ANOTHER university stops students from handing out Constitution

a reply to: Fylgje

don't buy into that false left / right paradigm. not all liberal ideas are anathema to liberty, nor are all conservative ideas.
please educate yourself on what communism is, and the many different forms it has taken in thought and practice. liberalism is not communism. they are distinct, whatever your opinions of both may be.

the false left / right paradigm is the political cage they have built for the American mind.

a reply to: pirhanna
I'm not buying into anything. I stated that academia is saturated with communists. They call themselves liberals just so they can't be arrested. They hold all differing views outside of academia. It's just a communist propaganda machine. And politics do play a huge part in it, unfortunately. If it quacks like a duck...

originally posted by: Fylgje
They call themselves liberals just so they can't be arrested.

This is funny. When was the last time someone was arrested for being a commie?

It reminds me old Abe Simpson watching Cops Beating Up Hippies to the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Plenty of Abes in there.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

this is just another example of why college is a waste....

all they want to do is indoctrinate students into being good like statist robots...

If we could stop treating the Constitution like it is divine, and written by a divine being, that'd be great.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

How is this a "solicitation"? That is not even close to the definition of solicitation.

I was thinking about this. And it occurred to me, something rather offbeat, so bear with me:

One way that certain groups can intentionally abuse our system of law to their advantage, is to intentionally do small things but which are against a policy or law and then promptly sue when they are called on it. For example, a bunch of people standing around a section not for public that is a direct opening to the air ducts of a sports stadium, a security risk, because allegedly they were praying. For example, one person who decides to pray in an area that immediately blocks other people getting to something like their gym locker, in a private health club. The list is endless. The whole point of it is actually to create precedent.

In a smaller sense, it is a form of legal terrorism, to invoke fear so that authorities anywhere, even in a shopping mall, will not question certain groups when they would question anybody else. But in the larger sense, it is to use a seemingly minor thing, a seemingly innocent thing, in order to intentionally bring "legal precedent" against ordinary rules that, for the most part, usually have several decent reasons for existing and aren't hurting anybody.

Once legal precedent is established, then it's all set. In this example, a legal ruling would, by becoming precedent, indirectly possibly effect every public university in the country and would open the door for any number of sources using similar -- but likely far more extreme -- means.

The scientology example someone gave above is one example, not the only one. Right now, it's a university with a policy that says, the last thing students need while carrying 40# of books to their next class is to be hassled by endless numbers of people trying to evangelize them about everything imaginable and here-take-this-paper is only one part of that. The number of areas-of-activism is endless.

So sure, challenge it with the constitution. Because gosh who could argue about that? But chances are it isn't about the constitution at all.

(I might add that Hawaii has a great deal of hard politics related to many of its people not wanting to be part of the USA. The racism against whites in some areas is quite extreme. So anything government, no matter how much I am fond of that particular paper, is actually a lot more controversial in Hawaii than in many other places.)

But if the legal challenge gets a ruling that allows it, that ruling is also going to allow everyone else who isn't actually demanding money on the spot to have free reign at public universities.

So the students can carry their backpack through any number of different religious activists, political activists, animal and food activists, environmental activists, and more -- some defining the polar opposite of everything the constitution stands for -- before they can get from one class to another.

And that would be because legal precedent made it so that there was no such thing as a zone on a school campus where people could actually focus on... school... without everyone who wants to 'activist-influence' them talking to / at them, yelling at them, trying to force them to take papers etc. If you have never been exposed to actual activism, you may not realize that polite people offering to hand you a paper, much like someone might offer you a treat at the grocery store to market a box of crackers, is not usually how it works. It is usually considerably more traumatic. They shout, they yell, they want you to agree, they want you to stop and pay attention to them and "share their sense of urgency" about it.

I think public schools should have nothing but school. Everything else should be in a separate area. But I guess I'm old fashioned that way.

I'm also what I call a "constitutionalist" -- I'm so conservative even the conservatives are too pansy for me -- so this is not any kind of lack of respect for the constitution. It's simply awareness of legal precedent and the ways in which people are constantly using it as a seemingly innocent thing that is actually a pre-designed wedge for much greater efforts, many of which are as anti-american as they come.

oh no no no...i can't do that.

i don't want to talk about it, go away...(walks away)

(some dustin hoffman)

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: Fylgje
They call themselves liberals just so they can't be arrested.

This is funny. When was the last time someone was arrested for being a commie?

van jones lost his job. lol!

but yeah, no one since mcartney era.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Makes u wonder how the founding fathers of US would react if they knew this had happened.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: jimmyx
or!!!!!!!!!.....trash and litter is the concern. sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.

