The right shuts down free speech, too - The Washington Post - 0 views
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In a disturbing series of events, conservative organizations have been claiming the mantle of free speech in service of suppressing campus speech they dislike, too.
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The most recent case involves professor Olga Perez Stable Cox at Orange Coast College in California. An anonymous student in her human sexuality class secretly recorded Cox discussing her political views. She referred to Donald Trump as a “white supremacist,” his running mate Mike Pence “as one of the most anti-gay humans in this country” and their election as an “act of terrorism.”
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Meanwhile, the Orange Coast College Republicans — the group that disseminated the gotcha video — is campaigning for her firing. The group’s president said that expunging commentary such as hers from campus is necessary to ensure the college’s commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusivity.”
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conservative pundits convinced that U.S. colleges are leftist indoctrination camps have taken up the Republican students’ cause. Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly referred to the professor’s words as an “assault” on her students — conflating words with physical violence in the same way liberals so often do.
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In a similar vein, the conservative group Turning Point USA recently published a “Professor Watchlist,” a catalogue of what it thinks are dangerous and “anti-American” professors who deserve public shaming for allegedly trying to “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.” (Among those “radical agenda” items: advocating gun control, calling Ted Cruz’s infamous “New York values” statement anti-Semitic.)