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.
This recent legal invention will continue to turn American principles of presumed innocence and due process on their head.
In the topsy-turvy world of the Justice Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, we were told that a person should be considered guilty until proven innocent, and that we must always believe accusers even when their allegations are unverifiable, remote, and arise under suspect circumstances. For conservatives, the hearings were a reminder of why the presumption of innocence is a bedrock American principle, and why the Founders guaranteed that citizens would not be punished unless they had been convicted of a crime under a fair and impartial process.
But long after the Kavanaugh hearings have faded from the spotlight, another recent legal invention known as civil forfeiture will continue to turn American principles of presumed innocence and due process on their head. Unlike criminal forfeiture, in which the state seizes property of someone convicted of a crime, civil forfeiture is based on the tortured legal fiction that property can be “guilty” of being connected to a crime and that civil proceedings can therefore be brought against the property itself instead of its owner. Cars, cash, guns, and even houses are routinely seized. Rather than being innocent until proven guilty, property owners often have a heavy burden to prove that their property was not connected to criminal activity and can be punished by having the property forfeited — even if they have not even been charged with, much less convicted of a crime. The proceedings usually have minimal judicial oversight and no real due-process protections.
To make matters worse, law-enforcement agencies get to keep the property they seize, which creates a perverse incentive for agencies to abuse the process. Not surprisingly, abuses have been systemic and well documented. For example, the sheriff’s department in Desoto County, Miss., agreed to return a 2006 Chevy Trailblazer owned by the mother of a criminal defendant, but only if the department was paid $1,650. It is common for parents to have their property seized for the alleged criminal activity of their children, even if the parents are completely unaware of the alleged crime. In many cases, the parents enter into an agreement to let the agencies keep all or some of their property. Further complicating this pattern is the fact that often the seized property is worth less than it would cost in legal fees to contest the forfeiture. All of this leads critics to view many forfeiture proceedings as little more than a shakedown. This system also allows law-enforcement agencies to fund themselves, circumventing the legislative appropriations process.
At a bare minimum, agencies should have to publicly report the property they seize, and how they spend the proceeds, to prevent abuse and allow the public to ensure that forfeiture laws are being properly applied. However, even this modicum of reform is often met with opposition from law-enforcement agencies that have become an interest group in the debate over forfeiture laws.
Despite the protests of law-enforcement agencies, initial reforms have already shown the need for transparency and further protections. Mississippi recently passed a law requiring the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics (MBN) to maintain a website listing all property that is seized by it and other law-enforcement agencies. The website was launched on July 2, 2018, and immediately revealed a widespread problem. MBN and many other agencies were routinely pursuing forfeiture of property under a system known as administrative forfeiture, which allowed the agencies to forfeit the property without filing a petition in court. In many instances, the only thing the agency was required to do was provide a description of the property on a website for 30 days. The problem was that the law allowing for administrative forfeiture had been repealed on July 1, 2018, the day before MBN launched the website.
The Mississippi Justice Institute, a constitutional-litigation center, sent a letter to MBN informing the agency that it was violating the law. Nine days later, the agency, to its credit, sent letters to multiple property owners informing them that MBN was returning this seized property, totaling over $100,000 in cash along with other items.
While it is reassuring that the agency followed the law once informed of the change, there is every reason to believe that the improper forfeitures would have continued indefinitely absent the transparency that allowed an outside group to notice them. Even more disturbing is that, when alerted to the change in the law, MBN still had time to file petitions in court to pursue forfeiture of the property under regular civil forfeiture laws. That the agency chose not to may indicate that it knew the forfeitures would never hold up in court.
Law-enforcement agencies are entrusted with enormous responsibility. Every effort should be made to ensure there is not even an appearance of self-interest when those agencies enforce the law. Civil forfeiture clearly jeopardizes that independence, as well as basic American principles of fairness and justice. While further reform is needed, forfeiture transparency is a basic minimum that should be established in every state.
