The White House recently launched a campaign to draw attention to several free speech regulations that are vastly ignored in our education system. This week, President Trump retaliated against liberal colleges and universities for their years of conservative discrimination by signing a new executive order.
After President Trump’s election victory in 2016 – many campuses escalated their already prevalent conservative-silencing tactics. This includes creating many hoops to jump through for conservatives to create a club, spread ideas on campus, and bring in conservative speakers. Further, schools have been ramping up protections for the ‘inclusion’, ‘free expression’, and ‘diversity’ clauses of their policies so it is easier for them to claim conservatives violate school policies when disagreements across the aisle break out.
On Thursday, President Trump had enough. As he pointed out at the Conservative Political Action Conference a few weeks earlier, these schools benefit from federal tax dollars and research grants. The White House won’t stand by while colleges and universities continue to rake in federal dollars meanwhile squashing basic free speech requirements on their campuses.
“Under the guise of speech codes and safe spaces and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans … all of that changes starting right now,” the President said prior to signing the executive order.
Too often, universities give into liberal hysteria when a conservative speaker is slated for an event on campus. There are countless cases where universities have gone above College Republicans, Turning Point, and other conservative clubs to cancel speakers due to out-of-control protests and student body backlash. This not only punishes conservative students but creates a dangerous vacuum of one sided views in our education system.
The new Free Speech executive order ensures conservative voices will be represented without fail on campuses across America. Under the rules, universities will lose funding if they don’t take all viewpoints into consideration when creating their speech codes, “free speech zones,” incident reporting systems, and when booking guest speakers.
Free speech is our First Amendment right and a cherished American value. Americans United for Values strongly backs the White House’s new executive order to promote freedom of speech for all students in our Nation’s schools, regardless of ideology.