AT SYRACUSE, TRUTH IS FAR LESS IMPORTANT THAN POLITICS: In the Washington Post, Syracuse law professor Greg Germain points out that the supposedly bigoted and racist language used by members of a fraternity suspended after video of a satirical roast got out was, uh, satirical:

A diverse group of 15 students (white, African American, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim, Christian) who were pledging an engineering fraternity were asked to do a roast of the fraternity members for their joint amusement. The skits were crude: masturbation jokes; a politically conservative member was made to be an alt-right bigot who formed a competing fraternity to spread racism; a skit about sexually assaulting a fraternity member who was so controlled by his girlfriend that he could not move (patterned after a viral Brandon Rogers YouTube video). They were making fun of themselves and each other in outlandish ways using very crude language.

And Syracuse knew this perfectly well before it ruined these would-be engineers’ educational plans (and perhaps careers) for nothing. Take this example, from the affidavit of a black student that was filed in the suspended students’ lawsuit against Syracuse:

7. The second skit, entitled “The Trilogies of Tri Kappa,” was based on a satirical fraternity headed by a racist who was trying to integrate members of his “once great” fraternity to “his newly formed white empire.” This imaginary fraternity known as Tri Kappa was the “main enemy” of Theta Tau. This story was intended to lampoon one Chapter member who was a known supporter of President Trump and a political conservative.

8. The main character in the story was presented by the new member portraying him as a red neck, “back woods” figure, who forced his pledges to undergo an “anointing” by taking an oath to “always have hate in [his] heart” for “niggers,” “spics” and the “fuckin’ kikes.” The new member portraying the “pledge” taking the oath in the skit was Jewish. It was evident to everyone in attendance who knew the individuals involved and referenced in the story how ridiculous and satirical it was for one member to be portrayed as a rabid racist in our Chapter which had twenty eight members with racial, ethnic and religious minority backgrounds, including me and other African American and Hispanic members. Although I did not participate in this skit, I observed it and laughed along with everyone else because it was exaggerated satire showing the ignorance and absurdity of actual racists.

To be clear, not only did Syracuse punish these students for “offensive” speech despite promising them free speech (which is wrong), it stripped them of their educations for allegedly saying the exact opposite of what they were saying (which is both wrong and cruel). If you’d like to exercise your right to free speech and let Syracuse know your opinion about the situation, I know the students would appreciate the support.

GIANT INTERNET COMPANY SWEARS OFF CENSORSHIP, TAKES HITS FROM MEDIA: In a thoughtful blog post, the dominant Steam gaming marketplace announces that it is getting out of the censorship business, saying, “If you’re a player, we shouldn’t be choosing for you what content you can or can’t buy.” Great news for freedom lovers, but some game journalists and developers don’t like it. A Kotaku writer called the decision “irresponsible” and quotes, among others, a “developer of queer sex games” whose problems with getting racy games on Steam will now be over, but who opposes the decision because it means the platform is “picking bad moral norms.” This, despite the fact that it was the imposition of others’ moral norms that caused his problems in the first place.

CAMPUS’ WAR ON FREE SPEECH CLAIMS 16 STUDENT VICTIMS: Have you ever attended, participated in, or, like millions of Americans, watched a “roast” on TV? Maybe even found it funny? Well, you loathsome degenerate, you had better stay far, far away from Syracuse University, which suspended 16 students for 1 to 2 years(!) for roasting their fraternity brothers – in private, and with zero complaints filed by the roast-ees – after someone posted out-of-context video on Facebook several weeks later. What the students said sounds bad. But the more you look into this situation, the worse Syracuse looks, and the angrier you will get. If you’d like to help these students out by expressing your own thoughts to Syracuse (which literally has the First Amendment written in giant letters on the side of a building, for crying out loud), FIRE has made it easy.

OHHH THEY HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: And that’s enough for the University of Denver to suspend a female undergrad for her alleged use of racial slurs and other expression, despite 11 out of 12 witnesses (12 witnesses? For this?) saying they never actually heard her say any of them, but that they heard someone else say she said it. One wonders if her alleged expression of sentiments such as “we don’t care about that minority bullshit” might have had more to do with this abomination of due process, which included an administrator driving the accused student to tears.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, JUST MAKING STUFF UP EDITION: The increasingly absurd Marquette University has reportedly banned “proselytizing” on its campus, but if you think that means “inducing someone to convert to your faith,” slow down, Captain Dictionary. In other news, Marquette has also determined that objects moving in the approximate direction of a vector originating at the center of the earth and aiming outward into space shall be described as “falling,” because why not?

