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The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee you the rights you think it does
CNN – Opinion –
That’s it. That’s the entirety of our Constitution’s First Amendment, the central animus of our American way of life that gets dragged out every time someone’s banned from Twitter.
There’s a lot going on in those few sentences, and it’s important to know when and how it applies to common situations — and, equally as important, when it doesn’t.
Let’s look at some common First Amendment arguments; illuminated and debunked by a constitutional expert.
If you work for a private company, it’s probably not a First Amendment issue.
“It’s the company’s right to discipline their employees’ speech,” Nott says.
But just because a private employer has the right to fire someone for something they say doesn’t give them legal carte blanche. Depending on what the fired employee said, the employer could be in violation of the Civil Rights Act, or possibly in violation of contract law
If you’re a government employee, it’s complicated.
Institutions like police departments, public schools and local government branches can’t restrict employee’s free speech rights, but they do need to assure that such speech doesn’t keep the employee from doing their job. It’s definitely a balancing act, and the rise of social media has made it harder for such institutions to regulate their employee’s speech in a constitutional manner.
Real Life Example
Google reportedly fired a male engineer who, in a memo, argued women are not biologically fit for tech roles. It’s not a First Amendment issue because the government is not involved.
However, Nott says she’s heard of cases where police officers sued after being fired for saying or writing racist remarks, and courts have ruled in favor of the department. In that case, she says, “They decided that for police officers, in their community, being a known racist impacts their ability to do their job.”
However, public servants like police officers are also allowed to act as private citizens, and a flurry of recent cases have ended up coming down on the side of the officer. in 2016, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a police officer who sued his department when he was demoted after he was spotted in public holding a yard sign for a mayoral candidate.
If it’s a private institution, it’s probably not a First Amendment issue.
If it’s a public institution, the lines can get blurry.
“If you invite someone to speak on your campus and are a public university, you have to respect their First Amendment rights,” Nott says. That doesn’t mean you can’t put regulations on a speech, like dictating the time, place, venue and suggestions for subject matter. It just means you can’t do so in a way that discriminates against a certain point of view.
If students protesting play a hand in moving or canceling a speaker, that presents a different free speech challenge.
“If a speaker were to take legal action for being blocked from speaking, they can’t do it against the students. You can’t take constitutional action against a group of private citizens,” she adds.
Such a complaint would have to go against the school, for allowing the constitutional breach to happen.
Real Life Example
Two conservative organizations filed a federal lawsuit after a speaking event at UC Berkely featuring Ann Coulter was rescheduled following violent protests and threats. The groups argued the change of venue and time was “repressive” and marginalized conservative views. The school says they acted out of concern for safety.
The question of intent is central to arguments like these. “If they moved her because her life is under threat, that seems pretty viewpoint neutral,” Nott says. “But if a school moves a speaker just to shove them to the side then that is unconstitutional.”
This is not a First Amendment issue though plenty of people think it is.
This scenario illustrates one of the biggest misconceptions people have about the First Amendment. Bottom line: It protects you from the government punishing or censoring or oppressing your speech. It doesn’t apply to private organizations. “So if, say, Twitter decides to ban you, you’d be a bit out of luck,” Nott says. “You can’t make a First Amendment claim in court.”
However, while it’s not unconstitutional, if private platforms outright ban certain types of protected speech, it sets an uncomfortable precedent for the values of free speech.
Definitely a First Amendment issue.
But, like pretty much everything in law, there are exceptions and nuances.
“It’s definitely unconstitutional, unless you are trying to incite people to violence with your speech,” Nott says. Even then, it needs to be a true threat — one that has immediacy and some sort of actual intent.
Real Life Example
During the Vietnam War, a man was giving a speech and said, if he got drafted, his first bullet would be for then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. Courts ruled that it wasn’t a true threat.