Don't be silly. If that was the reason for implementing these stupid rules, the administrators would have said as much. Instead, they said this:

“It’s not about your rights in this case, it’s about the University policy that you can’t approach people,” said Ellen Kusano, director of Student Affairs, according to the complaint.

Which as I just pointed out in my previous post is a violation of the 9th amendment.

if that is the case, that is a little disturbing.....it would be great if there was some follow-up to this. as everyone knows that has been on ATS for any time, the full story is not always told....maybe if a member who is close to this school could look into this for some elaboration, it would be helpful

originally posted by: lonegurkha

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
The biggest travesty of this whole debacle is that the only recourse these two students have (which they are pursuing) is a lawsuit. In the end, when they win this case (at least that is what I hope and should happen), it isn't the administrators that will suffer from this, but the taxpayers will since this is a public university. They will have to pay for the unconstitutional practices of the college.

The cost of this lawsuit should be passed along to the administrators who where responsible for the unconstitutional policy that they had implimented.If they don't win this case then there will be proof that the Constitution is no longer in force.Should that happen then we can be sure that the power mongers in government have won and we are all now slaves.

I find the whole situation disgusting. The restricting of the god given rights of a person as set forth in the constitution should not be tolerated.Those rights are naturally occuring and were aknowleged in the constitution,not given by it.The specific wording even aknowleges that there are more rights then those listed in the document itself.

I was just going to post this same thing.The best reasoning yet! The cost of this lawsuit should be passed along to the administrators. Take it from their pensions and you will see this nonsense stop real fast.

originally posted by: mugger
The cost of this lawsuit should be passed along to the administrators. Take it from their pensions and you will see this nonsense stop real fast.

Absolutely!

I think this should be the same logic that should be handed out on all levels of government.

Can you imagine how politicians would be if this were the case?

a reply to: mugger

Thanks for the vote of confidence.If we passed the cost along to them,then maybe they would think twice before they violate the law of the land.

Why are they trying to stop students from giving out copies of the founding document of our country? The thoughts that this leads me to are very disturbing.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

Two students are suing the University of Hawaii for violating their First Amendment rights after administrator prevented them from distributing copies of the U.S. Constitution — demonstrating a frightening lack of knowledge about the very legal document they were attempting to censor.

ANOTHER university stops students from handing out Constitution

I searched for this and didn't see it posted.

Here we go again. Two students are suing the University of Hawaii for handing out CONSTITUTIONS! Since when was the Constitution a no-no document to educate people with?

The students were told that they could only distribute literature from within UH-Hilo’s “free speech zone,” a small, muddy, frequently-flooded area on the edge of campus.

Administrators further clarified their level of respect for students’ free speech rights, making comments like, “This isn’t really the ’60s anymore,” and “people can’t really protest like that anymore,” according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Seriously the more you read of this story the worse it is. Free speech zones? What the heck? And that comment by the administrators talking about protest, that is some straight up bs. First, in the FRICKING Constitution that they are banning from distributing it says we have the right to protest anywhere we want. The decade we are in is irrelevant. This college is literally stripping the rights of the students and their free speech. Good on them for suing the school, I hope they win.

More sources:

www.foxnews.com...
townhall.com... 9145

From the Fox News article:

The lawsuit also challenges a separate policy that reportedly requires students to request permission seven working days prior to engaging in "expressive activity" in two designated areas located in the central part of campus

You don't schedule your protest or expressive activity for when it is convenient. That defeats the purpose. The whole POINT of the protest is to inconvenience passerbys so that they learn about the cause being demonstrated about. WOW!

“The First Amendment is not optional at public colleges—it’s the law. Enforcing restrictive ‘free speech zone’ policies that prevent students from passing out copies of the Constitution is impossible to justify," Lukianoff said in a statement.

Well said.

The truth is that these type of left-wing liberal universities do Not want impressionable college students, nor the general population for that matter, to know, or even become aware, of American citizens rights bestowed upon them by Our Creator, and enshrined by America's founding fathers in the U.S. Constitution, as well as the U.S. Declaration of Independence. There is an awakening happening in America, especially with younger Americans in this generation, and it is starting to gather steam across the nation. Congratulations to the students that are standing up to this ongoing effort of censorship by those of the liberal, socialist and communist ideology.

Interestingly, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the concept of "Free Speech Zones" so, no, it's not simply a matter of any "leftist, communist, socialist, liberal, progressive, statist, Obama" trend on university campuses or anywhere else ... even though I know that suits the anti-liberal bias of so many.

Not to mention, as a point of historical fact, the Secret Service of President George W. Bush is the most well-known for expanding the use of the concept on the American public in recent years ... but that's just churning up the past, no? Forget I mentioned that.

