4 ms·

TN's Charlie Kirk Act bans student walkouts, protects conservative speakers

28 points by bediger4000 6mo ago

bediger4000 6mo ago
Original title: Tennessee’s Charlie Kirk Act bans student walkouts, protects conservative speakers
MisterTea 6mo ago
> The Charlie Kirk Act, named for the late conservative activist, addresses free speech on college campuses. > The act would bring disciplinary action against students and faculty members that who disrupt a guest speaker by protesting or staging a walkout. It reads like a bad joke but this is what people vote for.
- johng 6mo ago
  From the article, they want to adopt https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/ https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/ -- which seems reasonable to me. Some of the other stuff does sound unnecessary. Although, I will say, when our public schools here allowed walkouts to protest ICE (high schools), I thought it was shameful. Who at the school gets to decide what causes are worthy of allowing the walkouts that people don't get punished for missing school? Which causes are OK for the teachers to push upon students, who decides that? If I were a parent, I'd be upset that they put my kid in a position to either participate in the walkout or face pressure from other students for "disagreeing" with them or supporting ICE. That's an unfair position for a student to be in because the school is trying to push a particular agenda.
  - codingdave 6mo ago
    School walkouts typically have nothing to do with the school itself, and certainly do not ask for it to be allowed. It is the kids who walk out. The schools typically treat it like any other unexcused absence.
    - lordloki 6mo ago
      The "allowed" aspect that you're ignoring is about punishment. Some walkouts are punished while others aren't, based on ideology.
      - ijk 6mo ago
        More likely based in scale, in the sense of "they can't punish all of us."
  - catlover76 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - keane 6mo ago
    The Chicago Statement reads: "Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak [and] write… The University may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University. In addition, the University may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University… [T]he University's fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, [or] immoral… As a corollary to the University's commitment to protect and promote free expression, members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe." It's interesting which institutions or faculty groups have endorsed this or statements said to be substantially similar: https://fire.org/research-learn/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support https://fire.org/research-learn/chicago-statement-university... Related debates here include the contrast between American support of more absolute freedom of speech and European support for broader limitations on speech (wehrhafte Demokratie, streitbare Demokratie), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- TimorousBestie 6mo ago
  > In the Senate, bill sponsor Sen. Paul Rose, R-Covington, said speakers promoting racism would not be protected under the measure. It really shouldn’t be permissible to blatantly misrepresent the content of a bill before the state Senate. There’s absolutely no carveout for racist speakers in the any draft of the bill that I can find.
- zajio1am 6mo ago
  Why? Disrupting a speaker to the level that prevents them speaking (or prevents listening) is an action that clearly infringes on rights of others and restricts freedom of speech. Regardless of content.
  - shibapuppie 6mo ago
    You have the freedom to speak, I have the freedom to also speak at the same time. I ALSO have the freedom to not listen.
    - bad_username 6mo ago
      Speak at the same time, but in a slightly different place? If you really care about your speech (and not silencing the speech of others), that is clearly acceptable.
      - shibapuppie 6mo ago
        I'm not silencing you. We both have the freedom to speak at the same time, in the same place. Such as a political speaker and opposing protesters. Both have the freedom.
burnt-resistor 6mo ago
1a and 14a. I guess not all state reps or senators can afford to or bother to be constitutional scholars like federal rep Jamie Raskin and have to advance patently unconstitutional legislation when feelings-exploitative influencers come calling.
stockresearcher 6mo ago
I’m sure it sounded like a good idea to attach a bunch of serious penalties to the law, but college kids do a lot of dumb stuff and this now opens them up to civil (and criminal) RICO lawsuits. “Your campus group tricked me into coming here with plans to retaliate when I left” is serious fucking stuff with a law like this.
kashunstva 6mo ago
> “Charlie Kirk was someone who encouraged everyone to love others,” Bulso responded. Except I recall him endorsing the stoning to death of gay people as “God’s perfect law.”
- TitaRusell 6mo ago
  It was the textbook "reap what you sow" moment. In the Netherlands we've learned that you don't have to respect people but you do have to tolerate them because the alternative is a never ending civil war. It comes with having a diverse society of various cultural and religious backgrounds.
  - paxcoder 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - shibapuppie 6mo ago
    I'm trans. Why do I need to tolerate someone who not only hates me, but would revel in watching me die?
    - bigbadfeline 6mo ago
      > Why do I need to tolerate someone who not only hates me, but would revel in watching me die? What are the limits of your non-tolerance with regards to someone who is limited to hating you and expressing verbal approval of legal but extreme punishment for people like you? Answering that question is necessary in order to know if you, and the person you replied to, have the same understanding of the word "tolerance". For the record, the kind of people who hate you are easily criticized unless they are assassinated, after that they become more or less impervious to criticism.
      - shibapuppie 6mo ago
        Are you trying to get me to say I won't strike first? Because I will. I don't want harm to befall anyone, but some people genuinely just want to hurt others. That's not tolerable. Go troll somewhere else.
mrbigbob 6mo ago
i wonder how long until this struck down as unconstitutional
spl757 6mo ago
Hate begets hate. Call for the death of others, and you might take a bullet to the throat and live just long enough to realize why this is happening to you and the irony.
metalman 6mo ago
this is a horrific reverse engineering of free speach in order to create a hiarchy that puts specific speach, right wing dog whistle hate speach, at the top. booing is speach. walkouts are an absolute right. public platforms must by definition be open to the consequences of saying the wrong things to the wrong people. 2000 years on we are still dealing with the fall out from the closeing of the agora in Athens, when the last of the free philosophers had to flee, to of all places, Persia.
- cindyllm 6mo ago
  [dead]
raks619 6mo ago
[flagged]

