Trump Ed Dept. Should Issue 1st Amendment "Dear Colleague" Letter to Colleges
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Commenter O’Really suggests:
President Trump’s Department of Education should issue a “Dear Colleague” letter keyed to the First Amendment, informing universities that they are expected to provide an environment conducive to free speech if they wish to maintain federal funding.
It would be very entertaining to see the reaction from those who so assiduously promoted the Obama Administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter keyed to Title IX, which resulted in universities creating kangaroo courts for the Haven Monahans of the world.
The plague of Campus Riot Culture can no longer be defended.
Regarding off-campus AntiFa goon gangs, RICO could be useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Eiffel
The Eiffel Tower guy also contributed to the Statue of Liberty.
PLANET OF THE APES movie ends with Statue of Liberty.
In the novel, it ends with Eiffel Tower.
It seems both structures underwent iconoclasm in meaning.
Statue of Liberty is now Statue of Apathy(against invasion), and Eiffel Tower is now Eyeful Tower of Soros.
Assuming this is Trump’s twitter, he’s already on the case ……
That is a fantastic idea – watching the squirming would be exquisite. The obtuse excuses for why they can’t comply will once again exemplify their hypocrisy. But once the funds are withdrawn their scruples will align with the restoration of the money. Whores they are, and whores they will be.
I think he’s already issued a “Dear Colleague” tweet, and that should suffice as giving them notice.
There should be no more threats. It should start from the position that they have already broken the law. Next step should move straight to withholding federal funds.
If they promise to follow the rules, they can be placed on heavily monitored probation and some funds can be temporarily un-witheld (side bonus, we’re going to need to hire a bunch of White goys to observe and report on whether the colleges are playing along).
This would be a huge win-win. Even university administrators and many faculty would secretly (or even not so secretly) be relieved by it. For administrators it would be the ultimate excuse to keep things running smoothly – “gee kids, I would love really to keep those bad people from speaking, but I can’t because the government would take away all of our NSF grants and federal financial aid.”
I very much like the idea, though I wonder whether such a letter can be issued legally — the Dear Colleague letter from the Obama OCR had the legal pretext of interpreting Title IX.
Is there such a basis for a letter regarding free speech on campuses, or would Congress need to pass relevant legislation first?
Put aside the legality issue, run it as a variation of the LBJ pig fucker strategy. See which university is going to go to court to fight a Dear Colleague Letter which mandates that they respect free speech.
If I may say, and this is no way sticking up for those commie re-education camps formerly known as universities, but they actually can’t violate the 1st Amendment, being that it states “Congress shall make no law…” That being said, I truly feel it is wrong and very irresponsible, but “we” should only use Constitutional arguments when it actually applies. Public universities may be violating their home state Constitutions (being most have their own version of the federal 1st Amendment), but it does not violate the US Constitution. We don’t want to come off sounding like the ignorant agitators, now do we?
Is there such a basis for a letter regarding free speech on campuses, or would Congress need to pass relevant legislation first?Replies: @JerryC, @Broski, @International Jew, @TangoMan
Don’t we already have an amendment or something about free speech?
I would say at least 70% of university administrators are leftist true believers. Some might be relived, but most would be enraged. They would encourage further protests by the students.
Is there such a basis for a letter regarding free speech on campuses, or would Congress need to pass relevant legislation first?Replies: @JerryC, @Broski, @International Jew, @TangoMan
The First Amendment should suffice. Constitution > legislation.
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.Replies: @Mr. Anon, @Joe Franklin, @wrd9, @C. Van Carter, @guest
Yes, that’s his twitter and at least Fox touched on is tweet today.
Is there such a basis for a letter regarding free speech on campuses, or would Congress need to pass relevant legislation first?Replies: @JerryC, @Broski, @International Jew, @TangoMan
If the government can zealously prosecute you for interfering with someone’s 15th Amendment right to vote, then it can prosecute you for interfering with someone’s 1st Amendment right to free speech.
Nonsense; we’ve long since been forced to accept the misapplication of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution as a mandate that the Bill of Rights applies equally to the States (and, by extension, their public universities). No matter how misguided that concept may be, it is the hand we are dealt, so we should play it; to insist otherwise is to adhere to Queensberry’s rules against a man who has kicked you in the crotch.
When will something be done about Campus Riot Culture?
The rioters were at least partly organized by a group called By Any Means Necessary whose leader is a BUSD teacher, Yvette Felarca.
She seems to be immune from being fired. She teaches Social Studies, BTW.
Steve has written a fair bit about the appalling test scores of Black kids in the BUSD. The likes of Felarca can’t help in that regard.
