Suing Marco Rubio: Why We’re Supporting a Lawsuit to Defend Free Speech
We’re standing up for students’ constitutional rights—even when we fundamentally disagree with what they’re saying.
This piece is a part of The Next Move’s Back to School series.
Read this note from Garry Kasparov on why we’re covering the campus crisis:
With all the talk of a ceasefire in Ukraine, it's easy to forget about the ceasefire that's about to expire on America's campuses.
Free speech, deportations, federal overreach, hostile foreign influence and political extremism all remain potent issues as millions of Americans head off to college in the coming days.
Marco Rubio has a lawsuit on his hands.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is taking on the secretary of state’s sweeping powers to revoke legal immigrants’ visas and deport them over constitutionally-protected speech. As the leaders of Renew Democracy Initiative, we’re proud to be supporting FIRE on this lawsuit—even when it means defending speech we fundamentally disagree with.
Our declarations of support for the plaintiffs were filed last week with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Let’s be clear: Supporting FIRE’s plaintiffs means support for their constitutional rights, not necessarily what they’re actually saying. For example, one of the plaintiffs, a legal resident and former student, chanted “from the river to the sea” at anti-Israel demonstrations. We could not disagree with this rhetoric more. It’s eliminationist: If Russian calls to erase Ukrainian statehood are wrong, then we should agree that calls to erase Israel are as well.
But this rhetoric is not illegal. It is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
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Conditional liberty is not liberty at all. The only way to defend freedom of speech is to defend all protected speech, even if the words are extreme or offensive. That is why, five years ago, Garry signed the Harper’s Letter, which stated:
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.
We believe in challenging all threats to free expression and an open exchange of ideas, whether the “cancel culture” of the far-left or the Trump administration’s overreach in its campus crackdown.
Ultimately, we’re calling upon free people of all ideological stripes to stand by Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s words from her biography of Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Click here to read our declarations in support of FIRE’s lawsuit.
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America’s Campuses: The Next Frontline Against Authoritarianism
When China, Qatar, and even our own federal government threaten academic freedom, we're all responsible for fighting back.
The Trojan Horse of Campus Antisemitism
The federal government is exploiting real concerns about Jew hatred as a vehicle to deliver a right-wing policy grab-bag.
This is a far better explanation of the First Amendment issues surrounding international students facing deportation than the guest essay published yesterday. I would add, though, that some of the problems of due process—and there are plenty—have to do with sloppy cases. There are certainly cases where students face deportation for simply uttering something distasteful, and the lawsuit The Next Move is supporting is much needed. There are other cases, however, that probably do involve ties to terrorist organizations, but the incompetence of the Trump administration coupled with its authoritarian tendencies have them bypassing proper evidence gathering and due process. (It’s worth watching the film October 8 to see how not all these protests are strictly student gatherings.) We can hold two things in our heads at once: Trump and his cabinet are violating the constitution, but at the same time, not all foreign students are peaceful protesters. Proper investigations and legal proceedings would reveal the terrorist ties and threats—much as RICO aids in prosecuting organized crime by examining systems, not direct statements of intent, which organized crime always avoids.
Thank you, Gary Kasparov and Uriel Epshtein.
Rümeysa Özturk’s abduction off the streets of Massachusetts was an act of a tyrant and coward, targeting the most vulnerable in our society, especially given that the most powerful protesters against Israel are secular, protected, and privileged.
Given that, I read Rümëysa Özturks’ op-ed, and thought it to be a polished, spare piece of work—a carefully worded stiletto—slipping home this one small, baseless, but devastatingly effective lie—that Israel is committing genocide. And then, the writers went for the jugular, arguing that the university, therefore, had a moral duty to divest itself from Israel.
I don’t know whether Rümeysa and her co-writers had bothered to study the Israeli perspective, especially the legal standing of Israel, but unlike the barbarous regime of Erdogan in Turkey, Ms. Ozturk’s homeland, where the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas find safe harbor, the USA must do better, to strive to live up to its Christian roots of freedom. It was John Wesley who said this in the 1700’s:
“Condemn no man for not thinking as you think. Let every one enjoy the full and free liberty of thinking for himself. Let every man use his own judgment, since every man must give an account of himself to God. Abhor every approach, in any kind or degree, to the spirit of persecution, if you cannot reason nor persuade a man into the truth, never attempt to force a man into it. If love will not compel him to come, leave him to God, the judge of all."
Therefore, in a Christian nation, winning the fight against antisemitism is accomplished by not condemning, but allowing others to enjoy the liberty of thinking for themselves. The battle for credulous students, teachers, and people who believe lies is not persecution, but reason, persuasion and the truth.
Any military action without first winning the public opinion war risks defeat and destruction. That is the situation for the Israeli Republic, as world opinion turns against it. Yet, Israel still has robust freedom of the press, and critics of the war are free. So there is no excuse for the USA to start a war on the most vulnerable people and institutions—Muslims, the undocumented, the Voice of America, public media, the press, universities, political enemies.