The incredible shrinking right of free speech.
Is it free speech if nobody can hear it?
When I was a kid in high school and was taught about the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment I was led to believe that free speech could only be limited by something like “shouting fire in a crowded theater”.
Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik has added an amendment to the amendment.
“If you are going to chant, it should only be in a certain place, so people who don’t want to hear it are protected from having to hear it,” said Shafik.
Ironically, this echoes Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis who has been trying to ban the teaching of any history in schools that might make white kids “uncomfortable”.
The notion that protest and speech is only protected so long as it doesn’t make some people uncomfortable is a concept that might make Dr. Martin Luther King or Ghandi shake their heads.
According to Shafik and the Anti Defamation League any criticism of Israel and it’s genocidal war on Palestinians in ‘Gaza and the West Bank is anti-Semitism and should be cancelled as it causes discomfort among Jewish students.
Of course, not only is criticism of Israel and its current war not anti-Semitic, thousands of Jews, particularly young Jews, are a part of the movement opposing U.S. military support of Israel.
When Congresswoman Ilhan Omar asked Columbia president Shafik if she could name one Jewish organization that had been targeted, the only one she could name was Jewish Voice for Peace.
JVP is a leading organization demanding an end to the Israeli war and occupation.
The ADL has cheapened the fight against anti-Semitism by labeling as anti-Semitic actions that are clearly not.
In my own neighborhood on the north west side of Chicago, graffiti calling for “free Palestine” were reported as examples of anti-Semitism without ever saying what the graffiti actually said.
It raises questions about the validity of claims by the ADL that anti-Semitic incidents are at a record high.
The other day protesters here in Chicago carried out non-violent civil disobedience by blocking the highway leading to O’Hare International Airport.
Airline passengers had to walk to the terminals to catch their flights.
It was inconvenient for them to be sure but not worse than what happens at O’Hare on a holiday weekend when traffic normally screeches to a halt.
This was a preview of what we can probably expect in Chicago when the Democratic National Convention comes to town.
We will protest at the Convention even though the City will create a no-protest zone around the United Center where the Democrats will nominate Biden.
The ADL will undoubtedly label the protests at the DNC as anti-Semitic.
Delegates might be made to feel uncomfortable.
The first claim is nonsense.
The second claim is the point.