I don't get it. Free Speech Under Threat At University? (Added Extra)

[NiPah]

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

 

[Areloch]

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

Quite a few people on this board seem to be against using the word as per it's definition, it seems.

 

[monkeymangler]

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

Explain why a private institution should give their resources and location for hate speech.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

normally I fall on the side of balking at overdone political correctness, but in this case, this is just stupid. It is not censorship if you do not allow someone to stand on your roof and shout, No association owes anyone a podium, and certainly not an audience.

If they showed up at someone's newspaper and told them "you cannot print such and such in your own publication" or "you cannot give whatever speech about whatever in your own auditorium" that would be censorship.

come on people.

This is the equivalent of me shutting my own door in the face of those watchtower people when they come knocking, am i censoring them? Of course not, they can just go to the next door and spew their crap.

actually, its even more silly then that, an equivalent would be if those watchtower people wanted to be paid by me to knock on my door and spew crap

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

Quite a few people on this board seem to be against using the word as per it's definition, it seems.

No, so very no. Kim is the government, a university is not.

also Kim does not personally own every podium in north Korea.

 

[Zontar]

Explain why a private institution should give their resources and location for hate speech.

Well I can't speak for NiPah, but given how most universities are private institutions with legal obligations to operate as if they where public ones (such as most universities in Canada and the US due to the obligations that come with their mostly public sector money to operate) that seems to be a major issue right there.

Then there's the fact the vast majority of speech that's being censored from universities, from no platforming or otherwise, isn't hate speech but simply speech that is at odds with the politics of the mostly radical left groups that are pushing for censorship in pretty much all facets of society at the moment (it's actually quite ironic how what used to define the right is now the near sole domain of the left).

 

[Bad Player]

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

Explain why a private institution should give their resources and location for hate speech.

Because a student group requested that that person speak at the university. The fact that a student group requested the speaker shows that there is indeed demand for the speaker and people who would want to listen to their speech. It was a student group that made the request, not a lone student, after all. Of course, a sole student group is likely to be a minority of the students--and probably a small minority.

However, just because a university may not have the resources to have all speakers that minority groups may want on campus to come does not mean that all speakers that minority groups want should be rejected.

To argue such is to miss one of the basic points of free speech: we give everyone a right to speak in order to protect the minority's right to speak, not the majority's.

If a student group requested a speaker, there is demand. There may be people who don't want that speaker to come, but there are also people who do want that speaker to come. Moreover, in your request, you specified a private institution. That means they are free to have whoever they want come speak for them--even if some would view it as "hate speech."


There is a lot I could respond to and say on this, but the time for a lot of it has passed, I think. So I'm only going to respond to a few more general things.

First, some people are making comments and arguments about universities just "letting anyone who wants to speak have a platform." This doesn't make sense to me because, as I understand it, speakers are typically invited; they don't "request" a platform. That is, usually a student group requests the platform--meaning the university isn't giving (or denying) a platform to someone who wants to speak, but rather to a speaker who the students (or at least some of them) want to speak.

Second, there have been a lot of arguments and discussion about why/if universities should use their limited resources to host controversial speakers. (See: the post I was replying to before.) But this seems slightly off from the main issue, since when universities no-platform someone, they usually cite the harm they believe would result from the speaker's viewpoints rather than economic constraints. Yes, there obviously are economic constraints, or else they could just have a free platform for anyone to use at any time. But it doesn't change the fact that the reasons universities give for denying speakers a platform is the resulting harm, rather than economic limitations.

