Hey, that’s a local issue for
me! SMU is just down the street from where we live. We’re discussing this
issue on the Dallas Morning News
blog, and I’m holding up the free
speech side. It’s incredible to me that when confronted with students
threatening violence to end a legitimate political protest, a university
sends in security not to protect the First Amendment rights of the
protesters, but to gag them at the request of aggrieved onlookers. I say
that’s “incredible,” not in the sense of I’m surprised by it, but that I’m
outraged by it. Last week in Providence, RI, famed First Amendment attorney
Floyd Abrams, a man of the left, told a group of editorial writers from
around the country that these days, threats to free speech come more from
the left than the right. I wonder how many journalists in that room believed
him.