Trump should certainly do this, and maybe redirect federal funds to the creation of Trump University satellite campuses. Fauxcahontas Warren’s head would explode.
I don’t know that it works that way. I don’t know that college campuses are legally obligated to allow all forms of free speech, anymore than, say, a corporation.
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.
Corporations are not government owned.
Do the math.
They’ll run to a leftist judge and get the funding restored, then get the case held up in court as long as possible.
In other news water wet.
He would have to be prepared to follow through – but he might not have to do that a lot. Nail a few of them to the wall – take away every Federal penny that he can; the rest would be more reluctant to fall on their swords. What drives so many Better Worlders, especially the left’s enduringly regenerative useful idiots, is martyrdom. They win by losing and get a really nice write-up in the weekend New York Times. But the big boys in the College administration’s also have to answer to alumni who may be getting somewhat disenchanted with all this dunce cap bullshit. The feds put quite a bit of money into America’s higher education and it would be missed. And careers squashed. They’ll fold.
DJT (PBUH) can knock a multi-million dollar hole in Berkeley's budget any time he wants to. Nothing gets peoples' attention like losing money.
black block and antifa must be high on “medical”mrijuana and on drugs so how hard will it be to get informers inside for RICO prosecutions
The feds should also extend the implied threat of loss of funding to get Universities to dissolve the star-chambers they’ve set up to adjudicate allegations of rape. If it’s rape, then it’s a crime, a felony actually, and it falls within the jurisdiction of the police, not the University administration.
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.Replies: @Mr. Anon, @Joe Franklin, @wrd9, @C. Van Carter, @guest
Then perhaps state governments are not obligated to respect any notions of academic freedom either.
The way to fight back against Universities, which have become hostile to conservatives, is to abolish tenure.
Make it possible to fire professors. And then fire them.
My question is, where are state legislatures? Somehow the University of Texas is one of the most notorious practitioners of racial discrimination, yet the whole state government is conservative. Ditto Michigan. We'd probably see the same at great public universities in NC and WI. We hear about the large number of states that now have R control of the legislature and governorship; de-politicizing higher education should become a national priority, helped by the Feds.Replies: @Mr. Anon
One thing I’ve noticed and found encouraging is how much worse the left has gotten at responding to these kind of obvious turnabout troll moves.
It used to be the left would shake them off and not seize the bait- that self restraint has collapsed. This has driven home to me how important the idea of historical inevitably is to the left- not just as a source of righteousness, but more importantly for a sense of confidence. It’s almost like for the first time since the long march through the institutions that the left isn’t sure if it’s going to win.
The left seems genuinely terrified and they are starting to make mistakes. They never would have mobilized all out on a less than 50 percent issue like the immigration pause before. They were very adept at waiting to go all in when they knew they could muscle the American people along with them. America could finally get Nixon’s second term.
Having, most likely, never really read or been taught about the United States Constitution, the University of California Berkeley protesters (not the black clad thugs) thought that “No Free Speech For Fascists” is the totality of the First Amendment.
You are both right…somewhat. Public universities are limited public fora for the purposes of the the First Amendment. This means that unlike traditional public fora (e.g., sidewalks), their use can far more easily be restricted. I’m lazy and tired, so I grabbed this explanation from some professor named Doug Linder’s Website to spare myself more typing; despite having gotten his degree at Stanford University, the guy explains things concisely, correctly, and in terms a layman can understand:
Now, whether the federal supreme court got all of those decisions right is a can of worms I don’t care to open just now; I’m just trying to help folks here understand the status quo of current federal jurisprudence.
As to the second question: No, there is no inexorable legal reason states’ governments must allow tenure and so-called academic freedom to the faculty of public universities; some states probably have enabling statutes to that effect which govern their public universities, though. In any event, the matter almost certainly in no state implicates that state’s constitution, so any requirements are merely statutory, and so they can be removed by a simple act of the legislature. (I fled to the private sector to make a living wage before I attained tenure, so I never bothered looking too deeply into that stuff.)
Man; to think I used to get paid to explain this stuff. I’m doing it all wrong, I suppose….
Trump should eliminate the Department of Education, as I suggested before — the letter could come from Trump personally, the DOJ, or from the Energy Department — I believe most of the federal money going to UC comes due to their management of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore — those places are the responsibility of the Department of Energy.
Snorlax advocating surrender yet again.
In other news water wet.
Where’s the ACLU when private actors and institutions deprive individuals of their civil rights?