Third, @Pluvia: Since Zontar seems unwilling to explain this, you seem to insist on harping on this point rather than engaging in any actual discussion, and I've grown tired of seeing you two copy-paste posts back at each other without going anywhere, I'll spell it out for you. First off, I don't think there's anything "offensive" about this. I think the better word to use is "problematic." The first person to bring up "offense" was you, and I suspect that Zontar was simply adopting your terminology in order to try to convey his general ideas rather than intending them to be a precise formulation of them. Now, to respond to the meat of your claim, what is "offensive" (or rather, "problematic") about "people being happy" is that they are being happy over doing wrong. Person A kills Person B. Person A is happy that they killed Person B. Person A did nothing wrong, right? They're happy, after all. Yes, it's an extreme analogy. It still conveys my point, though. Now, whether pulling fire alarms at speeches (and no-platforming at universities, etc.) is "wrong" is up to debate. But in Zontar's opinion, it is. So, to quickly recap, Zontar finds these people's glee "offensive" ("problematic") because they are happy over doing something that Zontar considers wrong.

Finally, @Something Amyss: I find myself disagreeing with pretty much everything you say, but... I have to admit that your avatar is perfect.


EDIT: Oh, right right right, one more quick but very important thing:

All this talk over whether a university "can," "is obligated to," or "has a right to" give/deny a platform is over a non-issue. Of course they can deny someone a platform. They do.

The true issue is whether they should. It's a normative issue; discussion of rights and obligations should be left out.

 

[MeatMachine]

Is de-platforming censorship?

I would say technically no, but is sure is a great tool to abuse when trying to nip the buds of opposition from the dominant ideology. When you can filter any idea's exposure based on such vague and subjective labels as "hate speech", "bigotry", "unsafe language", or whatever-the-fuck stupid buzzword the popular group likes to weaponize, universities become a breeding ground for collectivist cults.

A university should NEVER de-incentivise open dialogue and the exploration of ideas, good or bad. Otherwise, good ideas can get drowned out, and bad ideas can go unchallenged. This is why universities are being filled with abusive, intolerant cultural authoritarians that use every unethical measure to retain the ideological monopoly of their institutions.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.

Censorship is when an entity (technically only the state, but whatever) goes out of their way to stop someone saying someone. Not going out of their way to help someone say something is not the same thing.

A university cannot and should not help everyone say everything, they pick and choose those people they think are best suited to do so. Some random bloke down the pub is not the equal of someone with 30 years in a field when it's time to pick someone to give a speech.

Just recently, Richard Dawkins was banned from speaking at the Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism for posting a satirical video on his Twitter page (seriously).
After that, he was harassed to the point of having a stroke.

Are you seriously saying it was the SJWs that caused him to have a stroke? With their free speech? That stuff's dangerous, someone should do something about it...

 

[Fallow]

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

Explain why a private institution should give their resources and location for hate speech.

Because no matter how many times you cry "hatespeech" in a shrill tone with voice catching and a single tear escaping your flittering eyes, reality will not change.

All this talk of "hate speech" is just a poor excuse to ban people that don't explicitly agree with the hyper-vocal opinion. Not agreeing with someone does not make their opinion "hate speech". Not bending over for the local crazies on adding black-only student dorms or funding "Safe Spaces" for the children that refuse to grow up is not "hate speech". Standing up for equality is not "hate speech", it's the rational and grown up thing to do.


A university is just that: a university. It's not a store, it's not a government, it's not a tech giant. It's a place of education, and as such should educate. The best form of education we have available to us is listening to an experienced speaker.

For the hard sciences, it is usually enough to have a single speaker on a topic since facts can be verified and experiments replicated (hopefully).

For the pseudo-sciences, that is not possible and instead, for the purpose of understanding a topic, one needs both sides of the argument.
Banning (or no-platforming if you prefer) one side means that students cannot understand the scope and depth of the topic (thus preventing the education part that was so important), with the end result that the university education is incomplete. Obviously, this is counter-productive for both the university and the students (at least for the ones that can think further than the length of their noses).

"Now why would a university expose students to knowledge and experiences that the students don't necessarily agree with? That's triggering!"

Well, since students are expected to be older than 7 when they attend university, they are also expected to be mentally competent to listen to things they disagree with without breaking down completely. If they are not, they can stay at home and suck on their thumbs until such a time that sufficient emotional constitution has accrued.