“They looked at the context, and it was hyperbole,” Nott says. “The audience took is as a joke, they laughed, and it was clearly a joke. If he was going to meet with LBJ the next day, or had said it in a serious way to a serious audience, that would be a different set of circumstances.”
It’s a private company, so it’s not a First Amendment issue.
There’s that refrain again: Private companies, like social media sites, can do whatever they want.
But regulating conversations and posts online is a delicate balance for social media giants like Facebook.
While such sites retain the right to remove content they don’t like, they are also protected by the Communications Decency Act, Section 230.
“That says, if you are an internet company and you have some way for people to post or leave comments, you are not liable for what they do,” Nott says. This covers things like obscenity, violence and threats.
The problem is, this protection often butts up against the enforcement of basic community standards.
“Facebook is under enormous pressure to take down, not just violent and illegal content, but fake news,” Nott says. “And the more it starts to play editor for its own site, the more likely it is to lose that Section 230 protection.”
What speech isn’t covered under the First Amendment?
- Obscenity (the definition relies on context, but regular old porn is not considered obscene)
- Fighting words
- Defamation
- Child pornography
- Perjury
- Blackmail
- Incitement to imminent lawless action
- True threats
- Solicitations to commit crimes
- Plagiarism of copyrighted material
Source: The Newseum Institute
This is a First Amendment issue, at the very least in spirit.
“Symbolic speech is protected by the constitution,” Nott says. “In essence, you have the right to not speak. You have the right to silence.”
In theory, a private employer could require you to stand for the anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance, but such a requirement may run afoul of the Civil Rights Act. Even in schools, where there have been some cases of students being singled out for sitting or kneeling for the anthem, it would be hard to provide justification for punishment.
“This is an act of political speech, the most protected type of speech,” Nott says. “It’s completely not disruptive because it’s silent.” Plus, it is buttressed by court cases that have decided there is no requirement to salute the flag.
A First Amendment issue — usually.
You are fully within your rights to record the police doing their job in public. And if you get arrested while doing so, your constitutional rights are being violated.
This is, unless you were doing something unlawful at the time of your arrest.
In a heated situation with police, that can also become a gray area. Physical assault or threats could obviously get you arrested, but what about if you were just yelling at the police while recording, say, to get them to stop an act or to pay attention?
“That’s tough,” Nott says. “If you were disturbing the peace, you can get arrested for that, or for other things. But the bottom line is it’s not a crime to record police activities in a public space.”
If it’s a student publication, it’s a First Amendment issue.
Nott points to a landmark Supreme Court cases from 1969 that has acted as a standard for cases involving free speech at public universities and colleges. That’s Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which you can read more about below.
Another case, Bazaar v. Fortune from 1973, helps tailor these guidelines to the student press by stating that schools cannot act as “private publishers” just because they fund a student publication or program. In other words, they can’t punish the publication — whether it be through student firings, budget cuts or withdrawals or a ban — just for printing or broadcasting something they don’t like.
Now, a gentle reminder that this is just for PUBLIC schools. All together now: Private institutions can (usually) do what they want!
Real Life Example
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969)
In December of 1965, three students were suspended for wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school argued the display was a distraction and possibly a danger to students, and the case went all the way up the judicial chain. The Supreme Court didn’t bite.
“While schools have a responsibility to keep their students sage, [the Supreme Court] decided that the armbands didn’t invade the rights of others,” Nott says. “And ultimately, the school asking students to remove the bands infringed upon their rights.”
This case is used as a gold standard for free speech in schools.
Source: US Government Class
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A warning from George Orwell on the ‘monument wars’
New York Post – In the new Civil War, I’m with George — as in George Washington. It’s one thing to start dismantling monuments of Civil War generals. It would be another to go after the most famous founding father.
Washington’s name was raised Tuesday by President Trump. He wheeled on reporters and tried — yet again — to suggest an equivalence between the alt-right and alt-left at Charlottesville.
Trump was getting his head handed to him when he noted that there were people there “to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue.”
