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  1. Daniel Kaufman's avatar
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  4. Samir Okasha's avatar

    Gabriele Taylor was my undergraduate philosophy tutor at St Anne’s College, Oxford from 1989-1992. I remember her as an incisive…

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  7. David Wallace's avatar

The editorial board of the Urbana-Champaign News-Gazette seems to know as little about constitutional law as the Chancellor

This is just astonishing in its ignorance and irrationality; regarding Salaita's constitutional rights, the editors opine:

He was and remains free to speak as he chooses. But there is no right to speak with impunity. Free speech comes with consequences — from reasoned debate to a punch in the nose. Journalists lose jobs for exercising free speech. Authors lose publishers. Entertainers lose audiences. All risk civil litigation. Salaita spoke, and others spoke back, persuasively, to express both fear and disdain.

But there is a right to speak with impunity from being denied state employment because of your constitutionally protected speech, with some narrow exceptions that do not apply here.  Surely the editors of a newspaper ought to have a clue about the Constitution and the First Amendment?  Surely they should know that a state employer is different than a publishing house.  That an audience is not the same as the state university? 

Maybe they should resign too.

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