Rutgers University: There Is No Free Speech

The language used to explain this bias prevention:

The university defines “bias acts” as “[v]erbal, written, physical, psychological acts that threaten or harm a person or group on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, civil union status, domestic partnership status, atypical heredity or cellular blood trait, military service or veteran status.”

It goes on:

The university also encourages students to “[l]ose stereotypes about any group.” There is “no such thing as a ‘positive’ stereotype,” according to the university. “All stereotypes are inherently negative, hurtful, and damaging.”

The Bias Prevention and Education Committee, according to the university, is a “two-tiered body comprised of the Deans of Students Bias Response Team and the Bias Prevention Education Advisory Panel working in concert to MONITOR, PREVENT, REPORT, RESPOND, and RESTORE environments in the aftermath of BIAS INCIDENTS.”

Ok, so you are in a group of students, hanging out and you tell a joke, the punch line being “spaghetti eating Italians”.  Next, its 3am, in your dorm room bursts a group of ninjas (called the Response Team), waving an incident report. Because now we police your speech.  Because now we decide what your speech “meant”.  And possibly, this evolves– if it was something really horrible (liken to speech equivalent to murder one) it’s not just your speech that is not free anymore, but you aren’t free anymore.

As with any freedom, comes responsibility.  Kids are told that many times as they mature, as with getting a drivers license.  The car, driving, is a freedom, but if used recklessly, it can cause accidents, people even die.  Freedom of speech, we learn through others– the appropriate ways to convey ourselves.  And it seems like this is what they are trying to police.  Problem is, what if speaking out about your Government is considered “bias” and it needs “prevention”.  People don’t always speak “nice“.  But outlawing the freedom of speech is one of the most dangerous acts, as we used to learn in school, its the number one freedom according to our Constitution.

Question is: are we free, really free without free speech?  This is just Rutgers, and this article will come and go–but this has been the beginning of societies that we know so well, some that have been, and others that will be, it seems.  Is America the one that will be?  Or are we there, already?

Source: Campus Reform

Photo: Wikipedia