Emory Committee Finds that pro-Trump Messages are Protected Speech - Decaturish.com

I seriously doubt that the media will have quite the field day with this news as they did with the onset of the matter with Emory University in Atlanta, GA , but I thought that ATS might like to know that sometimes, even in today's political climate, sometimes a University does the right thing.

At least, in my opinion:

Emory University students who were offended by pro-Trump messages written in chalk around campus can’t force the university to censor that speech because it offends them, a university committee has found. The university’s Committee for Open Expression – a group of faculty, staff and students – issued a lengthy report on the matter that affirmed the chalkings are protected free speech under university policy. In March, Emory students attracted national attention, and a healthy dose of mockery, for a protest that occurred after the pro-Trump messages were discovered.

I especially like this part:

Sophomore Jonathan Peraza reportedly led a chant and called out, “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!”

The student’s pain over the message does not trump Donald Trump supporters’ rights of free speech, the committee found.

“Certainly, if the content of the chalkings threatened violence, force, or injury to persons or property, they would violate the Open Expression Policy as well as other policies, including state criminal law,” the report says. “Such acts would also reasonably evoke feelings of fear—though the acts are prohibited without reference to whether anyone subjectively feels fear; and likewise, a subjective feeling of fear is insufficient, by itself, to bring an act within a prohibition in the Policy. The knowledge that someone supports Donald Trump and is willing to express his feelings in chalk is not a threat, and is not a reasonable cause for fear in this context.”

Full article at the link from Decaturish.com

a reply to: Gryphon66
Offended by someone's opinion?! Oh dear god, the horror, the horror! Who knew it was legal for someone to disagree with someone else?! Honestly, this is extremely disappointing. The reaction of the students I mean. The college did the right thing, but it should have been obvious from the very beginning!

originally posted by: Tiamat384
a reply to: Gryphon66
Offended by someone's opinion?! Oh dear god, the horror, the horror! Who knew it was legal for someone to disagree with someone else?! Honestly, this is extremely disappointing. The reaction of the students I mean. The college did the right thing, but it should have been obvious from the very beginning!

As relatively odd as I find this to say ... I agree with you 150%. LOL

Free speech is free speech. Whether notarized by the US Constitution, or made part of a University's policies and procedures.

I was pleasantly surprised by this outcome.

a reply to: Gryphon66
Heh. Why are you surprised? I don't remember disagreeing with you, though we may have. Glad to have found common ground.

Give it a few days, soon hordes of liberals shall descend upon Emory University. They will burn that school to the ground for their gross support of 'racist white hate speech'.

It's a very sad day, to think it requires a committee of experts to come to this conclusion.

Fresh breeze of justice and common sense.

originally posted by: GodEmperor
Give it a few days, soon hordes of liberals shall descend upon Emory University. They will burn that school to the ground for their gross support of 'racist white hate speech'.

It's a very sad day, to think it requires a committee of experts to come to this conclusion.

I will bet you all the money in the world that nothing of that sort will ever happen because of this event.

This new found narrative that liberals are violent is getting tedious... All the Trump supporters shouted down accusations of Trump supporters being racist, yet these very same Trump supporters are literally doing the same thing to the liberals. I guess it's because Trump's focus is shifting from internal party strife to partisan strife... Thus the focus of the ad hominems shift from other conservatives to liberals. Too bad for you guys that Trump is more liberal than he is conservative.

PS: It always requires a committee of experts to come to decisions like this, even if the verdict looks obvious. That's what Constitutional lawyers are for.

originally posted by: GodEmperor
Give it a few days, soon hordes of liberals shall descend upon Emory University. They will burn that school to the ground for their gross support of 'racist white hate speech'.

It's a very sad day, to think it requires a committee of experts to come to this conclusion.

Wow, never miss an opportunity to display rampant partisanship eh?

Actually, you'll be amazed to discover that the majority of liberals (leftists, et. al.) are in favor of free speech and its expression ... so ...

/shrug We'll see. When you're proven wrong, will you buy us all a cookie?

Let's be glad that reasonability and free speech won out, eh?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I don't believe this topic is about Trump supporters, or the outmoded evolutionary adaptation of 'racism' that every single human possesses.

I will accept a payment plan.

originally posted by: GodEmperor
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I don't believe this topic is about Trump supporters, or the outmoded evolutionary adaptation of 'racism' that every single human possesses.

I will accept a payment plan.

Yeah, it kind of implicitly IS about Trump supporters ... did you see the title, the topic, or read anything posted?

Trump supporters can chalk his name all day long at Emory! Huzzah!

a reply to: Gryphon66

This is good news. Hopefully it sets an example to other universities. Freedom of speech is a key component of academic freedom, and without it, there is no university.

a reply to: Gryphon66

You really don't get it, all our freedom can and will be lost in a single generation.