The president was referring to Robert E. Lee, hero of the Confederacy. Charlottesville had long since made its decision to remove its statue of Lee. It acted through its city council, the democratic way.
On Monday, though, protesters in Durham, NC, took matters into their own hands. They slung a rope around the neck of a statue of a Confederate soldier and pulled it down.
“So will George Washington now lose his status?” the president asked Tuesday. “Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson?”
It’s a good question — no doubt the question for many Americans. It’s not that the alt-left has already got its noose around statues of Washington, but the leftist-outrage industry does move fast.
Even in New York.
Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted Wednesday, “New York City will conduct a 90-day review of all symbols of hate on city property.”
Protesters have already swarmed the statue of Teddy Roosevelt at the Museum of Natural History. They reckon it’s a symbol of white supremacy.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind wants to remove two concrete markers honoring French World War I heroes who ended up collaborating with the Nazis in World War II. De Blasio agreed. One of those, in the name of Philippe Pétain, “will be one of the first we remove,” said the mayor.
It’s not my intention here to defend Trump’s floundering on Charlottesville. He clearly should have, as I noted in the New York Sun over the weekend, singled out David Duke and the other racists and anti-Semites at the center of the riot.
Neither, though, should the president be blamed for keeping a weather eye out for the good name of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
It’s hard, after all, to imagine that the hard-core left has any noble purposes in this violence. The first figure arrested in Durham was picked up after a press conference of the World Workers Party, a Marxist melange that stuck with the Soviets through Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Lately they’ve been on the barricades defending — wait for it — North Korea.
It takes a lot of Communist commitment to believe Trump is worse than Kim Jong Un. There’s no reason to imagine that the left is going to settle for a few statues of Lee.
The left wants to attack the very legitimacy of America, of which Washington is the real symbol. And going after statues and other cultural icons is part of the Marxist playbook.
It was written about by George Orwell in his dystopian novel “1984,” a quote from which is making the rounds this week.
In it, one of Orwell’s characters warns of how “every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”
“And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute,” adds Orwell’s character. “History has stopped.”
Is that what we want?
Orwell’s wisdom suggests Trump was smart to raise the question of where all this is going. And to say: “You are changing history, you’re changing culture.”
Trump did so, it happens, as the federal government itself is getting ready to reopen, after some work, its memorial to Robert E. Lee. Known as Arlington House, the mansion was the Lees’ home for 30 years. It overlooks Arlington Cemetery and the Capitol.
“It exists,” the National Park Service says, “as a place of study and contemplation of the meaning of some of the most difficult aspects of American History: military service; sacrifice; citizenship; duty; loyalty; slavery and freedom.”
Source: US Government Class
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Criminal charges sought for protesters who toppled Confederate statue in North Carolina
FoxNews – When protesters, angry over the deadly incidents in Virginia this weekend, decided to take down a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier in North Carolina on Monday, law enforcement stood back and watched.
At no time did officers with the Durham Police Department or deputies with the Durham County Sheriff’s Office intervene as activists brought a ladder up to the statue and used a rope to pull it down, according to multiple media reports.
No one was arrested Monday, however, a day later, Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews announced investigators were working to identify the protesters and planned to bring criminal charges against them.
“We decided that restraint and public safety would be our priority,” Andrews said in a statement posted on his agency’s website. “As the Sheriff, I am not blind to the offensive conduct of some demonstrators nor will I ignore their criminal conduct.”
Protesters celebrate after toppling a statue of a Confederate solder in Durham, N.C. Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (Casey Toth/The Herald-Sun via AP)
He continued: “My deputies showed great restraint and respect for the constitutional rights of the group expressing their anger and disgust for recent events in our country. Racism and incivility have no place in our country or Durham.”
Calls seeking additional comment were not immediately returned Tuesday.
