By: Hannah Montana

Hannah Montana
Fri, 03 Nov 2017 14:46:37 +0000

I don’t think people understand what free speech in the first amendment actually means. Is speech restricted legally in certain circumstances? Yes. Are there legitimate safety concerns with hate speech? Absolutely. However, a person cannot be arrested or given legal ramifications for speaking. (Unless their speech induces panic or some strange outlier.) The People can be asked to leave, denied person to speak in certain places at the discretion of the host, or even escorted out of unwanted. However, they cannot be prosecuted for that speech. The point here is that the first amendment clause declaring free speech exists to ensure a diversity of thought may exist without citizens fearing prosecution for holding opinions that may go against decisions made by governments.

Therefore, this resolution was unnecessary because the Bill of Rights already took care of this one. There is no need to reiterate the Constitution while also limiting the ability of Universities to make decisions on campus events in the name of public safety. For conservatives who seem to want smaller government, this comes as a surprise because all it’s doing is adding unnecessary regulations on what autonomy Universities do or don’t have when it comes to ensuring public safety and otherwise controlling their own space. I don’t know about anyone else, but that sounds like some serious government overreach to me! #BigGovernmentSucks