A Free Speech Champion Speaks Freely: A Chat With Harvey Silverglate
Free speech champion Harvey Silverglate on his career in free speech, how the campus leftists he defended turned out to not be for free speech (just for their speech being defended), and on Harvard's free speech fakery.
Silverglate founded an organization I support -- theFIRE.org, which defends free speech violations on campus pro bono.
He says he is considered a right-winger by the left but he actually says he's a liberal -- but a "classic liberal": a civil liberties liberal.
I wish I shared his optimism, as he puts it at the end of the video, that "the modern PC university is gonna bite the dust."
How much more liberal can you get then to be a free speech defender, and a civil liberties and defense attorney (and Jewish?)
Oops, sorry, I grew up in the sixties.
"FIRE is a right wing organization, we can ignore them" What? Since when is a first amendment and other civil liberties legal group a right wing organization?
jerry at December 6, 2013 1:31 AM
"He says he is considered a right-winger by the left but he actually says he's a liberal -- but a "classic liberal": a civil liberties liberal."
Which just goes to show how far to the radical left politics has shifted. Leftist friends keep saying it's shifted to the right, but never offer any examples or proof.
Joe j at December 6, 2013 6:30 AM
Since when is a first amendment and other civil liberties legal group a right wing organization?
When the progressives deem them so.
All animals are equal. It's just that some are more equal than others.
I R A Darth Aggie at December 6, 2013 6:54 AM
"Since when is a first amendment and other civil liberties legal group a right wing organization?"
Ahem. Count the number of speeches thwarted by leftists, considered "liberals" at modern universities.
Radwaste at December 6, 2013 8:38 AM
Most of the righties I know think he's a commie pinko leftist, so he must be doing something right. He's one of my modern-day heroes, most especially for his work with FIRE and academic freedom issues.
Grey Ghost at December 6, 2013 9:24 AM
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