Conservaturds hate 1st Amendment

[Baxter]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/us/florida-professors-free-speech.html

No paywall
https://archive.fo/C4gbD

WASHINGTON — A federal judge handed a crucial free-speech victory to six
University of Florida professors Friday, ordering the university to stop
enforcing a policy that had barred them from giving expert testimony in
lawsuits against the state.

The stinging ruling, by Judge Mark E. Walker of U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of Florida, accused the university of trying to
silence the professors for fear that their testimony would anger state
officials and legislators who control the school’s funding. Judge Walker
likened that to the decision last month by Hong Kong University to remove
a 25-foot sculpture marking the 1989 massacre of student protesters in
Beijing’s Tiananmen Square by the Chinese military, apparently for fear
of riling the authoritarian Chinese government.

If the comparison distressed university officials, he wrote, “the
solution is simple. Stop acting like your contemporaries in Hong Kong.”

A university spokeswoman, Hessy Fernandez, said school officials would
review the order before deciding whether to appeal it.

Technically, the 74-page order limits the university only temporarily,
until there is a ruling in the professors’ lawsuit challenging the
policy. But the judge, who was appointed in 2012 by President Barack
Obama, left scant doubt that his opinion of the school’s conduct was
unlikely to change, stating that the evidence on the “defendants’ side of
the scale sits empty; plaintiffs’ overflows.”

*snip*

[BT]

Bax-Tart wrote:

> If the comparison distressed university officials, he wrote, “the
> solution is simple. Stop acting like your contemporaries in Hong Kong.”

That's funny -- I wonder what that same judge would say if he had to
make a ruling on whether or not antifa fascists and other left wing groups
should be allowed to continue squashing free speech by taking over stages
and auditoriums to prevent speakers and panel discussions that they
don't want other students to hear.

Until I know that judge's opinion on that issue I'm not going to hold him up
as a champion of free speech even though this is a step in that direction.
But the antifa fascists' actions are far worse for this country than the
stifling of these few professors over a limited topic.

B. T.