Posted on 09/20/2013 9:48:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When I first heard about this video, I thought perhaps this took place at a high school, where free-speech restrictions sometimes can apply. Not so, though, and FIRE’s involvement makes that clear anyway. A student at Modesto Junior College in California decided to celebrate Constitution Day by handing out copies of a dangerously radical document, which was, er … the Constitution of the United States of America. You know, the one that includes the pesky prohibition against infringing on free speech.
Readers can guess where this goes from there:
This gets even more Orwellian than one might assume. After telling the student to stop handing out the pamphlets, the security guard then tells him the fact that he’s upset over being told to stop means he shouldn’t argue about it. Then, when he gets into the office, the administrator tells him that he can only indulge in free speech in the “free speech area” — and then only with permission, and during only a few hours of the day. It’s only free, she tells him, in the “proper time, place, and manner.”
Happy Constitution Day! I’m pretty sure this is exactly what James Madison had in mind. Then again, I went to a California public university (Cal State Fullerton), so what the hell do I know?
More from FIRE:
“The video of Modesto Junior College police and administrators stubbornly denying a public college student’s right to freely pass out pamphlets to fellow students—copies of the Constitution, no less!—should send a chill down the spine of every American,” said FIRE Senior Vice President Robert Shibley. “Worse, FIRE’s research shows that Modesto Junior College is hardly alone in its fear of free speech. In fact, one in six of America’s 400 largest and most prestigious colleges have ‘free speech zones’ limiting where speech can take place. This video brings to life the deeply depressing reality of the climate for free speech on campus.”
“Your right to engage in free speech in this country is not contingent on the contents of some bureaucrat’s binder, and the fact that two people on campus are currently speaking their minds doesn’t mean you can’t,” said FIRE’s Shibley. “Virtually everything that Modesto Junior College could do wrong, it did do wrong. It sent police to enforce an unconstitutional rule, said that students could not freely distribute literature, placed a waiting period on free speech, produced an artificial scarcity of room for free speech with a tiny ‘free speech area,’ and limited the number of speakers on campus to two at a time. This was outrageous from start to finish. Every single person at Modesto responsible for enforcing this policy should have known better.”
Maybe they attended California public colleges, too.
To finish off this post properly, Allahpundit reminds me of this MRCTV quiz on the Constitution. I’d guess that Modesto Junior College administrators would have a great deal of difficulty getting one of these right. There does, however, appear to be an emerging consensus to add a constitutional amendment banning twerking. How do we light that candle?
And happy Tae Kwan Do Day, too … or something.
What do you expect from “progressives”?
We can’t have students reading the Constitution. They might find out that most of what the government does is clearly unconstitutional, and most of what they’ve been told about the Constitution is simply wrong. This undermines the propagandization of the students.
Free Speech... zone?
...
????????????????????????????????
I would have had a blast with this sort of bs had it happened when I was in college, but back then there was at least the illusion of free speech on campus.
All MC admin need a class in logic and irony
Free Speech... zone?
Colleges have had them for many years.
As the 1st Amendment enumerates the entire country is a Free Speech Zone. Any law, policy, or regulation that says otherwise is unconstitutional and therefore is not legal, I don’t care how many black-robed clowns rule them legal.
Well, not quite. For example, Jim Robinson has the right (and obviously exercises it) to limit "free speech" right here in FR, and I think we would all agree that private businesses have the right to limit it in their establishments.
It's only the government that is Constitutionally prohibited from infringing on that right. I don't know whether or not the school in this instance is publicly owned or not, but that could have a bearing on the argument.
For the record, I am appalled that the school would do anything to discourage handing out copies of the Constitution, whether or not they have an arguable legal right to do so. I can't help wondering, for example, if the student would face the same restrictions if he was handing out copies of, say, the college rule book, or book of California legal statutes.
In any case, I'm thrilled to see this guy pushing back against the administration. Such activity by students in the 1960s is one reason that colleges today are the left-wing stink holes that they have become.
I hope this student keeps an eye open for any infraction of this school policy by left-wing students pushing leftist causes, and does an Alinsky (i.e. forcing the college to live up to its own rules.)
ping
I sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with Fire.
Where I disagree with Fire is in an area created NOT by the Constitution or by any other area of “free speech” jurisprudence, but in an area carved out - with the “living Constitution” by some members of SCOTUS - that treats academia as a seperate and special place, as if it was, independently and all on its own, a PUBLIC community, and it morphs that special status from the academic setting itself - the classroom - to the entire physical plant of the academy. It has effectively morphed “free speech” in the strickly academic situation and strictly academic process to legitimate “bring your political cause to school and you must also be given the school and its resources to help you do that as well”. The Marxist/Progressive/Liberal professsors have just loved how that has helped them transform the academic experience into an extension of their propaganda handed out in the classroom.
A private enterprise has no problem, under the law and under SCOTUS precedents, telling employees and visitors that its resources are not there for their personal political agendas and causes. Yet, Fire and others (including many judges) think academia, not only in the classroom, but ANYWHERE else has no such rights in protecting and limiting what its chief mission is there for (and the resources thereto). It’s not as if either students or teachers cannot, outside of the school property and without the schools resources, in the GENERAL PUBLIC COMMUNITY, and on their own time, carry on any political advocacy they chose. They can!!! But, Fire and other think a school is a special circumstance in all that. I don’t. I am all for advocating MY political causes and agendas. You, “my school” in this case, owe me nothing and are not obliged to convert your resources to mine in that agenda.
Yet, why would I support this student in this case; which I do??
He was not on any personal agenda other than the same one the school is SUPPOSED to be on - education, as he merely said, by his action: “here’s a copy of the Constitution”. His is a case where the letter of the school’s free speech (outside the classroom) rules butted up against the spirit of those rules and a wiser school administration could have easily said that his case was not against the rules because his activity - handing our copies of this nation’s Constitution - was not what the rules were set against.
His case is really more about another manifestation of “zero tolerance” rules of all sorts at schools, where mindless administrators are coached by the schools lawyers to believe that common sense and wisdom cannot over-ride the “letter of the law” of the schools rules, or there will be hell to pay from some quarter. Therefor, school administrators are taught, on the job, to “just follow and enforce the rules”, not to think.
So, would Obobo have to stand in the free speech zone if he graced the campus with his presence to speak???
Handing out the constitution on ‘Constituion Day’???
Oh, the infamy!
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