What Is the Price of Free Speech?

[The T]

You are too smart for me. Mercy!

WHY does ONE group of Americans get charged for speaking, and ALL OTHERS don't? CARE to explain it?

You have not established that as fact.

If that claim is established as fact, I would be inclined to support the student group in this case.

I didn't ESTABLISH a THING...another POSTER did...KNOW how to follow a thread? IDIOT?

 

[LoneLaugher]

This thread needs more people role playing legal professionals. It is riveting.

 

[Immanuel]

Why do I have to explain the same thing multiple times? Do you idiots not know how to read?

The only way they can charge a security fee for an event that impinges on speech is if they charge everyone the same fee. It cannot be based on the expected reaction to the content of the event because that is a content based restriction on free speech, which is unconstitutional. If you can't get that through the miniscule hole you use to feed information to your brain cell, shut the fuck up.

Really QW? I think you are living in the America that people from my generation believe we had at one time: an America that no longer exists if it ever did.

As passage of Obamacare proves... they can do whatever the hell they want and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

Immie

Who is "they"?

"They" are those people who run this country. Most of them... scratch that, all of them are liberal dogs who are arrogant and think they have the right to rule over the rest of us, because they just happen to know what is best for us.

Immie

 

[LoneLaugher]

WHY does ONE group of Americans get charged for speaking, and ALL OTHERS don't? CARE to explain it?

You have not established that as fact.

If that claim is established as fact, I would be inclined to support the student group in this case.

I didn't ESTABLISH a THING...another POSTER did...KNOW how to follow a thread? IDIOT?

It is not established.

You are going against the kind request of TK by being so abrasive and insulting. Perhaps you can blame me for that.

 

[TemplarKormac]

There was no silencing, but the attempt was made to. No other group at that University had to pay a fee to hold a debate. There are similar situations where a university refused to recognize a group for its views or otherwise discriminated against a group because of their viewpoints while other groups were unaffected. The case law is below.

Over 25 years ago, the Supreme Court handed down Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier 484 U.S. 260 (1988), a case which gave public schools unbridled power to restrict the free speech of their students. However such a case only applied to high schoolers. But 16 years before, the Supreme Court held in Healy v. James 408 U.S. 169 (1972); that a college or university could not refuse to recognize an organization simply because university officials had an unproven fear of school disruption. In this case Central Connecticut State College's refusal to recognize a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society violated the First Amendment. In the majority opinion, the court recognized the campus to be a "marketplace of ideas."

A year later in Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri 410 U.S. 667 (1973), Healy was upheld by the Supreme Court saying Healy made "clear that the mere dissemination of ideas - no matter how offensive to good taste - on a state university campus may not be shut off in the name alone of 'conventions of decency.'"

Almost 22 years later, the court handed down Rosenberger v. Rector of the University of Virginia 515 U.S. 819 (1995), where the University denied publication funding to a religious group, while handing the funding out to secular groups on campus. The court rejected the University's contention that funding a religious group would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, holding that such policy violated the First Amendment altogether. In the opinion the court held:

In ancient Athens, and, as Europe entered into a new period of intellectual awakening, in places like Bologna, Oxford, and Paris, universities began as voluntary and spontaneous assemblages or concourses for students to speak and to write and to learn. The quality and creative power of student intellectual life to this day remains a vital measure of a school's influence and attainment. For the University, by regulation, to cast disapproval on particular viewpoints of its students risks the suppression of free speech and creative inquiry in one of the vital centers for the Nation's intellectual life, its college and university campuses.

So, to say that no violation of free speech occurred here would be inaccurate. Simply by discriminately charging student advocacy groups an inordinate fee for the right to hold a debate casts a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of these students, regardless if the event went on as planned. Schools can only limit speech if it causes a reasonable disruption to it's image or operations.

Healy v. James is not applicable because Students for Life was given recognition and there were no security issues in Healy v James.

