In Defense of Free Speech By Rep.

Chris Millis

Bipartisan legislation sponsored by Representative Mills passed the House on Wednesday

strengthening and codifying standards for free expression in the state university system,
mandating that all public universities ensure the fullest degree of intellectual freedom and
free expression.

Currently, there are no statutes addressing free speech for the University of North Carolina
(UNC) institutions.
House Bill 527, modeled after the Goldwater Institutes policy report Campus Free Speech: A
Legislative Proposal, requires UNCs Board of Governors to develop, adopt, and implement
various policies related to free expression, and to form a Committee on Free Expression
which must make annual reports to the Board of Governors, the General Assembly, and the
governor.
It is critical that we reverse the trend of free speech being impeded on public university
campuses in North Carolina, said Representative Millis. And we must preempt further
violations of those rights by fostering an environment of open thought and expression in the
halls of higher education across North Carolina.
The bill requires that all public universities include a section in their freshman orientation
programs describing free speech principles and supporting school policies, and requires that
our public universities establish a set of penalties for student protesters who interfere with
the free speech rights of others or who disrupt events.
Its not ideological, its about doing the right thing, said Representative Jonathan Jordan,
the bills co-sponsor. Speakers are having their events permanently disrupted or canceled
because certain student groups or individuals disagree with their beliefs.

The Times They Are A-changin

After several disturbing instances last year at Appalachian State University, chancellor Sheri
Everts seemed to take issue with certain kinds of political expression: It is important to note
that free speech is encouraged on our campus, she said. But not all speech that may be
considered protected under state or federal laws is consistent with the universitys values and
mission.
In a recent poll of university students, 21% of the respondents believed that the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution was an outdated amendment that can no
longer be applied in todays society and should be changed. And, in perhaps even more
shockingly, 35% of the students thought that hate speech is not protected under the 1st
Amendment.
This kind of rationalization for the restriction of free speech rights at public universities is
what sponsors say makes this bill necessary. That, said Representative Jordan, is the
reason for this bill.
In Defense of Free Speech By Rep. Chris Millis

This legislation also comes on the heels of recent protests aimed at shutting down certain
speakers with whom they do not agree at schools around the country. Violent left-wing
protesters have ended appearances by author Charles Murray at Middlebury College,
conservative agent provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos at University of California-Berkeley, and
author Heather Mac Donald at Claremont McKenna College, to name just a recent few.
Many universities have resorted to simply banning speakers altogether to avoid the risk of
violence from these radical leftist agitators. According to Washington Examiner columnist Lisa
Boothe, The Wall Street Journals Jason Riley was disinvited from speaking at Virginia Tech
because he has written about race issues from a conservative perspective, and Former
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to cancel an invitation by Rutgers University
to deliver that schools commencement address in 2014. The Foundation for Individual Rights
in Education (FIRE), which fights for free speech on college campuses, estimates that there
have been around 338 speakers disinvited since 2000.
Conservative speaker Ann Coulter was forced to cancel her April 27th speaking engagement
at UC Berkeley (ironically, the birthplace of the so-called free speech movement) after
mounting pressure from administrators and threats of violence from activists who promised to
shut her down by any means necessary. Coulters campus sponsors had filed a lawsuit
against the university over its violation of her First Amendment rights.
Apparently, the Berkeley situation was even too much for outspoken liberal potty-mouth Bill
Maher and Senator Bernie Sanders, himself a committed democratic socialist. While
disagreeing with her views, both condemned the students threats of violence and their
attempt to suppress Coulters right to speak. People have a right to give their two cents-
worth, give a speech, without fear of violence and intimidation, said Senator Sanders. He
went on to say that the actions of the Berkeley protestors demonstrated intellectual
weakness.
Berkeley, you know, used to be the cradle of free speech, cracked Maher. Now its just the
cradle for [expletive] babies.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also came to Coulters defense, triggering a
number of liberals to denounce the organization.
FIRE issued a statement on the ordeal on April 26, 2017: Public colleges and universities
have a legal duty to protect First Amendment rights. They also have a responsibility to do
their best to protect all those present on campus from threats to their physical safety. But
curtailing the rights of a speaker in the name of safety is wrong unless absolutely necessary,
and canceling a speech must be the very last resort. Otherwise, restricting or silencing a
speaker is simply a capitulation to violence or threats.
Berkeley should be ashamed for creating this hostile atmosphere, said YAF president Ron
Robinson. Berkeley made it impossible to hold a lecture due to the lack of assurances for
protections from foreseeable violence from unrestrained leftist agitators.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York
Universitys Stern School of Business, commenting on the disturbing campus phenomenon,
said:
In Defense of Free Speech By Rep. Chris Millis

We are witnessing the emergence of a dangerous new norm for responding to speakers who
challenge campus orthodoxy. Anyone offended by the speaker can put out a call on Facebook
to bring together students and locals, including antifa (antifascist) and black-bloc activists
who explicitly endorse the use of violence against racists and fascists. Because of flagrant
concept creep, however, almost anyone who is politically right of center can be labeled a
racist or a fascist, and the promiscuous use of such labels is now part of the standard
operating procedure.
14 House Democrats joined with a unified Republican caucus and voted for House Bill 527,
while 32 Democrats voted against the bill.

A Quick History of Free Speech

Author Jonah Goldberg writes that the movement for free speech is thousands of years old:
In 1689, the British passed a law guaranteeing freedom of speech in Parliament. A century
later, French revolutionaries incorporated into law the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which
established free speech as a universal right. Two years later, our own Founders ratified the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees, among other rights,
that the government shall not infringe on the right to free speech. Roughly a century and half
later, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
says, Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
Mario Savio, the leader of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, was committed to free
speech, continues Goldberg. But so was Berkeley at the time [1964]. In the years before
Savios movement, Berkeley had hosted speeches by Communists, Nazis (invited by leftists to
cause a stir), and political and literary speakers of every stripe.
An examination of the tensions between controversial speech and virulent protesters is
dramatically portrayed in the 1981 made-for-TV movie Skokie starring Danny Kaye and Carl
Reiner a docudrama about the real-life story of small town Holocaust survivors opposed to
a public demonstration by Nazi sympathizers in Middle America in the Seventies.
From Fandango.com: Skokie is the true story of a critical test of Constitutional rights in
Illinois. In 1977, a small band of American neo-fascists calling itself the National Socialist
Party of America plans to stage a swastika-dominated demonstration and rally. Their intended
site is the Chicago suburb of Skokie, a town populated predominantly by Jewsmany of them
survivors of the Nazi holocaust. Jewish ACLU lawyer John Rubinstein is compelled to lobby for
the National Socialists freedom to express their views, despite his own inner turmoil over
defending the very people whod destroy him. The most vocal opponent to the planned rally
is Skokie senior citizen Max Liebman (Danny Kaye), who spent five years in Hitlers death
camps. Ernest Kinoys teleplay for Skokie is fair-minded to a fault, presenting all points of
view with equanimity, proving that there are no simple solutions when the fundamental right
of Free Speech is involved.