J. D. Tuccille
Reason Magazine
Excerpt: The First Amendment is alive and well, which is a reassuring note about the basic legal protections for free speech. Unfortunately, it's not enough. The world is full of countries with written protections for liberty that are frequently honored in the breach because people and politicians don't really believe in them (cough, Canada, cough). The true foundation for free speech in the U.S. has always been a culture that supports unfettered expression, of which the First Amendment is just an extension.
But less than two weeks after Charlie Kirk was murdered because an assassin apparently didn't like what he had to say, it's obvious that free speech culture is besieged.
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Violating the First Amendment will cost you. Universities and other public institutions are learning this lesson the hard way as the dust settles on a series of lawsuits brought by university faculty and staff who were punished for their comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder last September.
If Johns Hopkins University wanted to signal its seriousness about creating an alternative to the left-leaning orthodoxy that permeates higher education, it couldn’t have done better than the recent hire of economist Peter Arcidiacono.
House Republicans have now formally backed President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education, voting Wednesday to advance 10 bills that would codify the White House’s efforts to disperse numerous education programs and offices to other federal agencies.