The majority of the left and right may oppose it now, but what happens when those older generation are gone? What do you think the children of this current PC generation will be like? There is no turning away from this path, given time, America will be one giant safe space.

Sorry for any perceived partisanship, but the MSM feeds this ridiculousness, and the media is a major contributor to shaping American culture.

Excellent book, free online: Propaganda by Edward Bernays, if you haven't read it yet, read it.

www.historyisaweapon.com...

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Gryphon66

This is good news. Hopefully it sets an example to other universities. Freedom of speech is a key component of academic freedom, and without it, there is no university.

Exactly! Thank you LesMis. You were one of the folks I had in mind posting this one.

a reply to: GodEmperor

I really don't get what? That you took the opportunity to post in a thread about good news with more garden-variety liberal hatred?

This thread is about GOOD NEWS ... about LOGIC AND REASON AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH WINNING OUT.

What I think the children of this "current PC generation will be like"? Well, I'd guess the split will be about 50/50 as it's been for 200 years or more. There are young Conservatives coming along who are just as radical as the group you're pointing to, and they're both outnumbered by the moderates.

I don't think you're correct in your rather doomful assessment, but that's that.

Let's be happy about a good decision, eh?

Sad that it took a committee and an investigation to determine that opinions are free speech.

Halle-freaking-lujah

How bad has it become that news like this is both breaking and legitimately shocking?

Good to know at least some people haven't lost their mind, dare I say their is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel? With this combined with those lying racist BLM women who made up a false hate crime at University of Albany? And the woman who made a fake twitter account threatening to kill black people? It's ridiculous that news of the justice system actually doing it's #ing job when it comes to cases like these are shocking.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
Sad that it took a committee and an investigation to determine that opinions are free speech.

Yet, happy that it happened on a campus that gained national publicity as being inhabited only by "special snowflakes" eh?

Happy happy!

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: GodEmperor
Give it a few days, soon hordes of liberals shall descend upon Emory University. They will burn that school to the ground for their gross support of 'racist white hate speech'.

It's a very sad day, to think it requires a committee of experts to come to this conclusion.

I will bet you all the money in the world that nothing of that sort will ever happen because of this event.

This new found narrative that liberals are violent is getting tedious... All the Trump supporters shouted down accusations of Trump supporters being racist, yet these very same Trump supporters are literally doing the same thing to the liberals. I guess it's because Trump's focus is shifting from internal party strife to partisan strife... Thus the focus of the ad hominems shift from other conservatives to liberals. Too bad for you guys that Trump is more liberal than he is conservative.

PS: It always requires a committee of experts to come to decisions like this, even if the verdict looks obvious. That's what Constitutional lawyers are for.

It's not tedious if it's true. Yes, we had that one jackass that punched that protester in the face at that Trump rally completely uncalled for, but there are dozens if not hundreds of other cases where Anti-Trump supporters went after Trump supporters in similar and much worse ways. The kid that got punched at the Trump rally got knocked down, OK, but Trump Supporters are getting beaten, bludgeoned and made bloody by violent leftist radicals almost on a regular occurrence, not to mention the property damage being done (maybe you should do some research on what happened in Costa Mesa where Anti-Trump "protesters" destroyed police cars and were robbing and attacking Trump supporters).

Secondly - I would think for people like you, you would welcome that Trump is more Liberal than say, Ted Cruz. Personally, I think it's a good thing as well.

Thirdly: If you seriously think someone legally chalking "Trump 2016" on the grounds of a Public University requires "experts" to determine the phrase is free speech, or at the very least NOT HATE SPEECH - you are why there is so much government waste, and are part of the problem. Seriously. If you don't think "Bernie 2016" or "Clinton 2016" are hate speech (something tells me you probably wouldn't), then by simple extension of logic, "Trump 2016" should also not be hate speech. There we go, we just solved the problem, no committee, no experts.

originally posted by: chuck258

Thirdly: If you seriously think someone legally chalking "Trump 2016" on the grounds of a Public University requires "experts" to determine the phrase is free speech, or at the very least NOT HATE SPEECH - you are why there is so much government waste, and are part of the problem. Seriously. If you don't think "Bernie 2016" or "Clinton 2016" are hate speech (something tells me you probably wouldn't), then by simple extension of logic, "Trump 2016" should also not be hate speech. There we go, we just solved the problem, no committee, no experts.

Fourth: Emory is a private institution.

a reply to: Gryphon66

I think over time, more and more Universities will come to this realization. If only because of the backlash from alumni that may occur.

University isn't supposed to be an echo chamber where only one voice is heard over and over again.

It's good to see this, and as I said above, I think this is going to be a trend.