Universities used to be bastions of free speech, but that has changed dramatically.
Woke academics now hate free speech with a burning passion.
And one major state university held an entire event just to bash the First Amendment.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is considered one of the best state colleges in the entire nation.
But like so many other colleges, it has been rotted out from within by woke students and woke professors.
And the values that it once held dear are now being attacked by the university itself.
According to Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, UNC recently held what was described as a “First Amendment Day” celebration. But in reality, it was anything but.
Turley says, “What was striking about the free speech panel was not just that it was decidedly opposed to core free speech principles but it lacked a single panelist who spoke primarily in favor of free speech and against censorship.”
“The panel, ‘Weaponizing First Amendment Rhetoric,’ was clearly designed to offer the opposing view to traditional free speech and First Amendment values, but the lack of dissenting voices allowed these views to go unchallenged. The panel could have served a more valuable purpose if they had allowed a single panelist to voice opposing views.”
Of course they didn’t allow any dissenting voices. That’s the whole point of people who believe in censorship – they don’t believe people should be allowed to disagree with each other!
Turley takes a conciliatory approach and says, “I would welcome such opposing views in any celebration of the First Amendment if the panel also included just one professor who would allow for balance and even a real debate over such issues. Instead, the event was a pile-on panel on how free speech can be harmful and the need to redefine the right to stop some from voicing harmful thoughts.”
Turley is partially right. It would, ironically, be a great testament to the First Amendment to have, for example, one person at the event who was opposed to the First Amendment.
It would actually undermine their entire argument by showing the beauty of free speech, that their extreme views were still allowed to be heard.
But a First Amendment celebration should be primarily a First Amendment celebration. The panel shouldn’t have had just one person on it who supported free speech – it should have mostly consisted of free speech supporters.
There should have been no more than one person on the panel who was opposed to free speech.
This is another example of how insane and deranged ideologies have captured the hearts and minds of academics across the Western world.
It is a major threat to democracy, freedom, pluralism, and classical liberalism.
These authoritarian ideologies need to be passionately pushed back against, and the American public needs to re-embrace the values listed above.
If these woke authoritarians manage to win out, it is going to be the end of the American experiment with democracy and freedom, and it is going to be bad news for all of us.