The Confederate Soldiers Monument in Durham was dedicated in 1924 and shows a soldier holding a rifle. After it came down, a diverse crowd of dozens cheered, and some even began kicking the crumpled bronze monument.
Some took pictures standing or sitting on the toppled soldier, in front of a pedestal inscribed with the words: “In Memory of the Boys Who Wore The Gray.”
The Durham demonstration followed a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the weekend. One woman was killed Saturday after a man, who police believe was one of the white nationalists, drove his car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters.
A protester kicks the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier after it was pulled down in Durham, N.C. Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. (Casey Toth/The Herald-Sun via AP)
Although the violence in Virginia has prompted fresh talk by government officials about bringing down symbols of the Confederacy around the South, North Carolina has a law protecting the statues. The 2015 law prevents removing such monuments on public property without permission from state officials.
In response to the statue in Durham being torn down, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted: “The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments.”
After the statue fell, several dozen protesters congregated on the street in front of the old courthouse as police cruisers blocked off the street, and officers looked on — some filming the events.
The Durham Police Department said in a statement Monday that officers monitored the protests that occurred throughout the city to “ensure the protests were conducted in a safe manner and that no infractions occurred within city jurisdiction.”
In the statement, police said because the Confederate monument was located on county property, no arrests were made by DPD officers, as the county sheriff’s office has jurisdiction over all county buildings and landmarks.
It’s unclear if the statue will be repaired and replaced. Calls to county officials were not immediately returned.
In his statement Tuesday, Andrews said he is asking city and county officials to establish guidelines and safe spaces for protesters to “prevent demonstrations from becoming disruptive and as we witnessed in Charlottesville, dangerous.”
“My Agency has been the focus of demonstrations for more than a year, most of them peaceful,” Andrews continued. “However, now may be the time for Durham to consider what is the best way to respond to continued protests while respecting every resident’s right to voice their opinion.
A toppled Confederate statue lies on the ground on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017, in Durham, N.C. (AP Photo/Jonathan Drew)
Laura Ingraham, founder and editor-in-chief of Lifezette, told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday that protesters who tear down Confederate monuments are eradicating American history.
“When you see bands of criminals, which is what they were yesterday, ripping down public property and being celebrated in the American media for doing so, we have a real problem on our hands,” she said. “This is not about racial healing or racial unity when you see property being destroyed. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about the eradication of history and acknowledgment that we had really difficult, horrible moments in our country’s history that we were able to overcome.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: US Government Class
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Back road to hope: Migrants flood Canada at remote outpost
Santa Fe New Mexican –
CHAMPLAIN, N.Y. — They have come from all over the United States, piling out of taxis, pushing strollers and pulling luggage, to the end of a country road in the north woods.
Where the pavement stops, they pick up small children and lead older ones wearing Mickey Mouse backpacks around a “road closed” sign, threading bushes, crossing a ditch, and filing past another sign in French and English that says “No pedestrians.” Then they are arrested.
Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, migrants who came to the U.S. from across the globe — Syria, Congo, Haiti, elsewhere — arrive here where Roxham Road dead-ends so they can walk into Canada, hoping its policies will give them the security they believe the political climate in the United States does not.
“In Trump’s country, they want to put us back to our country,” said Lena Gunja, a 10-year-old from Congo, who until this week had been living in Portland, Maine. She was traveling with her mother, father and younger sister. “So we don’t want that to happen to us, so we want a good life for us. My mother, she wants a good life for us.”
The passage has become so crowded this summer that Canadian police set up a reception center on their side of the border in the Quebec community of Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Montreal, or almost 300 miles (480 kilometers) north of New York City.
It includes tents that have popped up in the past few weeks, where migrants are processed before they are turned over to the Canada Border Services Agency, which handles their applications for refuge.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are adding electricity and portable toilets. A Canadian flag stands just inside the first tent, where the Mounties search the immigrants they’ve just arrested and check their travel documents. They are also offered food. Then shuttle buses take the processed migrants to their next destination. Trucks carry their luggage separately.
