THE DEMISE OF COMEDY ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES: Caitlin Flanagan has a great new article in The Atlantic about how today’s college students want their comedy “100 percent risk-free” so that it does “not trigger or upset or mildly trouble a single student.” FIRE actually has a comedy coming out soon about this very topic called Can We Take a Joke?— check it out and like it on Facebook.

I​,​ too​,​ have a forthcoming feature article in The Atlantic that I co-authored with best selling author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. ​W​e take a unique perspective on free speech on campus, examining ​it through the lens of psychology. Keep an eye out for the article in the September issue of The Atlantic​. I’ll be sure to let readers know when it is posted to the website next week. ​

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3) Since the ’90s, “restrictive campus speech codes have been widely repealed.”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?

HOLDING COLLEGE CENSORS ACCOUNTABLE: George Leef from the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has an excellent piece in Forbes about FIRE’s recent victory in the Hayden Barnes case and the importance of holding college administrators accountable for violating student and faculty rights. Check out Leef’s article here.

A FREE SPEECH VICTORY EIGHT YEARS IN THE MAKING: $900,000 settlement points the way to making campus censors pay for unconstitutional abuses.

If individual administrators had to worry for even a second that they might be held personally liable for violating students’ clearly established constitutional rights, you can guarantee one thing: Incidents of abuses of student free speech and due process rights would plummet. As I explained last year in my announcement of FIRE’s Stand Up for Speech Litigation Project, many administrators choose to overreact to speech because they feel that there is no downside for doing so, whereas there is a host of potential consequences for failing to act, including harassment lawsuits, tort lawsuits, and investigations by the Department of Education. However, administrators’ fear of personal liability would likely often outweigh their fear of these other consequences, making them think twice before violating student and faculty rights. But insurance and university policies undermine this potentially elegant solution.

No, free speech does not end when it touches something that offends you, and you have no equivalent right to silence those who are insensitive to your feelings.

No, you have no right to feel safe.

You have no constitutional right. You have no moral right. You have no right at all.  You have a right not to be physically harmed, but your feelings, just like everyone else’s, are fair game for bruising.  No one says you have to suffer in silence. Don’t like how your Columbia professor uses classic literature that “triggers” your unsafe feelz? Go to Dartmouth. Don’t like how other people on the internets call you stupid? Don’t be stupid. Or turn off the computer. Or only click on links to cute kitteh pics.

YOUR FINAL DOSE OF INSOMNIA THEATER: FREE SPEECH AND JAZZ – Check out this video of legendary critic and civil libertarian Nat Hentoff on the unique power of the First Amendment and his lifelong love of jazz.

TOMORROW IS THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF FIRE’S STAND UP FOR SPEECH LITIGATION PROJECT: SUFS is an unprecedented national effort to eliminate unconstitutional speech codes from our nation’s public colleges and universities. Check out SUFS’s successful and pending cases here.

CALLING ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS INTERESTED IN PROTECTING FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS: There is just one week left to register for the 2015 FIRE Student Network Conference, taking place July 24–26 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event is completely free to attend, and travel stipends are available. Submit your application today!

AND FOR YOUR FINAL DOSE OF INSOMNIA THEATER: HARVEY ON HARVARD’S FREE SPEECH BAIT AND SWITCH – Check out this video of FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate’s take on the importance of free speech on campus and Harvard’s deception when it comes to academic freedom.

HOW TITLE IX IS CHILLING CAMPUS SPEECH: Check out FIRE intern and University of Delaware college student Rachael Russell’s article on how her education has been negatively impacted by her school’s concerns about Title IX compliance.

AND FOR TONIGHT’S INSOMNIA THEATER: “KNOWLEDGE STARTS AS OFFENDEDNESS” – Check out this video featuring Brookings Institution senior fellow Jonathan Rauch on “hate speech” and his book Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought.

MUST READ: FIRE Intern James Altschul responds to San Diego State student Anthony Berteaux’s condemnation of Jerry Seinfeld’s recent statement that today’s college students are too politically correct. Altschul and Seinfeld are right: many of today’s students can’t seem to take a joke. In fact, FIRE, the DKT Liberty Project, and director Ted Balaker and Korchula Productions have a forthcoming feature documentary about just this, titled Can We Take a Joke? Be sure to check out the Can We Take a Joke? website, like it on Facebook, and follow it on Twitter.