 

[K12]

Should we be inviting AIDs dissidents to speak to medical students? Holocaust deniers to speak with history students? Flat earthers to speak with geology students? That history channel "Aliens!" guy to speak with archaeologists?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that some people are being denied a platform unfairly but when this stuff comes up no one ever seems to bother to justify the value of the speaker in question. It jumps immediately to "boo censorship!". Either "censorship" can be ok in some circumstances or this isn't really an example of censorship.

Unless you can find examples of people like that being invited to universities I'm going to go ahead and assume these people aren't being invited to speak at universities in the first place, and your statement goes beyond hyperbole and is just nonsense.

Hyperbole goes hand in hand with any argumentum ad absurdum. Should Universities not be taking hypotheticals into account when crafting their policies?

It isn't even that unlikely. Look for Bradley Smith's "Campus project" as an example of a holocaust denier campaigning on university campuses. He hasn't given speechs but has but message and notes in several university newsletters calling for "open debate" on the subject and criticising the "conformity of academia" on the subject. Rather shamelessly looking for student-baiting quasi-convincing buzzwords rather than having any real substance.

This is a standard tactic for any quack, extremist or fringe loony when they can no longer be taken seriously by leading academics in the field they're arguing for. Universities need to be aware of this stuff and sometimes may need to take some actions for the good of their students and the institutionas a whole. Universities are elitist (in a good way) and being invited to a university to speak is a mark of respectability that should be taken seriously. Any student who wants to hear someone like this speak is able to do so... but not necessarily with the implicit endorsement of the university.

Again, I'm not saying that Universities haven't fucked up or been too sensitive or overly restrictive with some issues, there are always varying shades of grey. The point is that it is reasonable to draw the line somewhere (even if only with very extreme examples) and we should be arguing about where the line is drawn, not simply crying "censorship" because a line exists at all.

 

[K12]

Christ I really wished I hadn't watched these videos because now my youtube suggestions are completely full of "feminists are evil and stupid" videos by the million and one youtuber guys with an axe to grind.

So it's not because of the fact the people in those videos who where no platforming people where being fascists who are pushing for censorship of opinions they disagree with that you take issue with, but the fact that now you're going to have to deal with a few videos you don't like showing up in your recommended feed, something next to no one even uses?

For somebody who complains about people strawmaning him a bunch you are certainly very quick to weave your own.

You're using the phrase "no platforming" as a synonym for "protesting" rather than actually using it to mean an institution denying a platform from which to preach, this doesn't really fit with the issue in the original article.

When protesters do something illegal/ against the university's rules (like violence or pulling fire alarms unnecessarily) then that's shit but protest is a form of freedom of speech too and bad behaviour by some protestors doesn't change that.

 

[NiPah]

Eh, not this again. A university is not under any obligation to welcome any particular person to speak there.

It is not censorship for a university not to allow someone to speak at that university.

Their under no obligation, correct.
But explain how banning someone from speaking at your university because you disagree with their ideas not censorship.
I get it that people don't want to call this censorship because it's the Kindof thing bad people do, but couldn't you just say Kim Jong is under no obligation to welcome any particular person to speak in his country? This is censorship pure and simple.

Explain why a private institution should give their resources and location for hate speech.

Why should they? Because I believe censorship is wrong, the spread of knowledge and ideas is a good thing, but like I said they're under no obligation to do so.
I'd imagine Chinese universities have similar rules and obligations as well, the schools in he UK are in poor company.

 

[Musou Tensei]

Is free speech under threat at universities? Undeniably so, and anyone saying otherwise is outright lying at this point.

Contrary to unpopular belief amongst some students, public universities do have an obligation to allow people of differing views to express said views on campus, to the point where in the US and Canada these are straight up legal obligations that are a requirement for funding without which they literally cannot operate.

