Don’t give campus censors more power — they’ll double down on woke agenda

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Bruce Pardy

Expression on campus is already subject to the laws of the land, which prohibit assault, defamation, harassment, and more. The university has no need for a policy to adopt these laws and no power to avoid them.

Last Saturday, Liz Magill resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania. Four days earlier she had testified before Congress about campus antisemitism. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s code of conduct? “It is a context-dependent decision,” Magill equivocated. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman launched a campaign calling for Magill to step down, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, who testified alongside her. Their reluctance to condemn revealed a double standard. That double standard, like the titillation of a scandal, has distracted from the bigger mistake. Universities should not police the content of expression on their campuses.

In 2019, I invited a member of Penn’s law school to give a lecture at Queen’s University, where I teach. Some students at my law school launched a petition to prevent the talk. To their credit, administrators at Queen’s did not heed the call, even though the professor I invited, Amy Wax, had become a controversial academic figure. In 2017, she championed “bourgeois culture” in an opinion essay in the Philadelphia Inquirer (with Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego). The piece suggested that the breakdown of post-Second World War norms was producing social decay. Some cultures are less able than others, it argued, to prepare people to be productive citizens. Students and professors condemned the column as hate speech. It was racist, white supremacist, xenophobic and “heteropatriarchal,” they said.

Wax was not deterred. She continued to comment about laws and policies on social welfare, affirmative action, immigration, and race. When she was critical of Penn Law’s affirmative action program, the dean barred her from teaching first-year law students. In June 2023, he filed a disciplinary complaint against her, seeking to strip her of tenure and fire her. It accused Wax of “intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic actions and statements.” The complaint alleged that she had violated the university’s non-discrimination policies and Principles of Responsible Conduct. But unlike others, allegedly, on Penn’s campus, Wax had not called for, nor was she accused of calling for, violence or genocide. She continues to wait for a decision in her case.

For years, North American universities have embraced certain political causes and blacklisted others. To stay out of trouble, choose carefully what you say. You can accuse men of toxic masculinity, but don’t declare that transgender women are men. You can say that black lives matter, but not that white lives matter too. Don’t suggest that men on average are better at some things and women at others, even if that is what the data says. Don’t attribute differential achievement between races to anything but racism, even if the evidence says otherwise. Don’t eschew the ideology of equity, diversity, and inclusion if you want funding for your research project. You can blame white people for anything. And if the context is right, maybe you can call for the genocide of Jews. Double standards on speech have become embedded in university culture.

Universities should not supervise speech. Expression on campus is already subject to the laws of the land, which prohibit assault, defamation, harassment, and more. The university has no need for a policy to adopt these laws and no power to avoid them. If during class I accuse two colleagues of cheating on their taxes, they can sue me for defamation. If I advocate genocide, the police can charge me under the Criminal Code.

In principle, universities should be empty shells. Professors and students have opinions, but universities should not. But instead, they have become political institutions. They disapprove of expression that conflicts with their social justice mission. Speech on campus is more restricted than in the town square.

The principle that universities should not supervise speech has a legitimate exception. Expression should be free but should not interfere with the rights of others to speak and to listen. On campus, rules that limit how, when, and where you may shout from the rooftops preserve the rights of your peers. Any student or professor can opine about the Ukrainian war, but not during math class. Protesters can disagree with visiting speakers but have no right to shout them down. Such rules do not regulate the content of speech, but its time and place. If you write a column in the student newspaper or argue your case in a debate, you interfere with no one. The university should have no interest in what you say.

Penn donors helped push Magill out the door. In the face of rising antisemitism, more donors and alumni in the U.S. and Canada are urging their alma maters to punish hateful expression. They have good intentions but are making a mistake. They want universities to use an even larger stick to censure speech. Having witnessed universities exercise their powers poorly, they seek to give them more. Universities will not use that larger stick in the way these alumni intend. Instead, in the long run, they will double down on their double standards. They are more likely to wield the stick against the next Amy Wax than against woke anti-Semites.

The way to defeat double standards on speech is to demand no standards at all. Less, not more, oversight from universities on speech is the answer. If a campus mob advocates genocide, call the police. The police, not the universities, enforce the laws of the land.

Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.

Related Topics:#BrucePardy #FreeSpeech #HateSpeech #MacdonaldLaurierInstitute

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Parks Canada deer hunt project to cost taxpayers $12 million

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Parks Canada deer hunt project to cost taxpayers $12 million

Published on May 22, 2024

Todayville

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Ryan Thorpe

The expert marksmen, from the United States and New Zealand, only managed to kill 84 deer. Eighteen were the wrong kind of deer

At $10,000 a deer, this is already an expensive hunting trip.

But the bill is about to get a lot bigger.

Parks Canada has earmarked $12 million for its controversial plan to eradicate a deer species and restore native vegetation on a tiny island in British Columbia, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“It’s hard to imagine how Parks Canada could spend millions shooting deer,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Here’s the kicker: hunters who actually live on the island are bagging these deer for free.”

