Right Wing Campus Speaker Disruptions and Free Speech Laws all part of the Plan.

I never understood this whole shouting down guest speakers on campus thing. A more effective approach would include groaning, laughing or holding a sign in the audience. And since this has been going on for decades, right wing authoritarians who are now in charge of every branch of state government, found an opening to strike back.

Money making Scam turns Conservatives into Famous Victims: Conservative campus speakers profit more from trumped up “security concerns” and cancellations than just showing up to speak.

Nationwide Republicans are slowly taking over public colleges, booking conservative guests, playing the victim of the now vilified liberal educators, and writing a regime of campus censorship laws that turns actual free speech into a punishable offense.

Rep. Jesse Kremer, of Kewaskum, said in a May 11 legislative hearing that it was a fact that Earth was 6,000 years old. Kremer sits on the Assembly’s universities committee, which votes on bills affecting the state’s colleges and universities … the blowback he’s received for his beliefs demonstrates the need for legislation regulating speech on college campuses … he released a statement on Thursday accusing the “elitist media” of “losing their minds over someone with a different opinion.” Kremer said the “left’s unhinged attacks” on his perspective — which he said included death threats and profanity-laden messages — demonstrated the need for his legislation, which he says would protect speech by punishing protesters who shout down controversial speakers. Critics of the legislation say it could favor speakers’ rights over protesters.

Dave Vanness, an associate professor of population health sciences and past-president of the UW-Madison chapter of American Association of University Professors, said: “Faculty have an obligation to respect students’ rights to expression; they are under no obligation to treat all beliefs as equally valid,” Vanness tweeted. 

The new crop of bills is broadly based on a model designed by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank: punish students who take part in disruptive protests; requires universities to launch an investigation and hold discipline hearings if they get two or more complaints alleging someone violated the policy; System institutions must “strive to remain neutral” on public policy controversies.

(Conservative speakers) Ben Shapiro and Steve Forbes were invited to campus by the UW-Madison chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, an affiliate of a national student organization attracting attention for its success in placing conservative speakers on college campuses.

The national organization, armed with a $16 million bequest from a California orthodontist, has doubled its programming, including campus speeches, over the past two years, the New York Times reported. This past academic year, the organization helped put 111 speakers on 77 campuses, including what the Times called “heat-seeking” speakers.

The foundation helps pay for speakers, trains student event organizers and provides promotional materials as part of its mission of grooming future conservative leaders, the Times said. Funders include billionaire brothers David H. and Charles G. Koch, and the Amway billionaires Richard and Helen DeVos, although Betsy DeVos, their daughter-in-law and secretary of education, is not a donor, the group says. 

A former liberal radio talk host who likes to ask the “follow-up question” at Democurmudgeon.blogspot.com