28 points by bediger4000 6mo ago

Original title: Tennessee’s Charlie Kirk Act bans student walkouts, protects conservative speakers

> The Charlie Kirk Act, named for the late conservative activist, addresses free speech on college campuses. > The act would bring disciplinary action against students and faculty members that who disrupt a guest speaker by protesting or staging a walkout. It reads like a bad joke but this is what people vote for.

johng 6mo ago
From the article, they want to adopt https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/ https://freeexpression.uchicago.edu/ -- which seems reasonable to me. Some of the other stuff does sound unnecessary. Although, I will say, when our public schools here allowed walkouts to protest ICE (high schools), I thought it was shameful. Who at the school gets to decide what causes are worthy of allowing the walkouts that people don't get punished for missing school? Which causes are OK for the teachers to push upon students, who decides that? If I were a parent, I'd be upset that they put my kid in a position to either participate in the walkout or face pressure from other students for "disagreeing" with them or supporting ICE. That's an unfair position for a student to be in because the school is trying to push a particular agenda.
- codingdave 6mo ago
  School walkouts typically have nothing to do with the school itself, and certainly do not ask for it to be allowed. It is the kids who walk out. The schools typically treat it like any other unexcused absence.
  - lordloki 6mo ago
    The "allowed" aspect that you're ignoring is about punishment. Some walkouts are punished while others aren't, based on ideology.
    - ijk 6mo ago
      More likely based in scale, in the sense of "they can't punish all of us."
- catlover76 6mo ago
  [dead]
- keane 6mo ago
  The Chicago Statement reads: "Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak [and] write… The University may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University. In addition, the University may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University… [T]he University's fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, [or] immoral… As a corollary to the University's commitment to protect and promote free expression, members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe." It's interesting which institutions or faculty groups have endorsed this or statements said to be substantially similar: https://fire.org/research-learn/chicago-statement-university-and-faculty-body-support https://fire.org/research-learn/chicago-statement-university... Related debates here include the contrast between American support of more absolute freedom of speech and European support for broader limitations on speech (wehrhafte Demokratie, streitbare Demokratie), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
TimorousBestie 6mo ago
> In the Senate, bill sponsor Sen. Paul Rose, R-Covington, said speakers promoting racism would not be protected under the measure. It really shouldn’t be permissible to blatantly misrepresent the content of a bill before the state Senate. There’s absolutely no carveout for racist speakers in the any draft of the bill that I can find.
zajio1am 6mo ago
Why? Disrupting a speaker to the level that prevents them speaking (or prevents listening) is an action that clearly infringes on rights of others and restricts freedom of speech. Regardless of content.
- shibapuppie 6mo ago
  You have the freedom to speak, I have the freedom to also speak at the same time. I ALSO have the freedom to not listen.
  - bad_username 6mo ago
    Speak at the same time, but in a slightly different place? If you really care about your speech (and not silencing the speech of others), that is clearly acceptable.
    - shibapuppie 6mo ago
      I'm not silencing you. We both have the freedom to speak at the same time, in the same place. Such as a political speaker and opposing protesters. Both have the freedom.

burnt-resistor 6mo ago

1a and 14a. I guess not all state reps or senators can afford to or bother to be constitutional scholars like federal rep Jamie Raskin and have to advance patently unconstitutional legislation when feelings-exploitative influencers come calling.

stockresearcher 6mo ago

I’m sure it sounded like a good idea to attach a bunch of serious penalties to the law, but college kids do a lot of dumb stuff and this now opens them up to civil (and criminal) RICO lawsuits. “Your campus group tricked me into coming here with plans to retaliate when I left” is serious fucking stuff with a law like this.

kashunstva 6mo ago

> “Charlie Kirk was someone who encouraged everyone to love others,” Bulso responded. Except I recall him endorsing the stoning to death of gay people as “God’s perfect law.”

TitaRusell 6mo ago
It was the textbook "reap what you sow" moment. In the Netherlands we've learned that you don't have to respect people but you do have to tolerate them because the alternative is a never ending civil war. It comes with having a diverse society of various cultural and religious backgrounds.
- paxcoder 6mo ago
  [dead]
- shibapuppie 6mo ago
  I'm trans. Why do I need to tolerate someone who not only hates me, but would revel in watching me die?
  - bigbadfeline 6mo ago
    > Why do I need to tolerate someone who not only hates me, but would revel in watching me die? What are the limits of your non-tolerance with regards to someone who is limited to hating you and expressing verbal approval of legal but extreme punishment for people like you? Answering that question is necessary in order to know if you, and the person you replied to, have the same understanding of the word "tolerance". For the record, the kind of people who hate you are easily criticized unless they are assassinated, after that they become more or less impervious to criticism.
    - shibapuppie 6mo ago
      Are you trying to get me to say I won't strike first? Because I will. I don't want harm to befall anyone, but some people genuinely just want to hurt others. That's not tolerable. Go troll somewhere else.

mrbigbob 6mo ago

i wonder how long until this struck down as unconstitutional

spl757 6mo ago

Hate begets hate. Call for the death of others, and you might take a bullet to the throat and live just long enough to realize why this is happening to you and the irony.

metalman 6mo ago

this is a horrific reverse engineering of free speach in order to create a hiarchy that puts specific speach, right wing dog whistle hate speach, at the top. booing is speach. walkouts are an absolute right. public platforms must by definition be open to the consequences of saying the wrong things to the wrong people. 2000 years on we are still dealing with the fall out from the closeing of the agora in Athens, when the last of the free philosophers had to flee, to of all places, Persia.

cindyllm 6mo ago
[dead]

raks619 6mo ago

[flagged]