Oh yeah, the right to get a cake decorated with any message content and the right to use any bathroom of one’s choice are their areas of focus now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lincoln_Rockwell#American_Nazi_Party
The public forum / private forum distinction isn’t quite the issue for the chaos around Milo in Berkeley, Seattle and in many other locations… Clearly Milo was invited, but the powers of public order were unable or unwilling to prevent the black block from using violence and intimidation to prevent the assembly. That few or no arrests were made in in these cases is absurd and inexcusable. Were southern sheriffs that easygoing on lynchings in the bad ol’ days of the south?
A better comparison would be if 1960s southern universities unenthusiastically invited civil rights speakers that appealed to negro audiences and the unsympathetic police and municipal politicians stood idly by while the KKK violently intimidated and harassed any who wanted to attend ultimately preventing the event from taking place. Eventually the feds got sent in there to guarantee minority civil rights. Now if our contemporary blue run cities are unwilling to protect the rights of all their citizens, then the feds need to take it seriously and act.
The salient question is not the speaker's right to speak, but the protesters' right to be present and protest, which renders the question of the forum the essential issue, as it dictates what measures police may take. That is what requires an analysis to reach the time, place, and manner restrictions, which are in turn affected by the university's havig been made a limited public forum. Settled jurisprudence determines to what extent police may preclude (or exclude, spatially) protesters.
Arresting those committing crimes is of course permitted and should be done, but the sizes of the crowds involved and the chaos and confusion in these situations makes proactive prevention to the maximum extent possible the best approach, and that does require compliance with the constitutional rights, even – no, especially – of those protesters who are not criminals, despicable though they may be. Failure to appreciate that puts one squarely in cahoots with the thugs who would stifle the speaker in the first instance.If this all sounds like arcane legalese...well, it is. You wouldn't expect a an explanation of rocketry not to involve some details about physics. By all means ignore it if it irks you or confuses you. Maybe another of the lawyers around here can explain it better. Maybe you'd rather get on with being indignant and sabre-rattling. Many here bemoan the judiciary outcomes that thwart their druthers, but in some cases those outcomes are absolutely correct. Outlawing protests because they are accompanied by crime is a bad idea that should be thwarted.
That tactic may stop paying off sooner rather than later; Ginsburg is now an eighty-three-year-old lich who naps during oral arguments….
There should be no more threats. It should start from the position that they have already broken the law. Next step should move straight to withholding federal funds.
If they promise to follow the rules, they can be placed on heavily monitored probation and some funds can be temporarily un-witheld (side bonus, we're going to need to hire a bunch of White goys to observe and report on whether the colleges are playing along).Replies: @Alden
I volunteer to be an on site commissar of anti political correctitude monitoring.
Is there such a basis for a letter regarding free speech on campuses, or would Congress need to pass relevant legislation first?Replies: @JerryC, @Broski, @International Jew, @TangoMan
I very much like the idea, though I wonder whether such a letter can be issued legally
Put aside the legality issue, run it as a variation of the LBJ pig fucker strategy. See which university is going to go to court to fight a Dear Colleague Letter which mandates that they respect free speech.
I entirely agree police must be compelled to protect the peace and arrest criminals. That they have not done so is a travesty. The idea is to chart an optimal path for future enforcement by peace officers, be they employed by a State or the federal government.
The salient question is not the speaker’s right to speak, but the protesters’ right to be present and protest, which renders the question of the forum the essential issue, as it dictates what measures police may take. That is what requires an analysis to reach the time, place, and manner restrictions, which are in turn affected by the university’s havig been made a limited public forum. Settled jurisprudence determines to what extent police may preclude (or exclude, spatially) protesters.
Arresting those committing crimes is of course permitted and should be done, but the sizes of the crowds involved and the chaos and confusion in these situations makes proactive prevention to the maximum extent possible the best approach, and that does require compliance with the constitutional rights, even – no, especially – of those protesters who are not criminals, despicable though they may be. Failure to appreciate that puts one squarely in cahoots with the thugs who would stifle the speaker in the first instance.
If this all sounds like arcane legalese…well, it is. You wouldn’t expect a an explanation of rocketry not to involve some details about physics. By all means ignore it if it irks you or confuses you. Maybe another of the lawyers around here can explain it better. Maybe you’d rather get on with being indignant and sabre-rattling. Many here bemoan the judiciary outcomes that thwart their druthers, but in some cases those outcomes are absolutely correct. Outlawing protests because they are accompanied by crime is a bad idea that should be thwarted.
1) As you point out, every State has an equivalent of the 1st Amendment in its Constitution. Nevertheless, that would require the State government of California to enforce it. Likelihood of Governor Moonbeam doing that?
