A bonanza of six, count them six, columns on First Amendment (and closely related) topics. [Links to each full column embedded in each headline.]

College student survey makes future look grim, part one (Oct. 26): More than half of U.S. college students are proto-totalitarian ignoramuses.

That’s my admittedly bile-filled takeaway from a comprehensive new national survey by McLaughlin and Associates on behalf of the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale University , which is dedicated to intellectual diversity (not to be confused with diversity of “identity”) and political discourse on campus….

By an astonishing 47.8% to 37.7%, those surveyed actually agreed with this statement: “In some cultures, some types of offensive speech even merit the death penalty. Some speech can be so offensive in certain cases that it merits such harsh punishment.”

The mind reels. The stomach gets queasy. The bile rises…..

Part two on survey of horrendous collegians (Oct. 27): It’s awful that huge majorities of college students are totalitarian enough to support corporal punishment for unwanted speech. It’s almost as bad that similar majorities think favored speech should be compelled.

Even more worrisome, the speech they wish to compel is actually pernicious….

Publishing industry workers want to block publishing of Justice Barrett’s book (Oct. 28): More than 500 so-called literary figures need to get a life…..

Alabama judge had chance to be First Amendment hero (Oct. 14): A federal district judge now has a chance to vindicate the First Amendment rights of every American citizen and affinity group….

Alabama judge did the right thing, but failed to stress the First Amendment ((Oct. 25): The Justice Department suffered an epic smackdown last night when an Alabama-based federal district judge quashed its abusive subpoena against the Alabama chapter of the Eagle Forum. Still, Judge Liles Burke left one important thing unsaid: The First Amendment should be openly, not merely implicitly, defended….

Turkey’s Erdogan threatens a dissident journalist (Oct. 12): More evidence that Turkey is the black sheep of NATO comes from a report that Turkey’s agents have doxxed a dissident journalist who writes for an American think tank…..

 

Tags: , , , ,