Political Quotes

“I include in the Record a December 8 statement from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a group invited by the majority in 2018 to testify at a hearing examining the First Amendment rights on campus and a group that authors the free speech ranking the majority cited several times at the committee hearing, titled, ``University Presidents Were Right to Condemn Hate Speech and Defend Free Speech.'' [From FIRE, Dec. 8, 2023] Special Post: Stephen Rohde, `University Presidents Were Right to Condemn Hate Speech and Defend Free Speech'--First Amendment News 403.1 (by Ronald K. L. Collins) When it comes to speech on college campuses, the problem is one with a vintage flavor. Simply recall (if you can) what Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in his 1957 opinion in Sweezy v. New Hampshire (a case successfully argued by professor Thomas Emerson): ``The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident.'' Note that it was a plurality opinion--and note also his use of the word ``almost.'' In other words, doubts lingered. Four decades later, in a book way ahead of its time, the late Robert M. O'Neil awakened our world to free speech issues that would define the world in decades to come.…”