Our fine Associate Press reports that president Donald Trump said that… wait, we just go straight to what the president actually said -who needs AP…
The President addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference 2019, quote:
“In the face of left-wing intolerance […] we object oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness, and every other attempt by the Left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas. […]
Instead, we believe in free speech, including online and including on-campus!”
Trump then invited a young man, Hayden Williams, to join his speech. Williams was assaulted by radical left-wing students on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. He was holding a sign ‘Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims’ and was punched for that in the face.
Williams confirms that conservative students would encounter “discrimination, harassment or worse if they dare speak up on campus.”
Trump suggested to William to sue the university and more:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, he took a hard punch in the face for all of us, remember! […]
Today, I’m proud to announce that very soon I will sign an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech!”
Neo-Liberalism’s Illiberalism
Those oh-so liberal university campuses will not be pleased by Trump’s speech. According to the Constitution, state universities must adhere to free speech but most do not because they are infested with neo-liberal (read: Illiberal) ideologies. Private universities such as Harvard or Yale, meanwhile, don’t need to adhere and rarely do so anyway. The University of California, Berkeley, on the other hand is a hybrid, so-called public research university. It means it is run like a self-governing, private enterprise but gets loads of governmental grants.
The only way, therefore, to support true free speech is to cut off offending institutions such as Berkeley from the governmental grant support system. However, since they will interpret such “oppressive” actions as infringement on their own version of freedom, we are going to see more surreal censorship battles.
