No sane person would argue that Mississippi is not a place with a strong sense of tradition. Mississippi literally drips with the fine traditions of family loyalty, religious liberty, community charity, and the value of life.
Some would also refer to a place like this as being “conservative.” From a social perspective, I would agree. However, when we look at the Magnolia State through the lens of public policy and political philosophy, the word “conservative” does not apply.
Though Mississippi has been governed mostly by Republicans, that does not make it a conservative state. We can’t measure our conservatism by our political affiliation or social conscience alone.
We must look deeper into the meaning of conservatism. Being conservative in America means, by definition, you favor constitutionally limited government, the mechanism of free markets, and the personal liberty and responsibility we have as individuals.
A conservative is willing to stand up to encroaching power of all forms of government (city, county, state and federal), to the growing corporatism that seeks to govern us from the boardroom, and to the menace to our society that is a progressive culture. Being a conservative means holding your representatives to account for fiscal discipline, for reducing our regulatory burdens, and for keeping our taxes low so that every Mississippian keeps more of his or her own money and freedom.
The recent gubernatorial race was particularly instructive. A candidate for governor, who constantly referred to himself as a conservative, ran on a plank of raising the gas tax and expanding Medicaid.
Distinguished, non-partisan organizations all across the country have provided empirical evidence and shared instructive data on the imprudence of states expanding Medicaid, like this one from my counterpart at the conservative Pelican Institute in Louisiana. The conservative and libertarian think tanks all over the nation are opposed to the expansion of Medicaid by states. Yet, a candidate for the highest office in the state supported the policy of expansion while referring to himself as a conservative.
That’s a head-scratcher for me.
On the issue of the gas tax, the current governor called a special session last year and passed what was then called “landmark” legislation to address the infrastructure issues of our state’s highways and bridges. Through a combination of an internet sales tax, sports gambling taxes, lottery revenues, and bonding, it was announced that government found a way to commit over a billion dollars to infrastructure projects over the next five years. Full-page ads were taken out by trade groups and chamber of commerce-type organizations to “recognize the historic achievement.”
Less than a year later, a candidate for governor was claiming we needed to “do something to address our crumbling roads and bridges.” This is despite the fact that our state roads and bridges are ranked as the 11th best in the nation by Reason Magazine in their 23rd Annual Highway Report. I’ve driven most of the roads in the Southeast; our state roads are just fine. The crumbling streets, roads, and bridges are found mostly in a few of the cities and counties of Mississippi. Jackson/Hinds being the worst example and the one most of the political class has to contend with on a daily basis. As a Jackson resident, I agree. Our roads are among the worst in the country, but that’s not a state issue. That issue is one of municipal funding and management. We provided an analysis on this earlier this year.
If we want to succeed and get ourselves out of last place, it’s not going to happen by deepening our dependence on government solutions. Every tax is a decision to give more power and responsibility to the state. There is no evidence that government will spend that money more effectively than we would spend it ourselves.
We already have far too many Mississippians who seek to petition government to solve problems we’re better off solving through the private institutions of free enterprise, churches, nonprofits, communities, and families. Too many individuals and companies are looking to the government for a contract, a job, a partner, or protection from competition.
When we allow government to wield this much power, we weaken the free market. We create a disincentive to the formation and deployment of capital. We thwart the opportunity for all Mississippians to prosper. What’s more, such reliance on government ensures only those with power have significant influence on Mississippi, including determining who represents us in the legislative and executive branches of our government.
What makes a “conservative” is not a party or allegiance to a particular leader or political campaign, but the power of ideas. As conservatives, our ideas are based on bedrock values and fundamental truths. Freedom is a policy that works. A limited and restrained government is the essence of our system. And the principle of ordered liberty holds it all together.
Our goal at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy is to play a leadership role in building a Mississippi where individual liberty, opportunity, and responsibility reign because government is limited. We believe this is the only way nations, states, and cities have ever enjoyed durable prosperity.
