Disparity Between Liberal And Conservatives Professors behind free speech problems

A survey of many major universities revealed that while there is a 6-to-1 ratio of liberals to conservatives among professors, liberal college staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-1.

The impact of this huge disparity between liberal and conservatives professors, and also administrators who increasingly run and set the tone at universities, appears to be why so many institutions of higher education now have speech codes which are hostile to free speech and are often unconstitutional, and speech police (now often called "bias response teams") which investigate (and often even do more) students who say something which offends another student or a group to which they belong.

Many such teams remain in operation despite a recent ruling by a federal Court of Appeals that the mere existence on campus of investigatory bias response teams "objectively chills speech," and acts "by a way of implicit threat of punishment and intimidation to quell speech" on campus, even if such teams have no power to discipline, and no student is ever in fact disciplined.

For example, George Washington University [GWU] characterized as a potential hate crime, and asked for police intervention after a referral to a bias response team, when one law student used the word "Jew" in a strictly private conversation with another law student.

Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech?

In a more recent occurrence, upon learning of an off-campus drunken rant about bombing Israel, GWU referred the matter to the police as a possible crime, and also began its own investigation aimed at possible discipline, including expulsion of the student; a punishment which many on campus had called for.

Faculty apparently are also teaching students - incorrectly - that speech which is offense to any group, often labeled "hate speech," is not free speech protected by the First Amendment or academic freedom, and that it is permissible and appropriate to prevent anyone from making statements which even a small percentage of students might find objectionable, even to the point of using intimidation and violence - in which some faculty members have even cooperated.

For example, when conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking at CUNY about "the importance of free speech," Law Dean Mary Lu Bile insisted that disrupting his speech about free speech was itself free speech, and therefore presumably appropriate and protected.

In another recent example, at one state university, a professor physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.  Even more astonishing, other faculty rallied around him.

And in a very recent example which went even further, a small group of students at Kent State opposed to ICE physically blocked other students who were seeking jobs from even talking with Department of Homeland Security [DHS] recruiters, even though nothing was ever actually said, and the recruiters were not even from ICE.

University police who were present reportedly did nothing, and the presence of DHS recruiters was analogized to the appearance of the National Guard coming on campus during the Kent State shootings.

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