Pretty Soon, The Only Right Left On Campus Will Be The Right To Remain Silent
Feminist groups are now trying to get colleges to go waaay out of bounds on shutting down speech -- just as they they have in dealing with sexual assault accusations (removing due process from men).

Now -- from The College Fix:

The Feminist Majority Foundation and dozens of similar groups are threatening to pursue legislation that would regulate Yik Yak if the company, founded by recent graduates of Furman University, does not turn over the identities of alleged harassers to authorities "outside law enforcement."

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the groups held a news conference in Washington on Wednesday to announce the anti-harassment campaign.

It includes a letter to the Department of Education asking that it require colleges to identify and discipline "perpetrators" on Yik Yak and create "technological barriers" to using apps that "harassers favor," the Chronicle said.

The groups are mad at Yik Yak for requiring a court order to turn over such information and for relying on users to "downvote" boorish content so that it quickly disappears from view.

One of the lawyers for the feminist groups told the news conference she had convinced the Department of Ed's Office for Civil Rights to investigate the University of Mary Washington in Virginia for not taking action against harassing posts on Yik Yak.

Here's a solution for those who are upset by the discussion on Yik Yak -- avoid it.

If information on it is defamatory, instead of trying to shut down speech for all, go get yourself a lawyer and get a court order to unmask the person.

And, because you're maybe curious, what kind of horror is there on Yik Yak? This is a screenshot from the Chron link above.

Another one -- apparently to get around the filter -- said, "Gonna tie those feminists to a radiator and grape them in the mouth."

I've gotten a good many threats via Internet and mail, by the way.

How many people here think actual rapists are posting on Yik Yak -- announcing that they're going to commit a crime?

Here's some law on this:

Threats of Violence Against Individuals.--The Supreme Court has cited three "reasons why threats of violence are outside the First Amendment": "protecting individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur."

In Watts v. United States, however, the Court held that only "true" threats are outside the First Amendment. The defendant in Watts, at a public rally at which he was expressing his opposition to the military draft, said, "If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J."

He was convicted of violating a federal statute that prohibited "any threat to take the life of or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States."

The Supreme Court reversed. Interpreting the statute "with the commands of the First Amendment clearly in mind," it found that the defendant had not made a "true 'threat,"' but had indulged in mere "political hyperbole."

The Ninth Circuit concluded that a "true threat" is "a statement which, in the entire context and under all the circumstances, a reasonable person would foresee would be interpreted by those to whom the statement is communicated as a serious expression of intent to inflict bodily harm upon that person."

"It is not necessary that the defendant intend to, or be able to carry out his threat; the only intent requirement for a true threat is that the defendant intentionally or knowingly communicate the threat."