If we remain committed to these ideas and work hard to convince others of their value, we can all experience a magnolia renaissance. And we can say conservatism made it possible. Real conservatism. The kind of which Bill Buckley, Ronald Reagan, and Milton Friedman spoke. The kind where we are free to pursue our individual liberty and speak our minds. The kind where we encourage people to take action and take risks in pursuit of their happiness. The kind where we take personal responsibility for our futures and stop looking for government to solve all of our problems.
There is an important role for government but it must be limited. Government functions best when it is closest to the people and when it is open and transparent.
Although our national government continues to grow into an unwieldy and bureaucratic swamp, our country is still federalist. We are a collection of semi-sovereign states. Federalism is a conservative idea. As Reagan stated in his first inaugural address, “The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”
Thanks to our founding fathers, the real political and policy power is supposed to belong to the states. Therefore, we hold the key to our own future. Our future does not belong to the bureaucrats and politicians in Washington.
Let’s remember who we are...and vote accordingly.
Only devout progressives could be foolish enough to order the destruction of a gigantic work of art that was actually critical to the establishment’s history of George Washington and our nation’s founding and not see the irony.
In the rush to take any measure to prevent students from the unbearable experience of contemplating complex and thorny issues, the art must go. The statues of Confederates must come down. The annual birthday celebration of the founding father and architect of the University of Virginia must end.
According to these dilettantes, modern education is no longer about developing the intellectual muscles; it is about preventing any encounter with resistance. It’s like trying to get in shape without breaking a sweat, trying to sharpen a blade without removing metal, or trying to prune a tree without cutting the dying wood.
The result of such protectionist idiocy is that we are producing students with weaker constitutions and duller minds – unable to grow into robust adults. By giving into a belief that students are unable to confront opposing thoughts, ideas, or history, and thus must be protected from such challenges, we are preventing them from becoming fully formed citizens. And we do so at our own peril.
As Jefferson wrote, “an enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic.” What the founder, formerly known as Thomas Jefferson, was writing about is critical to our future. The nation’s future requires citizens who thirst for knowledge, possess discernment, and can courageously articulate an idea.
Whether at the University of North Carolina, the San Francisco Board of Education, or in Charlottesville, it is the progressive edutocracy, in lock step with postmodernists, who are failing the republic and setting us on a dangerous path.
If our student citizens are unable to go out into the nation and contend with diverse opinions, whether they be in the form of a monument, a mural, or a speaker, how then do we expect them to contend with a malignant threat to the West and the nation one day?
Even a cursory review of history informs us that evil and malevolent ideas will gain momentum and challenge our way of life at some point. If the 20thCentury proved nothing else, it proved that. According to R. J. Rummel’s book Death by Government, roughly 110 million people were killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987.
Rather than possessing faith in strong ideas and having the courage to oppose their government, citizens in these nations turned on friends and families and allowed evil, false, deadly regimes to bring hell to earth. In short, the citizens chose a naïve approach to these genocidal nightmares.
They chose temporary safety – unable to understand that they were sewing the long-term seeds of their own destruction. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, a painfully detailed account of the Russian forced labor camp system, is now available in an abridged version. If you want to understand the potential depths to which a nation and its citizen can fall, read it or listen to an audio version.
Whether a George Washington mural painted by the Russian artist Victor Arnatauff or a nameless Confederate soldier statue standing on the campus in Chapel Hill, many on the left have determined the next generation is not able to contend with it. Therefore, progressives are now marching swiftly with their majoritarian mobs to dutifully purge public spaces of symbols they find offensive. This sort of mob censorship of historic symbols is a not-too-distant relative of censoring speech and burning books.
At UNC, students and activists tore down the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam, which had stood on the north end of campus for a century. The administration and board at the school have yet to decide the appropriate next step.
Perhaps there is hope here in Mississippi? This past March, the University of Mississippi student government voted unanimously to remove the Confederate statue from its current location atop the center circle of campus and relocate it to a cemetery on school grounds. To their credit, the students have not engaged in the destruction of property in their quest to remove the statue, which has stood since its erection in 1906.
Instead, the students have engaged in a public and democratic process and taken the time to offer a proposed solution. While I may disagree with the solution they propose, they should be commended for engaging in the debate and for not cowering in the corner out of the imagined oppression by an ancient statue. It remains to be seen how this plays out in Oxford. The IHL is searching for the next leader at Ole Miss. You can bet this is one of the interview questions.
