{"id":299139,"date":"2017-03-15T14:32:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T13:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/testing-the-principle-of-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2017-03-15T14:32:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T13:32:05","slug":"testing-the-principle-of-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/testing-the-principle-of-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Testing the Principle of Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A surge in hateful speech toward minorities in the Age of Trump has been met by \u00a0a pushback from angry activists, sometimes trampling the vital principle of free and open debate, writes Michael Winship.<\/p>\n<p>By Michael Winship<\/p>\n<p>At the risk of sounding like a geezer complaining about \u201cthese kids today,\u201d back in my college days, when it came to points of view we were unhesitatingly exposed to literature, teachers and on-campus speakers covering the ideological waterfront.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22954\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-300x196.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22954\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-160x105.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail.jpg 812w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22954\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail-160x105.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/murray_video_thumbnail.jpg 812w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Middlebury Professor of Political Science Allison Stanger and guest speaker Charles Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. (Photo credit: Middlebury College)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In one instance, the student body was addressed by civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory, radical Irish activist Bernadette Devlin and the conservative writer and critic Russell Kirk \u2014 all in the course of a week or so.<\/p>\n<p>Such variety was a common occurrence, and freewheeling, open discussion was encouraged. We didn\u2019t always like or agree with a lot of what we heard or read \u2014 from time to time there were vehement protests \u2014 but all of it was invaluable. None of us were harmed in the making of our education.<\/p>\n<p>So I was appalled other day when I read about the <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/925842\/republican-lawmaker-kim-hendren-wants-to-ban-books-by-howard-zinn-in-arkansas-schools\/\">attempt by Republican Arkansas legislator Kim Hendren<\/a> to ban from that state\u2019s public schools all books written by the great radical historian Howard Zinn, including his seminal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/9780062397348\/a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states\"><em>A People\u2019s History of the United States<\/em><\/a>, a truthful, lacerating look at the heroes and villains of America \u2014 especially the oligarchs and kleptocrats who once again have their heels on the necks of the poor and middle class.<\/p>\n<p>But I also was deeply troubled by the incident at Vermont\u2019s Middlebury College on March 2, when controversial social scientist Charles Murray was invited by a conservative student group and attempted to speak on campus. Here\u2019s what happened, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.burlingtonfreepress.com\/story\/news\/education\/2017\/03\/07\/author-wants-middlebury-college-protesters-punished\/98842094\/\">according to the Associated Press<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHundreds of students chanted as Murray began to speak Thursday, forcing the college to move the lecture to an undisclosed location. Murray\u2019s talk was live-streamed to the original venue, but protesters drowned it out. The topic, he said, was the divergence of the&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/03\/14\/testing-the-principle-of-free-speech\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A surge in hateful speech toward minorities in the Age of Trump has been met by \u00a0a pushback from angry activists, sometimes trampling the vital principle of free and open debate, writes Michael Winship. By Michael Winship At the risk of sounding like a geezer complaining about \u201cthese kids today,\u201d back in my college days, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-299139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}