ANOTHER “FREE SPEECH: WHO NEEDS IT?” HOT TAKE: A professor at Mizzou argues in the Washington Post that there is no good reason private colleges should have to let the KKK or [insert your preferred cultural bogey] come to their campuses. How about “because they said they would?” He also admits that “some cases will be more difficult to resolve than the not-so-hypothetical Nazi marches, Klan rallies, and cross burnings that many readers will find impossible to defend.” Given the actual number of such events on campuses (Have I missed a recent spate of campus cross burnings?) his “some cases” would more usefully be phrased as “practically every case.”

CAMPUS CHRONICLES, LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS EDITION: A college president takes FIRE to task for classifying bans on “verbal abuse” (like this, perhaps?) and “posters promoting alcohol consumption” as speech codes. The “scourge of excessive alcohol consumption,” he feels, particularly makes the latter an example of “imbalanced sensationalism.” Would he similarly defend 1950s- and 60s-era efforts to censor speech that threatened to spread the “scourge of Communism?” The Red Menace was, after all, quite a bit better armed than are the forces of demon rum.

AMERICA’S WORST UNIVERSITY FOR FREE SPEECH: Places like Berkeley or Evergreen State get all the press (and it’s often richly deserved), but as the student journalists at DePaul University’s student newspaper revealed this week, there is an ever-growing list of reasons that FIRE puts DePaul at or near the top of any list of the very worst schools for free speech. The reports we get from DePaul are consistently appalling. Please, stay away from there.

MEMO RE: EVENTS OF JULY 4, 1776: Is everyone else being buried in emails and notices about Europe’s new data protection regulations (GDPR)? I am sure there are many fine provisions, but “the right to be forgotten” has serious First Amendment problems. I hereby notify readers that FIRE will not be subjecting the information we host to the judgments of EU bureaucrats. Because America.

AG SESSIONS ON CAMPUS FREE SPEECH: This is America. The government should have a position on free speech on public campuses, and given our Constitution that position should be for freedom of speech, not against it. It’s nice to see DOJ recognizing that Americans on campus are being denied justice, and getting involved in defending that most precious of civil rights.

NOBODY EXPECTS THE KENTUCKY INQUISITION: But they probably should. Fox News reports on the University of Kentucky’s Bias Incident Response Team, whose rules FIRE declared to be the Speech Code of the Month for May. Mock the wrong person, even unintentionally, and a panel (including police) may be having a word with you. And before people complain about my comparison (yes, I know UK doesn’t kill anyone), give a listen to Episode 8 of the excellent podcast Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech, where Danish free speech advocate Jacob Mchangama reminds us that the Inquisition was first and foremost dedicated to “correcting” “errors” of belief and speech. Punishment was for the stubborn and recalcitrant.

MCCARTHY ON THE CHARLES: Harvard professes to be so concerned about discrimination that it has literally set up a blacklist for students found “guilty” of joining off-campus single-sex social groups such as sororities, fraternities, and “final clubs,” making a mockery of freedom of association. The Harvard Crimson today reports on efforts in Congress to preserve this freedom, and Harvard’s counter-effort. This after Harvard blacklisted gays in the 1920s (driving one student to suicide) and Communists in the 50s. Now that institution, whose wealth would embarrass Scrooge McDuck, demands the right to continue to receiving federal funding while persecuting sorority girls. Have you no sense of decency, Harvard, at long last?

OPPOSITE COAST, SAME PROBLEM: It’s not just Pomona College where students are uncomfortable sharing their political views. Student newspaper The Dartmouth reports that 77% of Democrat and a whopping 94% of Republican students in an online poll believe “the climate on Dartmouth’s campus prevents some people from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.” Colleges talk a lot about creating a “welcoming environment.” Whatever it is they’re doing, it doesn’t seem to be working that well.

DEPT. OF NO ACCOUNTABILITY, NOVEL THEORIES DIVISION: Video of a SUNY Binghamton police officer, who clearly drew the short straw, telling students that they’re somehow responsible if other people take the flyers they’re passing out and throw them on the ground. It’s amazing what kind of rules you can come up with when you think you’ll never have to defend them. You will of course be shocked to discover that the flyers were critical of Binghamton administrators.

LONG-TIME LURKER, FIRST-TIME POSTER: I’m Robert Shibley, the executive director of FIRE (and author of Twisting Title IX). As a daily follower of Instapundit from almost the very beginning, I couldn’t be more excited to be here.