Iowa is one of the leading states for book bans in America, second only to Florida, according to PEN America. Earlier this year, Iowa’s state Board of Education adopted the rules for a sweeping 2023 education law. The law — and the rules that enforce it — ban “sexual content” in school library books and…
The tricky thing about the First Amendment is that you have to protect the speech you hate as fiercely as the speech you love. You have to protect leftist speech as much as rightist speech. Communists as much as fascists. Religious fundamentalists as much as atheists. Calls for war as much as calls for peace.…
The point of the First Amendment is to protect expression people hate – Nazi protesters in Skokie, anti-war protesters burning the American flag, KKK hooligans in an Ohio farmfield, Christian fundamentalists protesting the burial of American soldiers. Tolerance for the speech we despise is the lesson of 232 years of the First Amendment. Yet the…
Washington University has condemned student Fadel Alkilani for removing some of the 2,977 American flags that the College Republicans placed on Mudd Field this past weekend to commemorate the victims of the 9-11 attacks. In a statement issued Sunday, Chancellor Andrew Martin declared that Alkilani’s action impeded “the free exchange of ideas.” The university is…
College Republicans at Iowa State University tweeted after the November presidential election that students should “arm up” and later encouraged students to show up to “Stop the Steal rallies” in Des Moines and Washington, DC. The university has refused to comment on the tweets encouraging students to participate in the Jan. 6 insurrection in DC…