On public college campuses, the imposition of such Zones (and the rules and regulations STILL in place on many campuses) dates primarily from the widespread protests of the Vietnam War era. These are old, outdated policies that are in place, not attempts on the part of some Academic Bolshevik Cabal™ to shut down free speech.

The University of Hawaii at Hilo is no exception. See this document: Facility Use and Procedures. Recognize that typeface? Yeah, I think it was last used circa 1972, LOL. Well, maybe 1995, but still.

It's just not a "left-right" issue. It's a historical fossil issue.

Stand back, I'm about to quote The Huffington Post (GASP!):

What is it with public colleges preventing their students from handing out the Constitution? Have these schools ever heard of the First Amendment?

In fact, the UH Hilo lawsuit is only the latest of dozens filed against campus speech codes since the 1980s. Virtually all of these lawsuits have been successful, yet 59 percent of our nation's universities maintain what FIRE deems "red light" speech codes -- that is, the kind of speech codes that are always defeated when challenged in the court of law.

So-called "free speech zones" have proven unusually hardy, despite the fact that they are generally mocked in the court of public opinion and unsuccessful in court. [...]

Defenders of free speech zones -- what few there are -- will argue that First Amendment law allows for public campuses to restrict speech as long as the policy is viewpoint neutral and limited to what are known as "reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions." It doesn't take a First Amendment expert, however, to know that there's nothing reasonable about declaring 99.7 percent of a public college campus closed to free speech and telling students that they cannot hand out copies of the Constitution.

I'm often asked how such highly restrictive policies came to be entrenched at institutions that are supposed to venerate and support freedom of speech. [...]

Students should be angry that so much of their increasingly astronomical tuition is going to the swelling ranks of administrators who promulgate speech codes and require that basic expression be limited to tiny out-of-the-way free speech zones.

Campus speech codes are a national scandal. Be sure to check out if your college or alma mater has one. As the students in Hawaii today have demonstrated, there is no need to accept campus speech restrictions as the new normal.

Liberals are interested in Free Speech and the Constitution too it seems, LOL. Who knew?

[Note, I have no way of knowing if Mr. Lukianoff, the article's author, is "liberal" or not. I'm making a joke about Huffpo and the tendency of some ATS members to over-buy-into the Left-Right Divide.]

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
I don't know what the policies were at my college when I went, but people handed out literature and there were protests like legalizing Mary Jane and performance stuff going on. I've met Hara Krishnas, Christians, and liberals on campus and always liked all the different points of view.

The colleges and universities should embrace freedom of expression and the free exchange of information and ideas because that is what they are all about, at least they used to be.

My last university had glass panel cases on all the walls everywhere. If you wanted to put up a notice, you went to the office, got the poster approved and allocated a space somewhere. You were free to hand out leaflets anywhere and anytime you liked.

originally posted by: rickynews
The truth is that these type of left-wing liberal universities do Not want impressionable college students, nor the general population for that matter, to know, or even become aware, of American citizens rights bestowed upon them by Our Creator, and enshrined by America's founding fathers in the U.S. Constitution, as well as the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Don't be ridiculous, they have federal and state constitution classes. My constitution class was taught by a county prosecutor (Republican).

I'd rather learn about the constitution in an academic setting than through some tea-party nitwit who barely understands it himself.

originally posted by: TDawgRex
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Those same administrators were probably out protesting back in the sixties, and now that they are in charge, they don't like the idea of some one else using their own tactics against them. Especially when it comes to that pesky Constitution.

Distinct possibility that they involved themselves with either the Anti-War Protest or Free Speech Movement of the 60's and 70's. If it were the latter, it'd be truly mind boggling indeed. The whole idea of having "free speech zones" on a college campus where the intention should be the stimulate thought with diversity of opinion and not the homogenization and repression of thought through the creation of free speech zones and permits is just freaking mind blowing, troubling, and a whole lot more uncomfortable adjectives. How far we have fallen.

Cue Savio, heh. If anybody on reading this hasn't ever heard of him before, he was a leader of the Free Speech Movement who spent the rest of his days being tracked by intelligence agencies. Apparently, he was that dangerous. I sometimes listen to his speeches to try to understand what made him so dangerous to the State.



Sometimes I think that the reason why there is such a reflexive response against protest or the passing out of pamphlets by some of those who were probably involved with these movements back in the day is out of fear. Kent State and all that. I talked to my mother about that one and she was still deeply shocked by what happened there. Sometimes when you're afraid, you're more willing to tow the line for the entity that you fear. It's an powerful motivator. They could even rationalize it as protecting the students from themselves and preventing another Kent State. Not defending their choices because, quite frankly, we need young and motivated people to basically affront and question society and its governance.