The Canadian military said Wednesday that about 100 soldiers began arriving to prepare a site for tents to accommodate almost 500 people. The soldiers will also install lighting and heating equipment.
How this spot, not even an official border crossing, became the favored place to cross into Canada is anyone’s guess. But once migrants started going there, word spread on social media.
Under the 2002 Safe Country Agreement between the United States and Canada, migrants seeking asylum must apply to the first country they arrive in. If they were to go to a legal port of entry, they would be returned to the United States and told to apply there.
But, in a quirk in the application of the law, if migrants arrive in Canada at a location other than a port of entry, such as Roxham Road, they are allowed to request refugee status there.
Many take buses to Plattsburgh, New York, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south. Some fly there, and others take Amtrak. Sometimes taxis carry people right up to the border. Others are let off up the road and have to walk, pulling their luggage behind them.
Used bus tickets litter the pavement, their points of origin mostly blurred by rain that fell on nights previous. One read “Jacksonville.”
One Syrian family said they flew into New York City on tourist visas and then went to Plattsburgh, where they took a taxi to the border.
The migrants say they are driven by the perception that the age of Republican President Donald Trump, with his ban on travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries, means the United States is no longer the destination of the world’s dispossessed. Taking its place in their minds is the Canada of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a member of his country’s Liberal Party.
Most of the people making the crossing now are originally from Haiti. The Trump administration said this year it planned to end in January a special humanitarian program enacted after the 2010 earthquake that gave about 58,000 Haitians permission to stay temporarily in the U.S.
Walking toward the border in a group on Monday, Medyne Milord, 47, originally of Haiti, said she needs work to support her family.
“If I return to Haiti, the problem will double,” she said. “What I hope is to have a better life in Canada.”
Jean Rigaud Liberal, 38, said he had been in the United States for seven months and lived in Florida after he left Haiti. He learned about Roxham Road from Facebook and said he thinks “Canada will be better than America.”
“We are not comfortable in America,” said Liberal. “We are seeking a better life; we don’t want to go back to Haiti.”
On the New York side, U.S. Border Patrol agents sometimes check to be sure the migrants are in the United States legally, but they said they don’t have the resources to do it all the time.
Besides, said Brad Brant, a special operations supervisor for the U.S. Border Patrol, “our mission isn’t to prevent people from leaving.”
Small numbers continue to cross into Canada elsewhere, but the vast majority take Roxham Road. U.S. officials said they began to notice last fall, around the time of the U.S. presidential election, that more people were crossing there.
Francine Dupuis, the head of a Quebec government-funded program that helps asylum seekers, said her organization estimates 1,174 people overall crossed into Quebec last month, compared with 180 in July 2016. U.S. and Canadian officials estimated that on Sunday alone, about 400 people crossed the border at Roxham Road.
“All they have to do is cross the border,” Dupuis said. “We can’t control it. They come in by the hundreds, and it seems to be increasing every day.”
Canada said last week it planned to house some migrants in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. It could hold thousands, but current plans call for only 450.
In most cases, once the migrants are in Canada they are released and can live freely while their claims for refugee status are processed, which can take years. Meanwhile, they are eligible for public assistance.
Brenda Shanahan, the Liberal Party member of Parliament who represents the area, visited the site Monday. She is proud of her country for being willing to take in the dispossessed, she said, but there is no guarantee they will be able to stay in Canada.
“It’s not a free ticket for refugee status, not at all,” Shanahan said.
Opposition Conservative lawmaker Michelle Rempel said the Trudeau government lacks a plan to deal with the illegal crossings, even though a summer spike had been anticipated.
“All that we have heard is that we are monitoring the situation,” she said. “The government needs to come up with a plan right away to deal with this.”
It will further backlog a system in which some refugees are already waiting 11 years for hearings, Rempel said. Canadians will question the integrity of the immigration system if the “dangerous trend” of illegal crossings continues, she said.