BORED IN LONDON NEXT WEEK? Catch me across the pond at the Index on Censorship’s debate on academic freedom and summer magazine launch party on Wednesday, and fellow Instapundit guest blogger Virginia Postrel at her talk at the London School of Economics on Thursday.

WHY CAN’T YOU BE MORE LIKE GLENN? Sign on to the Index on Censorship’s open letter on why academic freedom is under threat and needs urgent protection worldwide. Next week I will be traveling to the UK to talk about these global threats to free speech, but it’s important to remember that academic freedom is in trouble here at home in the USA too. Read more here.

COLLEGE DECLARES HAYMARKET RIOT REFERENCE A VIOLENT THREAT TO COLLEGE PRESIDENT: Oakton Community College in Illinois is insisting that a one-sentence “May Day” email referencing the Haymarket Riot sent by a faculty member to several colleagues constituted a “true threat” to the college president. Why?  Because the famous workers’ rally in Chicago “resulted in 11 deaths and more than 70 people injured.” As FIRE’s Ari Cohn noted, “The United States Department of the Interior has designated the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument a National Historic Landmark. If remembering the Haymarket Riot is a ‘true threat,’ the monument itself would be illegal.”

YOUR NIGHTLY DOSE OF “INSOMNIA THEATER”: ‘MY COLLEGE HAD A PROBLEM WITH A FUNNY SHIRT’– Check out this video about Ohio University student Isaac Smith’s successful lawsuit against OU after the university banned his organization’s t-shirts. Isaac’s lawsuit was another successful installment of FIRE’s ongoing Stand Up For Speech Litigation Project.

CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULT AND THE “PROVE YOURSELF INNOCENT” APPROACH: FIRE’s Joe Cohn examines the problems with New York’s “affirmative consent” bill. Supporters call it the “yes means yes” bill, but maybe it’s more accurately called the “prove you are not a rapist” bill. Joe concludes:

In sum, this legislation is an unwelcome development for people who believe in fundamental fairness—one that doubles down on the failed policy of steering sexual assault complaints away from law enforcement and into amateur campus tribunals that are ill-equipped to handle such serious matters. New York’s approach will probably not reduce the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, but it will likely lead to more unjust punishments.

Scott Greenfield ​also blasted the new NY bill over at Simple Justice. His title makes no bones about what he thinks of the law: “Sex At New York’s Colleges Is Screwed.”

BRANDEIS BETRAYS STUDENT RIGHTS: Minding the Campus’s KC Johnson has a great piece about a student’s due process lawsuit against Brandeis; the student charges that he was disciplined under a procedure different from the one that existed when he arrived on campus, while Brandeis defends the procedure as a mere “tweak” to its rules.

STUDENT SUES COLLEGE FOR VIOLATING HER FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO ADVOCATE FOR HER SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS: In Texas, of all places! Last month Blinn College student Nicole Sanders filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the public college after being told by an administrator that she would need “special permission” to display a gun rights sign and collect signatures for her student group on campus. The lawsuit, part of FIRE’s Stand Up For Speech Litigation Project, also challenges Blinn’s policy of restricting speech to this absurdly tiny “Free Speech Area.” Learn more about the case here.

ICYMI: ‘Supreme Court to Government: No, ‘Good Intentions’ Don’t Give You a License to Censor Speech’. Good piece by the Institute for Justice’s Evan Bernick.

CAN’T SLEEP? WANT SOME VIDEO INFOTAINMENT? Then check out this FIRE interview with Steven Pinker on taboos, political correctness, and dissent:

HATE SPEECH IS PROTECTED SPEECH: Check out my interview with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly last night on the constitutionality of prosecuting individuals and groups for hate speech. Also be sure to read Popehat’s excellent piece about the media’s use of subtle pro-censorship tropes and rhetorical devices. Read more at The Torch.

ICYMI: EX-CHICAGO STATE ADMIN: I WAS PRESSURED TO FILE FALSE HARASSMENT CLAIM AGAINST FACULTY CRITIC. I know this was revealed back in March, but it never got the attention it deserved. Here is more background on that case. As I’ve been saying since day one, keep your eye on the Chicago State University lawsuit.

“DOES JUSTICE THOMAS BELIEVE IN A RACE-HATE EXCEPTION TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT?” Asks First Amendment scholar and prolific author Ron Collins in his latest edition of First Amendment News.