The message of the progressive movement in other places in our nation is clear, however. If you are not on board with immediately removing such symbols, you will be accused of racial animus or xenophobia.
The hard left leaves no room for complexity, context, or individual opinion. We are in a new world where the individual must, through definitions ascribed by the progressives, belong to a group.
When the collective's viewpoint must be given preference over the individual’s perspective, we have lost what it means to have individual liberty and agency. In such a world, it is easy to see how woke progressives could be so foolish as to convince themselves to spend over $600,000 to paint over a mural of George Washington.
Such is the result of groupthink. Unfortunately, our students are the ones who suffer from such arrested development.
This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on August 8, 2019.
Mississippi State University has been making headlines in recent weeks not only for their outstanding performance on the baseball diamond, but for the actions of one of their professors who some claim pushed blatantly leftist views on graded assignments.
Professor Michael Clifford was identified by academic watchdog group Campus Reform for providing questions on a Business Ethics exam which asserted moral judgements regarding CEO pay and suggested that Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby practiced employment discrimination against LGBT applicants, without providing evidence to support the suggestion.
Clifford is also accused of ideological favoritism with the distribution of lower marks to those who disagreed with the premise of affirmative action or the data supporting the wage gap theory. One of Clifford’s former students told Campus Reform that he felt afraid to offer an opposing viewpoint in his classroom. “Shortly after I started the course in January, I heard from other students that he was very liberal and graded people based on whether they agreed with him or not,” Mississippi State student Adam Sabes, who is also a Campus Reform correspondent, said.
“Personally, this discouraged me from answering a question based on how I really feel and led me to answer tests or discussion board questions based on what the professor would like best as I needed a good grade in this class,” Sabes added.
This professorial behavior, while appearing unethical (which is rather ironic in a class on ethics), may not seem shocking to the average American if we were talking about Boulder or Berkeley. But this is a largely conservative university in an overwhelmingly conservative state, showing that the problems of bias in academia are not isolated to our nation’s coastal communities or famously liberal college towns.
Academia has become a complex game of inside baseball in recent decades where groups of ideologically aligned and motivated academics provide cover for one another as they actively pursue leftist or progressive viewpoints.
The evidence for this bias comes from Clifford himself. In response to Campus Reform’s reporting, he said that while he included the aforementioned questions that he also included others to choose from. This assertion isn’t a denial. It’s a premeditated cop out for any criticism of his bias.
Could you imagine what news outlets like CNN or MSNBC would say about a conservative professor who made statements offensive to the sensibility of the progressive academic class? Safe to say that they would be looking at some very tough days in the university faculty lounge.
It has unfortunately become the norm that we accept the liberal doctrine in our nation’s universities. Until we start calling out the bias, we’re going to continue to see colleges and universities remain the academic left’s own Animal House – without Dean Wormer to shut down their party.
In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy a delicious chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A, while there is still time
As a conservative woman, I consider campus free speech and free association protections to be vitally important.
In my experience, conservative women are more likely to have their ideas attacked and silenced on many campuses. Maybe it’s because we believe in taking responsibility for our actions. Maybe it’s because we don’t blame the so-called misogynistic patriarchy for all our problems. Maybe it’s because we refuse to believe there is a glass ceiling limiting our opportunities or maybe it’s because we know we don’t have to keep the victim card in our back pockets “just in case.” Whatever the reason, conservative women can sometimes find themselves with a target on their back.
Consider the case of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A few years ago, Rice was invited to Rutgers University to deliver a commencement address. The campus outcry was so divisive that Rice eventually declined to speak.
Two years later while delivering a commencement address at the same school, then president Barack Obama reminded the students and faculty of Rutgers that they should embrace debate and discussion. “Don’t feel like you got to shut your ears off because you’re too fragile and somebody might offend your sensibilities,” counseled Obama. “Go at them if they’re not making any sense. Use your logic and reason and words.” The Rutgers population could have used that message a couple years earlier.