This column appeared in National Review on October 17, 2018.
A government boycott of a company for an exercise of free speech would be a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.
Chick-fil-A has been heavily criticized for its reputation as a supporter of traditional marriage. The company’s CEO has made public comments in support of traditional marriage, and the company has donated money to organizations that opposed same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court ruled on the issue.
While it is Chick-Fil-A’s constitutional right to engage in free speech, liberal government officials around the country could not stand it. When Chick-Fil-A attempted to re-open a franchise at the Denver International Airport, the city council saw its opportunity for retribution.
Councilman Paul Lopez called his opposition to allowing the chain at the airport “really, truly a moral issue on the city.” “We can do better than this brand in Denver at our airport, in my estimation,” another member Jolon Clark said.
The problem was that Chick-Fil-A’s speech was protected by the First Amendment, which meant the government could not punish the company in retaliation for its speech. The Denver officials had made it abundantly clear that their opposition to allowing Chick-Fil-A into the airport was due to their personal objection to Chick-Fil-A’s speech. Because of this, the city was ultimately forced to allow the chain into the airport.
You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar to understand that this exclusion would have been a violation of the First Amendment. It doesn’t even pass the smell test. If something like this happened in Mississippi, many citizens would be outraged. Rightfully so.
But this is happening in Mississippi right now, just not to Chick-Fil-A. Instead, Nike has drawn the ire of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (MDPS) for its new ad campaign featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is widely known for sparking a protest movement in professional sports where players kneel during the national anthem.
The MDPS commissioner recently announced to the Associated Press that MDPS will no longer purchase training equipment from Nike.
Like the Denver officials, the MDPS commissioner made clear that his decision to initiate a government boycott was based on his personal objection to the speech made by Nike, saying: “As commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, I will not support vendors who do not support law enforcement and our military.”
The commissioner’s views are understandable and well-intentioned. He is a Navy veteran and a long serving law enforcement officer. He appears to feel strongly about this issue.
As a proud American myself, and as a fellow military veteran who lost a leg in Iraq, I would not personally choose the national anthem as a venue for protest as Kaepernick has, or to highlight this act as Nike has. However, I fought to protect their right to do just that without fear of government retribution, and I am always heartened to see citizens actually exercising that right.
Moreover, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, of which the Mississippi Justice Institute is a division, has clearly communicated, on several occasions, its opposition to using the national anthem as a venue to protest at sporting events.
But this issue is not about the commissioner’s views or my views on Nike’s speech, or the identity politics which would elevate our views above those of others based on our status as veterans. It is about the Constitution that we have both sworn to protect.
A government boycott of Nike is simply unconstitutional.
Here is the tricky thing about the Constitution: it works both ways. If you stand by and watch its protections erode while your adversaries’ rights are under assault, you can’t be shocked when its protections are not there for you when the tables are turned. If you don’t want a government boycott of Tim Tebow’s kneeling, you can’t defend a government boycott of Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling.
A government boycott in retaliation for corporate speech also ignores Mississippi law establishing bidding requirements for most public purchases. We have those laws for a reason.
Lastly, conducting a government boycott is simply not the proper role of government. A public official boycotting vendors with certain views implies that taxpayer money is their money, to reward or punish whom they see fit based on their own personal beliefs. Many Mississippians may agree strongly with the vendor’s message, and other Mississippians may oppose it. The government should not use public funds to attempt to speak for all taxpaying Mississippians on matters of public discourse.
If a public official wants to personally boycott a company in response to its speech, they are free to do that and the First Amendment protects that right for them. But when acting in their official capacity using taxpayer money, neither the Constitution, nor Mississippi law, nor a healthy respect for the opinions of their fellow Mississippians allow for such personal indulgences.
The Mississippi Justice Institute has requested the commissioner to rescind his government boycott. We trust he will uphold our Constitution.
This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on September 28, 2018.