Trudeau himself recently said his country has border checkpoints and controls that need to be respected.
“We have an open compassionate country, but we have a strong system that we follow,” he said. “Protecting Canadian confidence in the integrity of our system allows us to continue to be open, and that’s exactly what we need to continue to do.”
Inancieu Merilien, originally of Haiti, moved to the United States in 2000 but crossed into Canada late last month. U.S. authorities, he said, are trying to scare Haitians by refusing to guarantee they’ll be able to stay.
“There’s a big difference here. They welcomed us very well,” he said after leaving the Olympic Stadium to begin looking for a home in Montreal’s large Haitian community. “They’re going to give us housing in apartments. I hope everything goes well.”
———
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Rob Gillies in Toronto, Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Patrick Lejtenyi in Montreal.
Source: US Government Class
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Feds OK New Mexico’s plan for education reform
Santa Fe New Mexican –
The U.S. Education Department on Wednesday approved New Mexico’s plan for adopting new federal public-education reform standards, giving the state the go-ahead to commit to a five-year blueprint that largely conforms with policies already put in place by Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration but roundly criticized by teachers unions and some Democratic lawmakers.
That means the state will stick with its current educational standards, known as Common Core, and the standardized tests that come with it.
The approval announced Wednesday by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also endorses the state’s teacher evaluation system — which has led to two separate lawsuits questioning its validity — and New Mexico’s A-F grading system for schools, which some claim is difficult to understand.
The plan also pushes schools to ensure that English-language learners become proficient in English at a faster rate and encourages school districts to intervene if a school is continually failing. It declares an ambitious goal of improving graduation rates by some 14 percentage points, to 85 percent from 71 percent, in the next five years.
The Republican governor issued a statement welcoming news that the state’s proposal was accepted under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, saying, “Federal approval of this plan will help us continue this progress so that more New Mexico kids have a chance to succeed in life.”
New Mexico’s acting public education secretary, Christopher Ruszkowski, said in an interview Wednesday that the federal government’s approval of the roughly 160-page plan is a testament to “momentum” the state has seen over the past six and a half years under Martinez and former Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera.
While New Mexico’s graduation rates have increased steadily and more schools have received A or B grades, academic achievement rates remain poor and the state is at or near the bottom in most education rankings.
At least one of the state’s teachers unions decried news of the plan’s approval. Stephanie Ly, president of the American Federation of Teachers of New Mexico, said in an email Wednesday that the plan simply follows “failed policies that the Public Education Department was already doing under former Secretary Skandera. This represents a significant missed opportunity for New Mexico’s students to have real flexibility at a state level.”
Shortly after New Mexico submitted its plan to the U.S. Department of Education in April, the state’s teachers unions and several Democrats in the state Legislature said it was nothing more than a continuation of Skandera’s agenda, including the controversial teacher evaluation system. They also questioned whether it will cost the financially challenged state more money to implement measures in the plan.
But in June, an independent panel of educators overseen by two policy nonprofits, the Washington, D.C.-based Bellwether Education Partners and the Alexandria, Va.-based Collaborative for Student Success, called New Mexico’s plan “outstanding” and said its goals are achievable.
The plan also includes several new ideas, such as the creation of a statewide student advisory council, the use of science test scores as part of a school’s overall grade and a new grading system to judge how the state’s colleges are doing in preparing students to become good teachers.
State Sen. Bill Soules, D-Las Cruces, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said he hopes the state can find the resources to put the many aspects of the plan in place. Otherwise, he said, “It will just be words on paper.”
But, he added, “I think it’s a good thing we got the plan approved and can move forward.”
So far, of the 17 states that have submitted plans, four have received approval from the U.S. Department of Education: New Mexico, New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware.
Contact Robert Nott at 505-986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.