It is applicable, given that the university willfully discriminated against them in not recognizing them. The underlying theme here is discrimination and free speech. Learn case law before you try interpreting it.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Really QW? I think you are living in the America that people from my generation believe we had at one time: an America that no longer exists if it ever did.

As passage of Obamacare proves... they can do whatever the hell they want and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

Immie

Who is "they"?

"They" are those people who run this country. Most of them... scratch that, all of them are liberal dogs who are arrogant and think they have the right to rule over the rest of us, because they just happen to know what is best for us.

Immie

Oh....I see. You decided to stop being reasonable all of a sudden. Cool.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Garbage reasoning huh?

What proof do you have that their religious or political viewpoints had anything to do with the amount of the fee? Any at all?

Does it matter? They WERE charged when others WERE NOT...WHY?

They gave their reason.

That reason is unconstitutional.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Many of you conservatives had the opposite opinions on free speech during the Occupy protests, seems many of you supported all sorts of arbitrary and politically motivated caveats and conditions on protests as well as many calls for occupy to pay up for all the fucking cops and pepper spray.

They're also the people who want to put armed guards in schools everywhere,

but here they won't allow a University to beef up security for one event.

Crazy shit.

Lovely how you twist this up and mangle the point so badly. It's quite odd nobody else had to endure this fee, except for this group. On top of that, the fee exceeded their allotment by $150, something strange here if you ask me.

 

[The T]

You have not established that as fact.

If that claim is established as fact, I would be inclined to support the student group in this case.

I didn't ESTABLISH a THING...another POSTER did...KNOW how to follow a thread? IDIOT?

It is not established.

You are going against the kind request of TK by being so abrasive and insulting. Perhaps you can blame me for that.

I am? Seems to ME that I am complying. TRY again. Trying to GET ME aren't you? DISMISSED.

 

[LoneLaugher]

I didn't ESTABLISH a THING...another POSTER did...KNOW how to follow a thread? IDIOT?

It is not established.

You are going against the kind request of TK by being so abrasive and insulting. Perhaps you can blame me for that.

I am? Seems to ME that I am complying. TRY again. Trying to GET ME aren't you? DISMISSED.

You have called me an idiot three times in this thread. Is that honoring TK's request?

 

[The T]

It is not established.

You are going against the kind request of TK by being so abrasive and insulting. Perhaps you can blame me for that.

I am? Seems to ME that I am complying. TRY again. Trying to GET ME aren't you? DISMISSED.

You have called me an idiot three times in this thread. Is that honoring TK's request?

BYE!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIUJFYqVgg]Keep On Truckin' - Eddie Kendricks (1973) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Quantum Windbag]

They can apply the fee based on their understanding of the need for security. It is their choice. How much security do you think is bought for $650, anyway.

Your insistence that the Christian/Athiest debate is an identical situation is odd. You don't have enough information to make that claim.

Why do I have to explain the same thing multiple times? Do you idiots not know how to read?

The only way they can charge a security fee for an event that impinges on speech is if they charge everyone the same fee. It cannot be based on the expected reaction to the content of the event because that is a content based restriction on free speech, which is unconstitutional. If you can't get that through the miniscule hole you use to feed information to your brain cell, shut the fuck up.

Nonsense.

I have a court case citation that backs my argument up word for word, what do you have again?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

They can apply the fee based on their understanding of the need for security. It is their choice. How much security do you think is bought for $650, anyway.

Your insistence that the Christian/Athiest debate is an identical situation is odd. You don't have enough information to make that claim.

Why do I have to explain the same thing multiple times? Do you idiots not know how to read?

The only way they can charge a security fee for an event that impinges on speech is if they charge everyone the same fee. It cannot be based on the expected reaction to the content of the event because that is a content based restriction on free speech, which is unconstitutional. If you can't get that through the miniscule hole you use to feed information to your brain cell, shut the fuck up.

Really QW? I think you are living in the America that people from my generation believe we had at one time: an America that no longer exists if it ever did.