Discouraging free speech and association
Far too often, college campuses are not places where students are encouraged to use logic, reason and words to dialogue about a controversial issue. As a conservative woman in college, I personally encountered an environment that discouraged political free speech and association.
As a freshman, I realized that there was a need for an organization where students could meet and discuss different ideas. So, I started a student conservative women’s organization to do just that. To start, I needed a faculty sponsor. My potential sponsor, though, had concerns of backlash from other faculty members. She was also worried about how her employer – the administration of the college – would treat her for sponsoring a conservative political group. This woman loved her job. She was a good professor. She was a great advisor. It’s terrible she had to consider the future stability of her job before she could sponsor a campus club that shared her own opinions and beliefs.
As it turns out, her concerns were real. The university did not appreciate our group’s constitution. The administration was scared. They were scared of causing any sort of friction among students. And they were scared that some students might be offended. After much back and forth, I finally persuaded the Student Life administrators to allow our group to be formed, thus creating an empowering place where conservative women could assemble, meet, and share our ideas.
It’s concerning to me that my own college campus was so nervous about legitimate debate on important topics that my own group almost didn’t even get started, which, in a way, would have silenced my own voice. Whatever happened to the constitutional right to free association?
The FORUM Act
It’s also concerning to me that, even here in Mississippi, attacks are made on campus free speech. However, there are some who are combating this, like Rep. Stacey Wilkes who introduced The FORUM Act this legislative session. Though it did not become law this year, the protections Rep. Wilkes is championing, such as the right to free speech and free association on Mississippi college campuses, are incredibly important. FORUM is designed to protect the lawful, constitutional expression of students and the campus community, provide recourse should those rights be inhibited, and to make the university accountable for protecting those rights.
As a Missouri native, I know firsthand the problems that can occur when college campuses do not have clear policies to protect the free speech and free association rights of all students. Three years after I established my conservative women’s club, months of protests at the University of Missouri showed just how necessary legislation like the FORUM Act is and what can happen when colleges and universities do not have a clear plan to follow that would protect the campus community’s right to speech.
The University of Missouri
At one such protest, a professor taking part in the demonstration demanded the use of force to keep student journalists from documenting the protestors, violating the media’s First Amendment protection to do so. It took four months and intense pressure from the media and the public before she was fired from her position at Mizzou. Following this incident, campus police threatened the Mizzou community announcing that the university’s Office of Student Conduct would take “disciplinary action” against students who had reportedly engaged in any “hurtful speech.” The email sent out with the announcement stated that though the language was not criminal, they wanted such incidents reported and that the Office of Student Conduct could take disciplinary action if the individuals were identified as students.
Four months prior to all of this, in July, Missouri became the second state in the nation to pass the Campus Free Expression Act (Senate Bill 93). The legislation’s purpose was to protect campus media coverage and counter protests, as well as regular protests anywhere on university property. Essentially, the bill eliminated campus free-speech zones. In this case, obviously, protestors were taking full advantage of that freedom. Which is good, and this was a good first step. However, had the Missouri legislature gone further, passing something like the FORUM Act, most of what happened at Mizzou could have been avoided, or dealt with in a more appropriate way.
What FORUM would do is bring back a campus culture in which people get accustomed to hearing points of views different than their own. From there, they would learn to respond in a respectful and civil manner. This is the exact opposite of what Mizzou did. Instead, they tried to suppress the speech of others in their attempt to appease the protestors. Once all the drama cleared, Mizzou realized where they went wrong in prolonging the protests and began taking steps to recover. This included adopting a policy statement committing the university to free speech principles.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with writing that, “The protection of a people’s right to hear is of particular importance on college campuses, where students’ intellectual development is dependent on the ‘free trade in ideas.’” Ultimately, it is dedication to these principles that we should all share – whether conservative or liberal, or female or male.
Everyone will benefit from campus free speech and free association protections, especially the students our university systems are supposed to serve.
President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that he will soon be signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech in exchange for federal funding.
Trump made the announcement to an audience of conservative activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering outside of Washington, D.C.
“We reject oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness, and every other attempt by the hard left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas. These ideas are dangerous,” Trump said. “Instead, we believe in free speech. Including online and including on campus.”