Source: US Government Class
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College professor wears combat gear to protest Texas’ campus carry law
FoxNews – A Texas professor is making waves on social media after protesting the state’s campus carry law by wearing protective combat gear to class.
San Antonio College geography instructor Charles K. Smith went to his class last week sporting a camouflaged bulletproof vest and helmet. He said he wore it because he doesn’t feel safe.
“It definitely makes me feel uneasy that there are more firearms on campus than there should be,” Smith told mySA.com. “[Dressing this way] was just a statement on how I felt.”
Campus Carry, which was signed into state law in 2015 and officially implemented into Texas community colleges on Aug. 1, allows individuals with a conceal license to carry a handgun on college premises. The law went into effect at 4-year institutions in 2016.
A photo of Smith wearing the combat gear was shared on Facebook, which generated a flurry of comments in favor of and against the professor.
“I realize students were carrying guns on campus illegally, but now it’s legal to do so. It increases the chances of something happening,” said Smith, who also acknowledged that no one had pulled a gun on him in his 10 years at the college.
“Used to, when they got mad at me, they had to go home to get the gun and had time to cool off. Now they will have it with them,” he added.
Smith said he’s concerned about an argument breaking out and one of the participants having a gun.
“My assumption is that you will have more people carrying guns – that will lead to problems. It always has,” he said. “There is nothing on this planet worth a human life.”
James “Hot Mustard” Velten, who posted the photo on Facebook, told Fox News on Tuesday that response on campus has been mostly positive.
“Many professors admire his statement about campus carry,” he said. “Many professors don’t feel safe because of the law.”
Velten also told mySA.com that Smith was a passionate professor.
“Around people like that, you tend to listen a bit more,” he said.
Smith said his protest has nothing to do with San Antonio College, as they are following the law. He said he ran his plans by local police and the administration beforehand.
“Some of them were okay and some of them weren’t, but it’s freedom of speech,” he said.
Lucia I. Suarez Sang is a Reporter for FoxNews.com.
Source: US Government Class
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Professor lets ‘stressed’ students decide their own grade
Washington Times – A professor at the University of Georgia is letting students decide their own grades if they feel “unduly stressed” by bad ones.
The “Stress reduction policy” is outlined in the online syllabi for two of Richard Watson’s fall business courses, “Data Management” and “Energy Informatics.”
“If you feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, you can email the instructor indicating what grade you think is appropriate, and it will be so changed,” the policy reads. “No explanation is required, but it is requested that you consider waiting 24 hours before emailing the instructor.”
Richard Watson is the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.
The syllabi were first reported by CSC Media Group.
The stress policy also says tests and exams “will be open book and open notes, including the use of material on your laptop.”
Source: US Government Class
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Tillerson insists no “imminent threat” from North Korea
CBS News – WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm and said Americans should have “no concerns” after North Korea and President Donald Trump traded fiery threats, insisting Wednesday he doesn’t believe there is “any imminent threat.”
“Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson said.
In more tranquil terms, Tillerson sought to explain the thinking behind Mr. Trump’s warning to Pyongyang that it would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it made more threats to the United States. Tillerson said Mr. Trump was trying to send a strong and clear message to North Korea’s leader so that there wouldn’t be “any miscalculation.”
North Korea threatens “enveloping fire” over Guam
“What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un can understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said. “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the U.S. unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies.”
He said North Korea’s escalating threats showed it was feeling the pressure from a successful U.S. strategy.
Tillerson downplayed any speculation that the alarming developments suggested the U.S. was moving closer to a military option to dealing with the crisis over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours,” Tillerson said.
Nonetheless, as CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports, the Chinese government fears the escalating war of words between Pyongyang and Washington will spark a regional arms race — which already seems to be happening.
Is the North Korea threat sparking an arms race?
South Korean President Moon Jae-In is calling for a complete overhaul of South Korea’s military in the face of North Korea’s rapidly evolving nuclear capabilities, and in Japan, some lawmakers are pushing for new weapons that could give the country a preemptive strike capability, reports Tracy.
