Posted on 11/16/2001 1:15:21 PM PST by rw4site
ROBERT Jensen is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, but if a gaggle of irate Texans get their way, he won't be for long. He's one of a handful of academics who are protesting the war in Afghanistan and have been denouncing it loudly at campus rallies. He's gone so far as to call the United States a terrorist nation ("U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts," Outlook, Sept. 14) and to opine that our conflict abroad is a "war of lies, the culmination of a decade of U.S. aggression."
As Gregg Easterbrook reported recently in the Wall Street Journal, a letter-writing campaign is calling for the university to fire Jensen. Other campuses are similarly aflame. New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser recently denounced the City College of New York as "a breeding ground for idiots" after several faculty members voiced similar anti-American opinions.
Conservative pundits have pounced on this issue with a vengeance, arguing that while the First Amendment gives professors such as Jensen the right to say what they like, it doesn't shield them from the consequences of saying it.
This is true sometimes but not always. What really matters is whether the consequences are incidental or severe.
Incidental consequences are often unpleasant; the kinds of reactions you can expect when you say something asinine or unpopular in public. People ostracize you, write letters denouncing you, call you an idiot, as Peyser did the New York professors. This is fair play. After all, the critic has a right to free speech as well.
Severe consequences are something else altogether. They include things such as putting a gun to the speaker's head or threatening the speaker's livelihood. Firing professors such as Jensen for things they say at anti-war rallies falls into this category. You can fire a professor because he's a bad or unqualified teacher, but you shouldn't be able to fire him because he expresses unpopular views. Otherwise, the First Amendment would be meaningless. After all, how free can your speech be if your job is in peril if you say the wrong thing?
Yanking advertisements from network television shows should also be unconstitutional. This happened recently to Bill Maher, host of the late-night talk show Politically Incorrect, after he said a few politically incorrect things about the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack.
Why do I believe that rescinding ad revenue constitutes censorship? Don't advertisers have the right to advertise when and where they please?
Because Maher's show depends on advertising money for its survival, the advertisers were not just registering their discontent (they could have done that in a written statement), they were knowingly jeopardizing the show and thereby attempting to silence the speaker by forcing him off the air.
Of course, there is no law that prevents advertisers from revoking their support for shows. But if we are going to remain true to the spirit of the First Amendment, we should pass one.
A show's livelihood should not depend on its purveyance of correct speech, even when we're at war.
Advertisers should be forced, by contract, to commit their advertisements for a specified amount of time, regardless of what happens on a show. Either that or the networks should use a small portion of all advertising revenues for an insurance fund to cover pullouts. Otherwise Madison Avenue is, in effect, playing Big Brother.
Denouncing someone for his views is kosher. But intimidation and coercion -- including the kind of economic coercion that threatens jobs and livelihoods -- are censorship, however you spin it.
It is sort of like the liberal idea of "bipartisanship". Conservatives must work to agree with the liberal slant; never the other way around. Diversity is when everyone gets in lock step with the left.
Message to the left: Don't push us too far. If you think the way we went to the streets during the attempted theft of the presidential election was scarey, just keep up with your "hate America" free speach crap, but remember to wear your "hard hats" when you take to the streets.
Then we agree. Neither the professor nor Rocker should lose their jobs.
We would need to eliminate the 1st Amendment to accomplish that.
I think that we all should take time during our work day, stand up, and praise the President, let's see how fast we get fired.
This is dishonest analysis of the situation with Jensen.
Professors express unpopular views all the time. People grumble about it, but they keep their jobs. That's not what Jensen did (and continues to do).
Jensen is flirting with sedition and treason against his country while it is under foreign attack. In his position at a state funded university, this carries especially repugnant connotations. It's like asking Coca Cola to keep paying a spokesman who constantly derides Coke in favor of Pepsi. The first amendment doesn't compell continued employment.
Advertisers should be forced, by contract, to commit their advertisements for a specified amount of time, regardless of what happens on a show.
They already are forced to abide by the terms of the contracts they sign. This goofball is now suggesting someone other than the parties involved in the contract should get to define the terms - all in the name of protecting sedition.
Only an utter moron thinks protecting sedition from legal consequences by private parties is an essential function of government.
It says "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." This is referring to criminal penalties.
Absolutely no relevance to employment.
Withdrawing sponsorship is the exercise of free speech on the part of the sponsor, no matter how you spin it.
They have confused getting paid for their opinion with getting paid for their knowledge on a subject. Preachers are not allowed to voice their private opinions in church to a captive audience, and these jerks should not be given an educational bully pulpit to voice their idiot ideas to a captive audience.
If the University is a private institution, they do not have to put up with their employees taking work time to promote a political agenda.
This may sound extreme but in a time when the subject matter of the free speech is so far slanted in one direction (in the patriotic direction) I don't see it as being so far out there, particularly if the professor's comments were for some reason to get in the news and stay there for a couple or more weeks. Then, enrollment would definately be affected.
I think that is totally up to their employers. An employer should have the right to fire any employee for public comments that employee makes which the employer feels may adversly impact his business. In "at-will" employment States employers do have this right. If any of my employees repeatedly made public comments in a public forum or to the media which negitively impact my business, they are gone. period. That employee has not lost their freedom of speech, they will just have to exercise it while working for another employer.
How free?
Why not ask the 'more than handful' of Professors who have been silenced through the 'silent gun to head' otherwise known as 'political correctness'.
Or ask any number of individuals whose jobs have been dismantled or they have been. . .because of their free speech. . .
No doubt, many of those NOT of the LIBERAL persuasion, can relate their stories on where they went and how fast; for their 'free speech'.
. . .David Horowitz probably inhaled his coffee while reading this. . .
. . .forget the old 'bastions of academic freedom'; they no longer exist. . .Liberalism deconstructed them, brick by brick. . .they are bastions for Liberals. . .and hold only those Professors who hate every reason they are able to enjoy employment. . .
Seems those that live in 'Liberal Land' have never noticed. . .or never cared. . .It is a good sign they are taking note; it means America is waking up. . .and perhaps many are deciding, they are not going to 'take it' any longer. . .I hope this is the case.
In the meantime. . .if these Libs are sincere about 'free speech'. . .in Academia in particular. . .then they must free up the 'other voice' as well and restore genuine education and perspective; and restore the values of discrimination, discernment and judgement to the classroom. . .
Of course, this would mean they would first have to become ex-Liberals. . .
Great reply!
But, like most all statements from liberals, it's probably just another lie.
Free-lance? More like free-dunce.
The only person censoring Professor Jensen is himself. He is completely free to spew his crap 24/7 and no one is going to fine him, imprison him, or wrap duct tape around and over his maw. Once liberated from the UT faculty, he is free to compete for jobs like any other American. He might even try starting his own business where, as boss, he will be free to the bum's rush to employees who abuse his facilities to denounce and undermine him and his business.
What Prof Jensen and the free-dunce writer want to do is force others to pay for Prof Jensen's soapbox. That's where the denial of freedom works into the calculus.
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