Campus free speech have been born out of recent examples of speakers being disinvited because of campus protests, the creation of small “free speech zones,” and/ or restrictive speech codes.
Legislation has been moving at the state level for several years, and to date 10 states have adopted some form of campus free speech protections. This includes two of Mississippi’s neighbors, Louisiana and Tennessee.
Similar legislation was introduced in both the House and the Senate, but both of those bills died early in the session without a vote.
Still, such legislation is widely popular in Mississippi. According to new polling from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, 83 percent of Mississippi voters support a law that “would protect speech for all college students, even if others disagree with their point of view.”
This law has broad public support in every corner of the state. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats, 88 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents support the law.
Occupational licenses should cross state lines and the state of Arizona has a chance to be a national leader, while Mississippi falls further behind.
Republicans in the Arizona legislature have introduced a bill that would allow anyone with an occupational license from a different state to move to Arizona and automatically qualify for the same license without having to retake classes and pass tests again.
Contrast that attitude with the Magnolia State. Mississippi has one of the most restrictive occupational licensure regimes nationwide and the state licenses more occupations than most states.
Two bills that were far from any long-reaching reform that would’ve allowed licensed medical professionals such as physicians, dentists, dental hygienist, optometrists or nurses to practice in the state for charitable or voluntary health care without a fee didn’t even make it out of committee.
Senate Bill 2248, authored by state Sen. Angela Hill (R-Picayune), would’ve given out-of-state practitioners the right to practice in the state for charitable reasons and they would’ve been given one credit hour of continuing education for every 60 minutes of voluntary medical services.
House Bill 1491, a similar bill, but without the continuing education component, was authored by state Rep. Shane Aguirre (R-Tupelo).
The Arizona bill has several requirements. The license holder would have to pay a fee to the state board that administers the license and provide proof that they’re in good standing with the licensing authority in their old state. This would happen even if the license holder’s old state doesn’t reciprocate by honoring Arizona licenses.
“If you’ve been licensed to work in another state and want to move here, let it be known: Arizona will not stand in your way,” Gov. Doug Ducey said during his State of the State address earlier this month.
The Republican governor has said he’d sign the bill if it makes it to his desk.
Mississippi does have some limited reciprocity by honoring occupational licenses for military families that’s intended mainly for spouses of active members. There is also statutory language with some occupations — such as cosmetologists, general contractors and home inspectors — that allows reciprocity agreements. Doing so would be up to the individual regulatory boards.
The Mississippi Legislature did pass a bill in 2017 that created the Occupational Licensing Review Commission to put the state in compliance with a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision, North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission. The court ruled that state occupational licensing boards can receive immunity only if they’re actively supervised by the state.
Today, approximately 19 percent of Mississippians need a license to work. This includes everything from a shampooer, who must receive 1,500 clock hours of education, to a fire alarm installer, who must pay over $1,000 in fees. All totaled, there are 66 low-to-middle income occupations that are licensed in Mississippi. According to a recent report from the Institute for Justice, Mississippi has lost 13,000 jobs because of occupational licensing and the state has suffered an economic value loss of $37 million.
A single mom in Mississippi was arrested after the start of the school year when she chose to homeschool her son rather than enroll him in the local public school.
The story began during the 2017-2018 school year. Her seven-year-old son’s health struggles led to attendance problems at the local public school that year. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, who would provide counsel to the mother, the mother provided doctor’s notes for her son’s absences, but that wasn’t enough.
That is when she made the decision to homeschool. She would be able to educate her son, while still having the flexibility that her son needed. It seemed like a great option.
She started homeschooling this past August. Homeschoolers in Mississippi have a considerable amount of freedom, but they must still file a notice of intent with the local school attendance officer. The cutoff date is September 15, more than a month about public schools begin.
But before the end of August, the mother was arrested on charges of truancy, booked at the sheriff’s office, and ordered to post bond. She was warned that she would face fines of up to $1,000 and a year in jail if she didn’t enroll her son in school.
HSLDA was able to persuade the local prosecutor to drop the case, and she is free to educate her son today.
