Michigan State Senator Patrick Colbeck (R-7th) has just announced that he is introducing two bills designed to protect freedom of speech on the campuses of Michigan’s community colleges and public universities. Colbeck’s bills are based on the model campus free speech legislation I co-authored along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of the Goldwater Institute.
Upon introducing the bill, Colbeck said that, “our college campuses are becoming more like the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s book 1984” than like institutions that pursue the “truth that can only be found through free discourse.” The result, says Colbeck, is that Orwellian “Newspeak” is “becoming the language not only of our universities but of our communities at large. We need to reverse this trend and restore an appreciation for the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
With Michigan serving as home to one of our greatest public university systems, the battle over Colbeck’s campus free speech bills should be of real interest. I hope to report on further developments soon.
Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He can be reached at comments.kurtz@nationalreview.com