General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Limits of Free Speech [View all]mountain grammy
(26,613 posts)The students broke no laws, they broke rules and were punished appropriately. Universities have rules regulating student behavior, employers have rules in the workplace. You are an anarchist so you basically want no rules, and, if that works for you I'm happy, but I think that's a recipe for disaster on a large university campus.
Free speech is protected by law, but free speech has it's limits. You can stand in public, and people do, with a sign that says "I hate whoever" and that's allowed. If the sign says "I will kill all whoever" then you just might be threatening others and there is a legal definition for real and implied threats. Laws don't punish bigots for speech but for actions or implied actions, and that's a pretty recent development. It's only been in my lifetime that bigoted speech has been discouraged and bigoted actions punished in America.