perspective on relationship between the Islamic State and Islam, saying, “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she pushed back, Biden said, “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam…”
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”
As the Examiner outlines, Hirsi Ali’s knowledge of the realities of Islam is rooted in her own traumatic experiences. At age 5 in her home country Somalia, she was subjected to female genital mutilation while her father, who objected to the practice, was in prison. After her father escaped, he moved the family to Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia, then finally Kenya when she was 11. Though Hirsi Ali was raised a practicing Muslim, when her family attempted to force her into an arranged marriage, she fled to the Netherlands.
Even in Europe, however, she found that she was not safe. After earning a seat in parliament, her outspoken criticism of Islam eventually resulted in the murder of a filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, with whom she produced a short film on the abuse of women under Islam. A letter including death threats against Hirsi Ali was pinned to van Gogh’s dead body with a knife. The human rights activist must now travel under the constant protection of a security detail.

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/biden-lectured-ayaan-hirsi-ali-islam#.VImql2OhQzU.twitter

Biden Lectured Ayaan Hirsi Ali On Islam
"I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”
12.10.2014
News Bradford Thomas

Yale University Academics Protest Women's Rights Speaker

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

[From article]
Raised Muslim, but now an opponent of organized religion, Hirsi Ali is a tireless advocate for the rights of women and girls in the Muslim world. For years, she has fought against the practices of female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage, and honor killings — all of which occur routinely in the Middle East and parts of Africa. Hirsi Ali has harsh words for those who commit such acts in the name of Islam and for those who deny women and girls the right to education and personal autonomy on cultural grounds.
You would think that advocacy on behalf of basic human freedoms would be uncontroversial. But in this brave new world where “Islamophobia” is a sin greater than actual violence, you would be wrong. After all, who are we to judge the cultural practices of others?
[. . .]



the Yale Muslim Student Association, which demanded (without success) that the Buckley Program rescind the invitation (a la Brandeis) or, at the very least, that it provide a counter-speaker to refute Hirsi Ali’s points.
Why? Because her presence at Yale threatened to make “Muslims on campus feel unwelcome and uncomfortable.”



(Apparently, it is now the responsibility of universities to protect students from ideas that may offend or put them ill-at-ease.)

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2014/09/braceras_yale_hit_for_hosting_rights_activist

Braceras: Yale hit for hosting rights activist
Muslims, lefties target ‘hate’ instead of violence
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
By: Jennifer C. Braceras
Boston Herald

* * *

[From article]

This student, the Muslim Students Association, and a little over thirty other organizations signed an open letter — with its fair share of cherry-picked quotes and mischaracterizations — that was sent yesterday in a school-wide email. But these students fail to understand the purpose of the university and the meaning and necessity of free speech within it.

http://spectator.org/articles/60427/we-invited-ayaan-hirsi-ali-yale—and-outrage-ensued

WE INVITED AYAAN HIRSI ALI TO YALE—AND OUTRAGE ENSUED
Critics fail to understand university free speech.
By Rich Lizardo

9.16.14

Obama Lecturer, Not Professor

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/was_barack_obama_really_a_constitutional_law.html

March 28, 2008
Q: Was Barack Obama really a constitutional law professor?
Factcheck.org