What Ails the United States

IMO, RFK Jr's diagnosis of what ails the US is spot on. I hope to hell we, as a country, somehow figure out a cure. And for those who aren't aware, the DNC is pulling out every trick in the book to make the primary meaningless in order to pre-ordain Biden as the winner. Further, the DNC has publicly stated in court filings that when it comes to the nominee, the DNC doesn't give a shit about the opinions of voters.

Kennedy:

Our nation's most serious problems come from as a single source of entrenched corporate, political elite. Government agencies, Congress, the defense industry, Wall Street, the media, big tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, and pretty much big everything have a death grip on our democracy. And there's only one thing that can break that grip. And now it's not me, is you, the people. It's a populist movement, a unites left and right black and white, rural and urban, young and old. We can't just wait around for the Washington establishment to change their minds. We can't expect Wall Street to stop strip mining the middle class of its equity and as well, we can't expect the military industrial complex to promote peace, or the censorship big tech complex to promote freedom or freedom of speech. We need to do it ourselves. We have to take back power in this country for the people. Let me add one more item to the list of entrenched institutions, the Democratic National Committee, and an honest primary the candidate with the most votes would be the nominee, right. But the DNC has imposed elegant roles and make it nearly impossible for an insurgent candidate to win. It has totally rigged the system very early on. [Video of Jamie Harris of the DNC]: "Back in February, we passed a resolution unanimously within the DNC that we are all riding with Biden and Kamala Harris."

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Florida and California Both Receive a Failing Grade in First Amendment

If you detest Florida's Stop Woke Act, you should also detest the way that California is trying to turn college professors into its ideological puppets. These are both blatant violations of the First Amendment.

Instead of compelling speech at colleges and allowing professors to be disciplined for doing their jobs, what should college administrators be doing? Greg Lukianoff of FIRE offers this advice:

First, stop breaking the law. When a public university restricts freedom of speech, it violates the First Amendment. Although private universities do not share the same legal obligations, many of them make promises to preserve and promote the free speech rights of students and faculty, and they must honor those commitments.

Speaking of commitments, Greg’s second piece of advice is to enshrine free speech protections in official campus policy. One such policy, the “Chicago Statement,” has been adopted by more than 100 colleges and institutions and is viewed by FIRE as the gold standard for free speech commitments.

But you can’t stop there. It’s easy enough to congratulate yourself for putting a commitment in writing, but the real test is when a campus controversy arises over speech protected by the Constitution or by your school’s commitment to free speech. What do you do then? Do you try and wait it out? Hope that everything will blow over?

Well, FIRE hopes not, because your silence will have a chilling effect on free speech. As the university president, you must “defend the free speech rights of your students and faculty loudly, clearly, and early,” says Greg.

One of the most difficult things you will have to do as president will be to defend unpopular speech, even speech that you disagree with, but that is your obligation. Ultimately, the responsibility falls on college leadership, especially presidents, to publicly and unapologetically show their support for free expression. According to FIRE’s 2022 College Free Speech Rankings, students at the top-ranked schools reported that their administration’s stance on free speech is clear and that their administration would likely defend a speaker’s rights during a controversy on campus, a sentiment that is far less common at schools lower in the rankings.

What else can you do? Well, after you have planned for all of that, you should prepare to teach free speech from day one through campus activities and events. In doing so, you’ll clearly convey to students and faculty that the university places a high value on freedom of speech and civil discourse. FIRE even has free speech orientation materials on our website for interested schools.

Finally, as the leaders of scholarly institutions, you must treat commitments to freedom of speech as yet another scholarly endeavor. Universities should survey students, professors, and administrators to “understand their attitudes toward free expression, and to gather opinions of the campus climate for debate, discussion, and dissent.”

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FIRE Files Suit to Ask Federal Court to Declare that DEI Statements Constitute Compelled Speech

From FIRE: FIRE is suing to stop regulations that force our clients to espouse controversial views about “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Here is an excerpt from FIRE's announcement today:

Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit on behalf of six California community college professors to halt new, systemwide regulations forcing professors to espouse and teach politicized conceptions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Each of the professors teach at one of three Fresno-area community colleges within the State Center Community College District. Under the new regulations, all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the California Community Colleges system must incorporate “anti-racist” viewpoints into classroom teaching.

The regulations explicitly require professors to pledge allegiance to contested ideological viewpoints. Professors must “acknowledge” that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional,” and they must develop “knowledge of the intersectionality of social identities and the multiple axes of oppression that people from different racial, ethnic, and other minoritized groups face.” Faculty performance and tenure will be evaluated based on professors’ commitment to and promotion of the government’s viewpoints.

“I’m a professor of chemistry. How am I supposed to incorporate DEI into my classroom instruction?” asked Reedley College professor Bill Blanken. “What’s the ‘anti-racist’ perspective on the atomic mass of boron?”

“These regulations are a totalitarian triple-whammy,” said FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner. “The government is forcing professors to teach and preach a politicized viewpoint they do not share, imposing incomprehensible guidelines, and threatening to punish professors when they cross an arbitrary, indiscernible line.”

DEI requirements are controversial within academia. FIRE’s research indicates that half of professors believe mandatory diversity statements violate academic freedom. The sole mention of academic freedom in California’s model framework frames it an inconvenience, warning professors not to “‘weaponize’ academic freedom” to “inflict curricular trauma on our students.”

“Hearing uncomfortable ideas is not ‘curricular trauma,’ and teaching all sides of an issue is not ‘weaponizing’ academic freedom,” said Loren Palsgaard, a professor of English at Madera Community College and a plaintiff in the suit. “That’s just called ‘education.’”

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