3 THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE NEW YORKER ABOUT FREE SPEECH: In an article published in the latest issue of The New Yorker, “The Hell You Say,” I learned:
1) “For many modern free-speech advocates, the First Amendment is irrelevant.” That’s news to me! The First Amendment sure seemed to help in this case settled less than two weeks ago for nearly a million dollars that the author didn’t seem to know about.
2) “Speech nuts, like gun nuts, have amassed plenty of arguments”—which I guess means we “speech nuts” are wrong? Because, what, we have a lot of arguments for free speech? How does that work, again? Interesting thinking from a journalist who relies on free speech for his living.
3) Since the ’90s, “restrictive campus speech codes have been widely repealed.” Wow, that’s an interesting and totally false claim. I guess the author missed the ten lawsuits brought by my organization in just the last year and half? Or that 55% of universities maintain wildly unconstitutional codes? Did he miss that Cal Poly Pomona settled with an animal rights activist less than two weeks ago after not only trying to restrict him to a tiny free speech zone, but also making him wear a speech badge even within that free speech quarantine?
Do the writers at The New Yorker not have access to Google?