[OSList] "Chilling" of Free Speech is Happening

[Mark Carmel]

Hello my friends,

 I refer you to Nicole Neily, in the article below. She is calling out the
*Chilling* of free speech on college campuses. And this super brave Open
Space warrior is suing their ASS!  Chilling refers to regulations that do
not ban speech but are too broad or vague causing people to self censor for
fear of violating the law. For example while student handbooks may say that
unwelcome or offensive speech is prohibited, students don't know what
qualifies until they have been reported to the college secret speech
police.   Nicole puts the issues into two categories, the seen and the
unseen.   She says the fact that students are just not talking about so
many issues on campus is because they are scared.  Nicole said she learned
about these policies that create bias response teams and this horrifies her
... she says this is ripped from East Germany were students are encouraged
to report on each other. Schools have portals on a website where you can
anonymously report on your fellow classmates speech. You can do so
anonymously and make false reports. The besmirched accused party may
ultimately be deemed not guilty by a University panel but by then they've
already been dragged through a whole muddy disciplinary hearing process...
this also sends a message as we see in modern day divisive American
politics to other students that if you voice an opinion that others dislike
you will suffer serious similar consequences of being punished for your
speech. She says frankly the kinds of issues that get reported are
political issues and religious issues and those are the very issues that we
as a society, that students need to be debating not shutting people up not
scaring people into silence. This is a very dangerous path she said. Here
is a newspaper editorial on the subject, I hope you agree, a fascinating
subject to all of us who believe in the open space model of free speech.
Cheers from Colorado,
MC

https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-fighting-for-free-speech/article_f8fd3c3c-e335-545c-9f67-708c22d20c6c.html
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