In response to a query from CBS News, the Chinese government would only say that, “the situation on the Korean peninsula is highly sensitive. We hope the parties will be cautious with words and behavior and stop provoking each other and avoid escalation.”
Tillerson spoke to reporters aboard his plane as he returned from Malaysia to Washington, stopping along the way in Guam. Hours earlier, North Korea’s army had said in a statement it was exploring plans for attacking the tiny U.S. territory, which houses U.S. military bases and is a common refueling stop for U.S. government aircraft traversing the Pacific Ocean.
Tillerson said he never considered re-routing his trip from Malaysia so as to avoid stopping in Guam. Though he insisted there was no imminent threat, he noted that even if there were, “the North Korean missile capability can point in many directions, so Guam is not the only place that would be under threat.”
Lawmakers react to Trump’s North Korea comments
The comments put Tillerson once again in the role of translating the president’s aggressive rhetoric into more diplomatic terms, and of working to minimize the chances of a public panic. Though it’s extremely unlikely the North would risk annihilation by pre-emptively attacking American citizens, the escalating rhetoric has heightened concern that a miscalculation could spiral out of control and lead to military conflict – a concern that residents of Guam said they felt particularly acutely.
Tillerson, who spent the past days in Asia working the North Korea conflict, said he didn’t believe a new diplomatic strategy was needed. To the contrary, he said the latest threat from the North suggested the current strategy was working. After months of frustration over China’s reluctance to pressure Pyongyang economically, the U.S. on Saturday secured a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to authorize sweeping new sanctions that target one-third of the North’s exports.
“The pressure is starting to show,” Tillerson said. “I think that’s why the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang is beginning to become louder and more threatening. Whether we’ve got them backed into a corner or not is difficult to say, but diplomatically, you never like to have someone in a corner without a way for them to get out.”
To that end, Tillerson said there was still an off-ramp available to Pyongyang: A return to negotiations with the U.S., a step that Tillerson has previously said can happen only if Kim Jong Un’s government gives up its nuclear aspirations, starting with an extended pause in missile tests.
“Talks,” Tillerson said when asked if North Korea had a way out. “Talks, with the right expectation of what those talks will be about.”
Source: US Government Class
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Google CEO: Anti-diversity memo was ‘offensive and not OK
CNN – Google CEO Sundar Pichai has condemned portions of a controversial memo sent by a male engineer at the company who argued that women are not biologically fit for tech roles.
Reuters and Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the engineer had been fired, citing emails they received from him. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the reports.
In an email to Google employees on Monday, Pichai wrote that parts of the 3,300-word manifesto crossed the line by “advancing harmful gender stereotypes” in the workplace.
“Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives,” he wrote in the email, which was seen by CNNMoney. “To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.”
Pichai said he was cutting his family vacation short to return to the office.
Related: Google’s open culture tested by engineer’s anti-diversity memo
“Clearly there’s a lot more to discuss as a group,” he wrote. “Including how we create a more inclusive environment for all.”
Reactions to the memo inside Google have been fierce and divisive. Some employees used an internal discussion group to call for the engineer who wrote it to be fired, according to a source inside the company. Others have supported the employee’s right to voice his opinions, if not supporting the opinions themselves.
Google(GOOGL, Tech30) has prided itself as an environment that encourages openness and diversity of opinions. But Pichai said that sections of the memo violate the company’s Code of Conduct, which requires “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”
Related: Biology isn’t why tech is a boy’s club
A source inside the company told CNNMoney that when an employee violates the company’s code of conduct, it often results in firing.
Pichai also said in his email that there are Google employees who are questioning whether they can safely express their opinions, especially ones that might fall into a minority.
“They too feel under threat, and that’s not OK,” he wrote. “People must feel free to express dissent.”
Source: US Government Class