Mississippi state law does provide parents with the freedom to educate their children at home, free of government intrusion. However, this isn’t the first time in the past year that local school districts have attempted to overstep their authority.
Mississippi families who choose to homeschool their children should not be susceptible to illegal attempts by school districts to regulate their education.
Most Mississippians want a law ensuring free speech on college campuses throughout the state.
According to new polling from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, 83 percent of Mississippi voters support a law that “would protect speech for all college students, even if others disagree with their point of view.”
“The last place on earth we should expect to see free speech weakened is on a college campus,” said Jon Pritchett, President and CEO of Mississippi Center for Public Policy. “Part of an essential education in the West includes learning to tolerate speech with which you may disagree. And it is clear that most Mississippians agree.”
This law has broad public support in every corner of the state. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats, 88 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents support the law.
Legislation protecting free speech has been introduced in both the Senate and the House. Senate Bill 2495 has been introduced by Sen. Angela Hill (R-Picayune) and is awaiting action in the Universities and Colleges committee. Rep. Stacey Wilkes (R-Picayune) has introduced House Bill 1562, which has been referred to the House Universities and Colleges committee. These bills reflect current First Amendment case law and will protect Mississippi institutions from needless litigation.
The bills must pass out of committee by Tuesday, February 5, to stay alive.
To date, governors in 10 states – both Republicans and Democrats – have signed similar campus free speech legislation. This includes two of Mississippi’s neighbors, Louisiana and Tennessee. As of last year, legislation had been introduced in another 15 states.
Campus free speech bills are popular with voters because of the growing number of colleges and universities that have lost sight of freedom of speech for all students. Many university policies that hinder free speech are unconstitutional. These include the creation of “free speech zones” and “free speech corners,” which limit speech to certain areas on campus, as well as vague policies that require university permission for meetings and demonstrations that meet legal standards of reasonability.
Full poll results can be found here.
Most of Mississippi’s public universities receive passing grades for their policies on protecting free speech, but that doesn’t mean an issue is far away.
Conservative speakers at campuses nationwide have been either disinvited or have drawn protests designed to shut the event down.
Shelby Emmett, the Director of the Center to Protect Free Speech at the American Legislative Exchange Council, says execution of even a well-written freedom of speech policy can be problematic.
Both of the state’s largest universities — Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi — earned green ratings from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education on their speech codes. This means that their policies don’t seriously imperil free speech.
Emmett worked at FIRE before joining ALEC.
“I remember when they contacted and reached out for help with their codes, which is great,” Emmett said. “It’s great to see schools take the initiative, contact organizations to make sure they have their written codes up to par. On paper, it looks like they’re doing it right. But there also are some schools with bad ratings, bad codes, whether they’re free speech zones or very vague or over broad regulations.
“Even the schools with great policies, you want to make sure they’re doing it the right way.”
Emmett says nationwide that vague speech codes at universities that are more concerned with offending an individual rather than protecting freedom of expression were designed with good intentions, but are now being used by politically savvy students to take over and change the culture of the institution.
One of the reasons for the emotional distress components of speech codes was to provide a calm, welcoming environment for veterans returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She said like most things, this was abused.
She also said that administrators who don’t like a particular subject can let their personal opinions get in the way of protecting all speech if the university doesn’t have strong procedures in place to prevent it.
“I feel for the administrators because they’re between a rock and a hard place,” Emmett said. “They’re dealing with a campus population that wants a certain level of comfort and they’re also paying tuition, which they need to be catering first and foremost to their consumer base.
“It’s easy for me to tell them to get over it when I sit here in the luxury of my office and I’m not actually dealing with a 19-year-old who’s offended that Ben Shapiro came to their campus.”
Not all of Mississippi’s institutions of higher learning receive such high marks from FIRE.
FIRE rates the University of Southern Mississippi and Alcorn State University as yellow, which means some of their policies can restrict a more limited amount of free expression or could be used to ban protected expression. Jackson State University received a red rating from FIRE, which means the university has policies in place that can clearly and substantially restrict protected speech.
Emmett, along with Zack Pruitt of Alliance Defending Freedom, were in Jackson this week for Mississippi Center for Public Policy’s Liberty Luncheon on campus free speech.