2) Due to the Incorporation Doctrine interpretation of the dubiously enacted 14th Amendment, Amendments 1-8 are now held to apply to the States’ governments. This is wrong of course, since it is judge-made law overruling the actual Constitution, but it is the settled law of the land for over 90 years for the 1st Amendment. As a state university, Berkeley is part of the state government.
3) Even if the judiciary suddenly woke up and endorsed the actual Constitution, when States accept federal money they typically have to agree that they will abide by federal civil rights law, which obviously includes the 1st Amendment. This is how private universities are made to abide by federal laws that would not otherwise apply.
So in short, yeah the Feds can totally smash Berkeley if they want to, not only through financial deprivation, but also by actual prosecutions for violating civil rights law. Trump has already hinted at the former in his tweet.
Is this an opening on the chessboard for our side to set up a Civil Rights Gambit?
Could we wrestle away the mantle of Civil Rights by deft exploitation of these events?
Even a chess match depends on following rules - the other side makes up their own rules. But for a time, our side has AG Sessions to enforce the rules.Replies: @Almost Missouri
In which case someone needs to bring a case that gets to the now-more-conservative Supreme Court. See, pays to have defeatists looking at the downsides. 😉
I think Trump has a team looking for her phylactery.
Or just ban masks and send the law-breakers to jail.
What ever the law does or does not say, isn’t it in Trumps interests to let the students riot ? Their misbehaviour is good publicity for him.
???
The letter in question has the legal goal of enforcing the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Giving federal tax money to institutions that suppress (or tolerate the suppression of) the First Amendment is support of same.
There’s a law somewhere, that Congress made, that grants federal taxpayer monies to these universities. If one of said universities is suppressing free speech, then said law is, too. Removing support for violating universities would seem the only way, short of repeal or annulment, to keep said law Constitutional.
SFG: when they find it and get TPKed, we can send a golem to retrieve it.
While I agree with you, I’d make room in there somewhere for cracking the skulls of violent mobs. That omelet necessarily entails some broken eggs (i.e., something less than perfect protection of the rights of the non-violent protestors in the mob). The right to free association doesn’t absolve people from responsibility for choosing good associates.
It’s sort of like how innocent people are inevitably harmed or killed in war, including just war. Actually, they have a much stronger claim to injury.
It’s also like receiving stolen goods. Tonto may not have raided your wagon train. He might have just sat at camp and made a profit trading in the stuff his fellow Sioux brought back from their raid. And lived this way for years. Is he really innocent?
Guilt by association may be a bad idea on balance, but it has its merits, too.
One useful measure would be rounding up the rioters and determining whether any of them is using Federal loans to pay for college. That money should be yanked from them if they are caught participating in riots or vandalism. There’s absolutely no reason the government should be paying for the education of some violent, law-breaking thugs attacking the very institutions they’re attending. College is so expensive these days that many of these creeps are entirely dependent on government money.
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.Replies: @Mr. Anon, @Joe Franklin, @wrd9, @C. Van Carter, @guest
Public universities are government owned.
Corporations are not government owned.
Do the math.
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.Replies: @Mr. Anon, @Joe Franklin, @wrd9, @C. Van Carter, @guest
It depends on whether the college/university is public or private. However, there are ways to force a private college to play fair as in suspending federal research grants or federally backed student loans. In fact, there needs to be an assault not just on the curbing of free speech but the following: the racist diversity classes that are required, the outrageous tuition that these colleges charge. Colleges are nests of rabid liberals and they need to be decimated. Fauxcahontas whines about college costs yet was part of the problem. She did nothing about costs except to try to get a lower interest rate. How about forcing colleges to cut costs severely in order to get federal money? There is massive academic bloat and the top tier have overly generous salaries (Liz Warren – $350,000 for teaching two courses). It’s an Academic Welfare State. If Trump can cut down the federal workforce and downsize academia, there will be many, many unemployed leftists.
And that’s why there are 100+ years of Conservative LOSING in the rear view mirror.
“Regarding off-campus AntiFa goon gangs, RICO could be useful.”
I respond:
We need to work as individuals to identify these specific Atifa gang members in our areas and pass this information on to responsible authorities that can actually do something.
Though Antifa gang members like to disguise their identity in public riots (masks) but they often like to brag about their doings on social media.
It depends how high up you go. At the high end, they are fundraising from titans of industry and football fanatics.
AFAIK, every federal contract has a clause that says something like, “.. this contract can be terminated at any time and for any reason at the pleasure of the US government”. I have seen it done.
DJT (PBUH) can knock a multi-million dollar hole in Berkeley’s budget any time he wants to. Nothing gets peoples’ attention like losing money.
