Posted on 08/29/2016 8:35:07 AM PDT by xzins
If you haven’t been following higher education news, you may not be aware that this sort of thing is happening on college campuses all over America.
Schools are designating certain areas as “free speech zones” and in some cases even restricting those areas to certain times of day.
Before you get too angry at the administrator in this video, remember that he wasn’t the one who created this policy, he’s just charged with the awful task of enforcing it.
These ridiculous policies are created by higher level administrators in closed meetings.
Red Alert Politics reported:
Clemson stops man from praying on campus: ‘Not a free speech area’ [VIDEO]
A man was stopped by a Clemson University administrator for praying on campus, telling him and a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) activist that “this is not a designated free speech area,” and asking them to leave the area. YAF’s blog The New Guard released the video today.
The administrator, Shawn Jones who is the assistant director for client services, also called their praying “solicitation,” and demanded that they would need to fill out paperwork to continue. Clemson receives state and federal funding, and many see these restrictions as disregarding the First Amendment to the Constitution by limiting free speech to certain zones…
“I was walking across the grassy area near Fort Hill after class at about 3:15 when I saw someone sitting in a folding chair. Next to him was another folding chair with an 8×10 sign that said PRAYER. I approached him and we sat down to pray for a few minutes. When we finished, a man from the university approached us and said he could not be praying there because it was not a “designated free speech area” and presented the person who was praying with a form for the procedures for applying for “solicitation” on campus. He told him he had to leave.”
Not an Ivy League mess, but Clemson is trying to be!
Rankings and Brags | About | Clemson University, South Carolina
www.clemson.edu/about/rankings.html
Clemson is one of the 28 “Public Ivy” schools based on the attraction and retention of excellent students in addition to educating them for significantly less than those students would pay to attend an Ivy League school according to Educated Quest’s 2014-15 list.
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That is your religious belief.
Those folks who were praying were exercising their religious beliefs. “Free exercise” does not mean we get to impose our beliefs on others. They are FREE to have and exercise their own.
Clemson University needs tol, that praying on campus, or anywhere in the United States is a designated free speech area.
READ the BILL OF RIGHTS!
That’s how you get these policies thrown out.
Film a small group of Christians praying together quietly...an administrator comes up and tells them they are not in a “free speech zone” and are therefore in violation of school policy...then have a Muslim come right up next to the group and lay out his rug and start doing his prostrations and see if the administrator says anything. Whatever the outcome, that video would go viral and that crap would stop immediately!
Exactly. I have seen muslims praying in all sorts of public places and everyone gives them a wide berth.
Students need to resist and pray anyway.
When the school punishes them, then file the law suits.
Let’s have the debate!
Welcome to the cesspool of the college mindset! It is not just Clemson its Nation wide!!!
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The ENTIRE UNITED STATES is a free speech area.
Per the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.
I’m so sick of these Thugs!
Pull your kids out of this University if they are going to college there,
Exactly. Especially prayer.
A law suit over prayer would really put judges on the chopping block.
It stands as a matter of fact apart from any religious belief that most speech brings consequences and prayer even more so. Let the college prosecute those who pray in “free speech zones” (a stupid idea if ever there were one) and see where it gets them. Let a man pray in public and see what it gets him as well. One thing that will not happen, however, is nothing. What exactly is meant by the word “impose?” I cannot post whatever I wish in this forum without regard to rules and consequences. Does that mean “free speech” is not allowed here? Yes. Does it mean I am being “imposed upon?” Absolutely. We are free to speak and to post, yes, but not without constraint.
Good post. :>)
No constitutional right allows you to violate campus rules on disrupting classes. This is not about quiet prayer. Its about placards and megaphone where someone wants to preach. I suppose you didn't get to that point of my post.
The free speech area is from the atlantic, to the pacific. Especially at a public land grant university. Laugh at him and keep praying. You’ll own him in court.
So you agree with Clemson?
I think you need a civics class.
The First Amendment only applies to Congress (and, though I disagree with the USSC, to State Governments) restricting the Free Exercise of religion. I can restrict it all I want on my Private Property which should be obvious to you.
Because of essentially unrelated USSC decisions Clemson, being a Public University (i.e. a derivative of a State Government) cannot restrict "Free Exercise," but like shouting "FIRE," in a crowded auditorium, the right to "Free Exercise" can be limited in some ways. E.g. Muslims cannot chop off infidels heads.
ML/NJ
I agree.
Judges no longer are about justice, however. They are about politics. So, I’m a bit nervous on that front.
“Those who want to preach on campus will have to follow the rules and go where you wont disrupt classes.”
Public university, public sidewalk. If he isn’t violating some law such as obstructing traffic, setting up structures, using amplified sound, he can preach all he pleases with the full protection of the first amendment.
The story is not quite complete. I disagree with the whole notion of Free Speech zones. However the man soliciting people to pray with him was not a student or otherwise associated with the university. In that case the school had every right to request that he register and complete the paperwork required of any other person or group from outside the campus who wants to use campus space to promote and share his beliefs.
As long as those requirements are neutral and do not place an undue burden on his ability to exercise his First Amendment rights I doubt any violation of those would be found. Campuses and other government bodies can place restrictions on who can enter their facilities and what they are allowed to do there.
Had only students been involved such a request from the administration would be a violation of the students’ First Amendment rights.
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