This is the opening paragraph from Reason’s article about Students for Life and their fight with George Mason University’s administrators:
A chapter of Students for Life at Virginia’s George Mason University (GMU) is trying to pressure the college to censor another student club—in the name of the First Amendment.
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
Now, we’re already starting out on shaky ground here if you want to censor someone in the name of the First Amendment…
Students for Life of America is a national pro-life group. On September 7, the Students for Life chapter at GMU hosted a public event called Abortion is Not Right. It included a series of informational panels posted in a public place that argued that abortion is a violation of human rights. It compared abortion to slavery, segregation, and other human rights violations.
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
If you click on the above link of the title of the event, well… just do it. In case you don’t click the link, the basis for their argument that abortion is not a right is the recent Dobbs decision which overturned Roe.
So they posted a display and caught criticism for the content.
Following this display, the Black, African-Heritage and Caribbean Coalition (BLACC), another student organization at the university, released a statement condemning the event.
“We recognize that Mason encourages diverse viewpoints and beliefs, but in order to function as a campus society, deference must be practiced…. The loose language and insane idea of abortion being a ‘version’ of slavery is imprudent,” wrote BLACC in a letter published on its Instagram account. The letter, while critical of Students for Life, did not call for the group’s censorship or demand that the university punish them in any way, instead making a vague demand for a “meeting with Students for Life; in the presence of University Life administrators, Center for Culture, Equity and Empowerment officials, and all other necessary parties to swiftly reduce this harm.” The group added, “Our goal is not to change minds, hearts, or beliefs but to make it clear that loose connections and reckless statements that directly harm Black, African, and Caribbean students is unacceptable.”
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
(emphasis mine)
All this seems perfectly reasonable, right? Well, not to the conservatives at Students for Life…
According to Students for Life of America, the GMU Center for Culture, Equity and Empowerment later posted BLACC’s statement on its Instagram story and wrote that it was “working closely with black student leaders to repair harm.”
Students for Life of America then sent a legal letter to GMU arguing that the criticism faced by Students for Life at GMU and the administrators’ subsequent sharing of BLACC’s letter constituted a violation of the chapter’s First Amendment rights. The group then demanded a litany of apologies, that BLACC’s statement be taken down, and that the school reprimand BLACC for criticizing Students for Life at GMU.
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
How were Students for Life denied their First Amendment rights? They posted their displays in public, so they weren’t silenced. Then they go on to essentially argue that BLACC should be reprimanded for effectively hurting SfL’s feelings.
I don’t know about you, but I’m old enough to remember when conservatives would tell people, “Fuck your feelings.” Now they want to be coddled and protected from anyone who might send them a sternly worded letter asking them to be more considerate of others.
“In posting the Coalition Letter and then sharing it, and GMU’s failure to require those posts be removed, Students for Life at GMU has been shamed and publicly humiliated without a chance to defend itself in the public sphere,” wrote Zachary S. Kester, legal counsel for Students for Life of America in the letter, which was sent to BLACC and GMU’s Center for Culture, Equity and Empowerment.
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
(emphasis mine)
Dear Mr. Kester,
The First Amendment does not protect anyone from any blowback they may encounter from making statements that others find outrageous or offensive. We’re sorry your clients’ wittle fee-fees were hurt, but tell them to buck up and get over it, m’kay?
Sincerely,
Lady Snark
Also, it seems like there’s a group which isn’t even being discussed here in the article thus far or in the fracas between SfL and BLACC. What about female students or university employees who’ve had an abortion and those who performed, assisted, or somehow enabled those abortions to take place? Were they not compared to human rights violators? I don’t see SfL or their attorney giving a single thought to those they might have offended, publicly shamed, and humiliated. So why are SfL’s feelings more sacred and worthy of protection than those they basically called human rights violators?
The letter further argues that the chapter’s First Amendment rights had been violated. According to Kester, “putting up warning signs to direct traffic away from a person engaged in free speech is a violation of that person’s freedom of speech. Here, the Coalition and the Equity Center have put up the digital equivalent of warning signs around Students for Life at GMU’s free speech. It is a violation of the law to shut down speech that the university, or subsets of it, disagrees with. While Students for Life at GMU was permitted to have a table and display, it was thereafter harassed and publicly shamed by the Coalition, with no ascertainable repercussions for the offending group.” Kester further alleges that “by circulating unfounded and false public accusations, the Equity Center is committing a due process violation.” Thus, Kester argues that a GMU affiliate expressing their agreement with criticism of Students for Life at GMU constitutes an illegal “heckler’s veto.”