As passage of Obamacare proves... they can do whatever the hell they want and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

Immie

Except I can provide case citations that prove that I got the law right.

 

[The T]

Why do I have to explain the same thing multiple times? Do you idiots not know how to read?

The only way they can charge a security fee for an event that impinges on speech is if they charge everyone the same fee. It cannot be based on the expected reaction to the content of the event because that is a content based restriction on free speech, which is unconstitutional. If you can't get that through the miniscule hole you use to feed information to your brain cell, shut the fuck up.

Nonsense.

I have a court case citation that backs my argument up word for word, what do you have again?

Nothing but badgering me for some perceived wrong with the OP.

 

[The T]

Many of you conservatives had the opposite opinions on free speech during the Occupy protests, seems many of you supported all sorts of arbitrary and politically motivated caveats and conditions on protests as well as many calls for occupy to pay up for all the fucking cops and pepper spray.

They're also the people who want to put armed guards in schools everywhere,

but here they won't allow a University to beef up security for one event.

Crazy shit.

Lovely how you twist this up and mangle the point so badly. It's quite odd nobody else had to endure this fee, except for this group. On top of that, the fee exceeded their allotment by $150, something strange here if you ask me.

GAME, SET, MATCH, and POINT. NO ONE can refute it.

 

[Immanuel]

Why do I have to explain the same thing multiple times? Do you idiots not know how to read?

The only way they can charge a security fee for an event that impinges on speech is if they charge everyone the same fee. It cannot be based on the expected reaction to the content of the event because that is a content based restriction on free speech, which is unconstitutional. If you can't get that through the miniscule hole you use to feed information to your brain cell, shut the fuck up.

Really QW? I think you are living in the America that people from my generation believe we had at one time: an America that no longer exists if it ever did.

As passage of Obamacare proves... they can do whatever the hell they want and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

Immie

Except I can provide case citations that prove that I got the law right.

What the law says and what those who control this country do are not very often the same thing. When you have their kind of power, you don't have to "follow the law".

Immie

 

[WorldWatcher]

It's quite odd nobody else had to endure this fee, except for this group.

Serious question TK...

How did you establish this. IIRC the article in the OP noted that two other meetings in the building that night were not charged a fee, however that does not mean that no other event has ever been charged a fee for security.

Am I missing something and you have other information that I hasn't been presented showing that nobody else has been charged with security?



>>>>

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Really QW? I think you are living in the America that people from my generation believe we had at one time: an America that no longer exists if it ever did.

As passage of Obamacare proves... they can do whatever the hell they want and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

Immie

Except I can provide case citations that prove that I got the law right.

What the law says and what those who control this country do are not very often the same thing. When you have their kind of power, you don't have to "follow the law".

Immie

I know, but I will still argue on the basis of what is right, and use court decisions to prove that I actually got it right. If nothing else, it shuts up the idiots that insist that they know more about the law than I do.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Really QW? I think you are living in the America that people from my generation believe we had at one time: an America that no longer exists if it ever did.

As passage of Obamacare proves... they can do whatever the hell they want and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.

Immie

Except I can provide case citations that prove that I got the law right.

What the law says and what those who control this country do are not very often the same thing. When you have their kind of power, you don't have to "follow the law".

Immie

Then it is up to us to put their feet to the fire, Immie.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

It's quite odd nobody else had to endure this fee, except for this group.

Serious question TK...

How did you establish this. IIRC the article in the OP noted that two other meetings in the building that night were not charged a fee, however that does not mean that no other event has ever been charged a fee for security.

Am I missing something and you have other information that I hasn't been presented showing that nobody else has been charged with security?



>>>>

It is pretty simple, they have to charge everyone a fee, or they are wrong. Additionally, I cited a case where assessing a security fee based on the increased danger because of the offensive nature of the speech is unconstitutional. That means you have to join the right side this time because the law is with us.