The $12-million Fur to Forest program is a Parks Canada effort to eradicate the European fallow deer population on Sidney Island (located between the coast of B.C. and Vancouver Island), and restore native vegetation, tree seedlings and shrubs.

So far, Parks Canada has employed exotically expensive hunting techniques.

Foreign sharpshooters armed with restricted semi-automatic rifles hunted the deer during phase one of the operations. Phase one cost more than $800,000, including $67,000 spent renting a helicopter, for a hit to taxpayers of $10,000 a head.

The expert marksmen, from the United States and New Zealand, only managed to kill 84 deer. Eighteen were the wrong kind of deer – native black-tailed deer. They weren’t able to confirm the species of the three other deer shot.

It is illegal to harvest the wrong species of animal during a hunt in B.C.

Meanwhile, residents of Sidney Island organized their own hunt last fall. They killed 54 deer at no cost to taxpayers.

“It’s crazy that Parks Canada flew in marksmen from other countries to shoot deer,” Terrazzano said. “It’s even crazier that these ‘marksmen’ kept shooting the wrong kind of deer.”

It’s been widely reported the project will cost $5.9 million.

But the records obtained by the CTF show the story gets worse for taxpayers. A detailed project budget obtained through an access-to-information request reveals Parks Canada plans to spend $11.9 million on the scheme.

Taxpayers will be on the hook for $4.1 million for the killing of deer on Sidney Island, according to the records. An additional $2.8 million will go towards the salaries and benefits of Parks Canada staff.

A total of $137,000 will be spent on “firearms certification for international workers” throughout the project, while $1.4 million will go towards studies and analysis, and nearly $800,000 is earmarked for “Indigenous participation.”

Breakdown of costs, Fur to Forest program, access-to-information records

Salaries	$2.3 million
Analysis and Studies	$1.4 million
Indigenous Participation	$800,000
Deer Eradication	$4.1 million
Miscellaneous*	$3.3 million
Total	$11.9 million

*Includes $53,000 for “forest restoration” services, “plants” and “seedlings.”

Parks Canada estimates there are between 300 and 900 invasive deer on the island. Phase two of the operation, which is scheduled to begin this fall, will involve ground hunting with dogs.

“Let’s just state the obvious: Parks Canada is bad at hunting and more money isn’t going to make it better,” Terrazzano said. “The good folks who live on Sidney Island are clearly more qualified to handle this and the government should get out of their way.”

International

Former GOP Republican Presidential Candidate Buys Activist Stake In Left-Wing Outlet

Published on May 22, 2024

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By JASON COHEN

Former Republican presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy purchased an activist stake in BuzzFeed, according to a May Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Ramaswamy purchased a 7.7% stake consisting of 2.7 million shares between March 14 and May 21 at costs ranging from $1.47 to $2.51 per share, according to the filing. The businessman asserted in the filing that he feels the company’s shares are “undervalued and represent an attractive investment opportunity.”

The New York Times vehemently claims that the noncitizen voting problem is a “false narrative.” If it’s such a non-issue, it’s interesting that they’re so staunchly opposed to a bill that bans it. pic.twitter.com/o40FK6sU05

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) May 22, 2024

Ramaswamy “will seek to engage in a dialogue with the Issuer’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) and/or management about numerous operational and strategic opportunities to maximize shareholder value, including a shift in the Company’s strategy,” according to the filing.

Buzzfeed has been laying off employees since late 2022 as it has struggled with digital advertising, according to The Associated Press. The company closed down its BuzzFeed News in early 2023.

The company also recently reported a loss of $35.7 million in the first quarter of 2024 as advertising revenue plunged 22%, according to the AP.

“It’s an interesting bet,” an individual who is close to Ramaswamy told Mediaite. “Vivek, the anti-woke warrior, buying a material stake in one of America’s most woke media entities would signal to this long time investor that he intends to make it a free speech platform … If he turns it around financially, he would have serious street cred for another conservative political move.”

Ramaswamy in January suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee. The businessman also recently visited Trump at the New York courthouse where he is currently on trial.

“The most remarkable part was the one thing you get from being in that courtroom is a sense of the depressing atmosphere, which matches the depressing nature of what’s happening in there. It’s sort of like a concrete poem for the decline of America, actually. You get like a third-world visual, atmospheric courtroom, open wires sticking out, temperature regulation nonexistent, stuffy air a thick scent. And in the same place is happening. It’s not just third-world atmospherics, but a third-world proceeding,” Ramaswamy told the Daily Caller.

Online news outlet The Messenger shut down in January after less than a year of operations; the outlet started out with $50 million in May 2023, but it was hemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars while only taking in about $3 million in revenue last year. The Washington Post planned to eliminate roughly 240 jobs as of December 2023 amid its financial struggles and NPR has similarly been laying off workers since 2022.

BuzzFeed and Ramaswamy did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.