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
Who shut down their speech? Why does the SfL think their speech trumps everyone else’s? Can you say “white privilege”? Yeah, I thought you could.
You have the right to free speech; you do not have the right to insist on having an audience. And others have the right to warn your potential audience away from you.
It’s so weird how everybody has free speech rights, huh?
However, this legal logic appears to be flawed. While one can certainly argue that university officials jumping in on ideological debates between students can harm the culture of free speech on campus, the university administrators’ actions were not censorship by any stretch of the imagination.
“They seem to have it backward here,” said Zach Greenberg, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a First Amendment rights group. “The university has their own First Amendment right to criticize groups, measures, viewpoints; it happens every day. The university cannot punish student groups, though, for exercising their rights, for expressing themselves. And when student groups call for the university to punish others for their viewpoints, their ideas, even offensive ideas, a public university should resist those calls.”
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
So GMU is correct in not acting on SfL’s demands. Good to know!
Kester claims that BLACC’s criticism of Students for Life at GMU constitutes defamation, thus the letter’s demands that they be “reprimanded” by the university.
Kester tells Reason that the following statement by BLACC is defamatory: “While [Students for Life at GMU] believes that abortion affects them directly, the loose language and insane idea of abortion being a ‘version’ of slavery is imprudent. We recognize that SFL may not have intended harm to our Black students, however, the impact speaks for itself.”
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
Is it just me, or do SfL strike anyone else as a bunch of drama queens?
“Those consecutive sentences is the functional equivalent of BLACC calling Students for Life of GMU racist,” Kester tells Reason. “Is that not the impression that you were left with? I’m pretty sure that any reasonable observer would be left with that impression. In fact, the legal standard of defamation is ‘what’s the impression left upon the observer.'”
He continued, “Defamation per se includes statements about people’s mental state or mental condition, and given that BLACC called the version slavery ‘insane,’ that speaks to mental condition and it constitutes defamation per se…. There’s not a generalized, overarching First Amendment right to call someone ‘racist.'”
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
There’s a difference between saying the way you put something is insane and that you are insane. Also, it’s pretty funny seeing conservatives label themselves as “racist.” That was a twist I wasn’t expecting…
Maybe Popehat should give them one of his little talks about what is and isn’t defamation?
However, Kester is simply incorrect. The statements he highlights as defamatory do not appear to meet the legal standard of defamation, which must include a false statement of fact, that this statement is communicated to a third party, fault which rises to negligence, and damages, meaning harm to the reputation of the defamed individual.
“A lot of derogatory, even unfairly derogatory, criticism is treated as pure opinion, and thus not legally actionable,” wrote Eugene Volokh in The Volokh Conspiracy.” So saying ‘Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist’ or ‘Saule Omarova is a Communist’ (or ‘Socialist’) isn’t libelous, because that is understood as an opinion.” Thus, there is simply no legal basis for claiming that BLACC’s criticism—which did not even explicitly call Students for Life at GMU “racist”—constitutes defamation. Further, there is, in fact, a First Amendment right to call someone “racist,” as well as a host of other derogatory names.
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
You’d think a practicing attorney would know what “defamation” is. Especially since he’s accusing others of having committed it. Maybe he skipped that week in law school?
No matter how much Students for Life at GMU try to say otherwise, criticism from another student group isn’t a violation of their First Amendment Rights—in fact, it’s a sign of a healthy campus culture, one that uses speech, not censorship, to solve disagreements. As BLACC said in a YouTube video discussing the incident, “This isn’t about Students for Life’s beliefs. It never was. And it’s not about anyone’s values, beliefs, opinions, or otherwise. We all think differently, and it’s important to recognize that everyone here—from our students, staff, faculty, and organizations—hold different beliefs. This difference in our thinking is what makes our campus strong.”
What is a violation of First Amendment rights is trying to silence criticism.
A Campus Pro-Life Group Faced Criticism. Now, It Demands That Its Detractors Be ‘Reprimanded.’ Oct. 5, 2022
Remember when conservatives made fun of the victim culture of the left? What else is this entire situation but SfL playing the victim?
And finally… Greg Gutfeld thinks college girls are terrible for not giving him something to perv over them about…
How dare those Bs not keep themselves up so he can salivate over them! Don’t they know that’s all wimmens are good for?