Matt Welch on the Sad State of Free Speech on Campus

On March
4, in a designated “free-speech zone” at the University of
California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), associate professor of feminist
studies Mireille Miller-Young walked over to a 16-year-old
anti-abortion protester named Thrin Short and demanded that Short
take down a graphic sign showing pictures of aborted fetuses. When
Short refused, Miller-Young forcibly snatched the sign out of the
smaller girl’s hands, then handed it to her students and walked
away triumphantly. The rattled teen accurately accused Miller-Young
of being a “thief,” to which the professor implausibly retorted: “I
may be a thief, but you’re a terrorist!” Adding injury to insult,
Miller-Young then shoved the protester and barred her from entering
a campus elevator. Moments later, the professor and her students
cut the stolen poster to shreds.

Such scenes have become all too common, writes Reason
Editor-in-Chief Matt Welch. The University of California, and
American academia as a whole, is long overdue for a 21st century
free speech movement.

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