I would bet money that most 20 somethings think that Hate Speech is not covered by the First Amendment. That of course assumes that they have ever been taught -anything- about the Constitution other than that it is a tool of the White Patriarchy used to subjugate blacks, muslims, women, gays, who am I missing here?
I am old enough to remember when the ACLU was an honest organization, rather than an arm of the Democratic Party, and successfully defended the right of Nazi-wannabee George Lincoln Rockwell and his 6 followers to hold a rally in NYC’s Union Square.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lincoln_Rockwell#American_Nazi_Party
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.Replies: @Mr. Anon, @Joe Franklin, @wrd9, @C. Van Carter, @guest
Public colleges and universities are state actors subject to the First Amendment.
At the higher levels, likely–the levels that produce nothing but careers for their incumbents.
But once you get down to the level of the folks who really keep things running in the day to day in these small cities-within-cities, believe me, there are more of “us” than anyone imagines.
A large part of the reason they don’t speak up isn’t cowardice or fear for their jobs. It’s because they have a real world to keep running in the day to day. Nothing they say or do will change the ranters’ views or actions, so why bother, plus it’s more interesting to keep things running in the day to day.
That darn old HBD again.
Title IX is, on the other hand, legislation that specifically applies to colleges.Replies: @Mr. Anon, @Joe Franklin, @wrd9, @C. Van Carter, @guest
I can’t cite it, but I vaguely recall one case where a university wanted to prevent scofflaws from spontaneously rallying on their streets, or something like that. The court legally enforced, over the objections of the university (which really ought to have known better than the court), the university’s own mission statement, or whatever you want to call it. Which said something like “We believe in openness and letting every student have their blah, blah, blah.”
I cannot stress enough that their ruling was based on some superficial, boilerplate, self-imposed language written by the university about itself. Which reeks of casting about for an excuse to rule the way you’ve already decided to rule. In doing so, the court set itself up as an authority not only to enforce this blather, but to interpret it rather arbitrarily. Because they didn’t leave my mind clear at all, for instance, whether the university, dedicated to openness as pledged, was obligated to let students shout down professors in the classroom. Where does discipline begin and openness end? Ask a judge, I guess. They’re experts on running a university, now.
Point is, judges don’t need laws. They’ll use anything!
Make it possible to fire professors. And then fire them.Replies: @EdwardM
Who would fire leftist professors, leftist administrators? Abolishing tenure and/or academic freedom would disproportionately hurt the few conservatives on faculties.
My question is, where are state legislatures? Somehow the University of Texas is one of the most notorious practitioners of racial discrimination, yet the whole state government is conservative. Ditto Michigan. We’d probably see the same at great public universities in NC and WI. We hear about the large number of states that now have R control of the legislature and governorship; de-politicizing higher education should become a national priority, helped by the Feds.
My question is, where are state legislatures? Somehow the University of Texas is one of the most notorious practitioners of racial discrimination, yet the whole state government is conservative. Ditto Michigan. We'd probably see the same at great public universities in NC and WI. We hear about the large number of states that now have R control of the legislature and governorship; de-politicizing higher education should become a national priority, helped by the Feds.Replies: @Mr. Anon
No, state legislators. By cutting university budgets and eliminating – explicitly eliminating – whole departments and administrative units.
I like your #3.
Is this an opening on the chessboard for our side to set up a Civil Rights Gambit?
Could we wrestle away the mantle of Civil Rights by deft exploitation of these events?
Even a chess match depends on following rules – the other side makes up their own rules. But for a time, our side has AG Sessions to enforce the rules.
Is this an opening on the chessboard for our side to set up a Civil Rights Gambit?
Could we wrestle away the mantle of Civil Rights by deft exploitation of these events?
Even a chess match depends on following rules - the other side makes up their own rules. But for a time, our side has AG Sessions to enforce the rules.Replies: @Almost Missouri
There is a nonprofit, theFire.org, that uses #2 and #3 as the main arrows in their quiver. Their work is commendable, I suppose, and occasionally effective, but they tend to stop short of where they really need to go. Once a “banned” speaker is permitted, they tend to declare victory and to consider all the time, effort and expense that went into that “victory” to be just a cost of doing business.
For a real victory, they need to inflict those costs on the other side: the side that’s doing the banning. They need big civil settlements, criminal indictments, careers ended. You know, the stuff Progs routinely do to conservatives, but which conservatives are too fastidious to do back. Until the Proggists starts bleeding money, losing careers and getting convicted, they will continue to trample on the rights of everyone else, and everyone else will get to pay for the privilege of occasionally having their rights.