People can pretend no-platforming isn't censorship, but in practice it hasn't ended up being anything else over the past few years where anyone attempting to give a conservative opinion, an anti-feminist opinion, or as we've even seen just a liberal opinion that isn't radical enough, is either being threatened into not showing up at all, administrations being intimidated into going against their duties by radicals who seem to always be of the same radical authoritarian far left stripes, or as we've seen such as with gay journalist Milo Yiannopoulos or conservative political analyst Ben Shapiro having people threaten, intimidate and sabotage their speaking events because they couldn't get them cancelled before hand.

People will say lies such as these and others having ideas that are dangerous, but the only thing that is in danger is fragile ideologies that can't hold up to basic scrutiny. The violent response to anyone holding opposing views doesn't so much stem from a want for the removal of free speech as much as it's the inability of them to defend their beliefs, the removal of free speech is simply a symptom of a larger problem.

I mean for god sake university students will in large numbers sign petitions to revoke the first amendment, what the hell is wrong with my generation? We're narcissists, egotistical, entitled brats who more often then not can't handle the real world or opposing views. I'm a student and I despise students. Thankfully 2016 seems to be setting itself as the high water mark for this nonsense given how so many of these lunatics are attacking each other and they've declared open warfare against pretty much every group and subculture at this point, with very few of said subcultures being happy about this conflict. It's the reason why conservatives, liberals and libertarians are more often finding themselves fighting side by side on these issues.

I pretty much agree with everything you said, mind you all, these people (not calling them students, since they don't really study) are supposed to be the future of America, but they even start to complain that actual learning and homework is interfering with their activism, and of course their grades are dropping, these people will fail, and when they do they will blame everyone but themselves. Enjoy your future burger flippers America, you will have plenty of them soon, Buzzfeed can't hire them all.

 

[K12]

Are the "free speech" advocates in this case trying to argue that every single person who asks to speak at every University must be invited to do so otherwise the University is fascist?

Are they saying that there is nobody who's (already well publicised and freely available) views shouldn't be treated like they have nothing to offer to the discussion (or that they do far more harm than good) because it's so full of misunderstanding, misrepresentation and outright lies?

Should we be inviting AIDs dissidents to speak to medical students? Holocaust deniers to speak with history students? Flat earthers to speak with geology students? That history channel "Aliens!" guy to speak with archaeologists?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that some people are being denied a platform unfairly but when this stuff comes up no one ever seems to bother to justify the value of the speaker in question. It jumps immediately to "boo censorship!". Either "censorship" can be ok in some circumstances or this isn't really an example of censorship.

This debate about what is and isn't free speech is itself part of the process of free speech and democratic pluralism. It's kind of annoying a lot of the time but it's a permanently on-going thing. There will never be a time when everybody all agrees about where to draw the line for this stuff... that's kind of the fucking point!

Ok to tackle the hyperbole here.

Teaching is distinct from public forum. Teaching is meant to be free from socio politics (at least as much as possible and even when it's present such as in politics you present it neutrally) So no this wouldn't be forcing a load of medical students to listen to an AIDs dissident or forcing a load of History Students to listen to Holocaut Deniser. It would be putting on a public event and if said people wished to attend they could or they could not.

The simple and suggested procedure is if students can show there is sufficient desire among the student body to invite someone (or it's within the allotted budget of any society on campus) they can invite said person and have them speak.

The argument of "well that means Necrophiliacs can gain a platform to spread ideas about desecrating corpses" falls short because you'd have to show there was desire for said person to talk to begin with and speaking from what I saw, I never encountered the existence of a Necrophilliacs society.

I slightly mispoke before in my examples. I should have said "should AIDs dissidents be invited to speak by the department of medicine" etc rather than mention students specifically. My phrasing before did imply that people would be required to listen and I didn't mean to do that.

If "some students want them to come" is the only criteria for hosting speakers then you do leave yourself open to all the groups I mentioned. Holocaust deniers in particular do have coordinated projects targeting student campuses as a way to spread their ideas. Do you really want to wait until that happens before coming up with a policy about it? This would give even better more "I'm being censored" brownie points to those guys?

Speaking at a university is prestigious and you can bet that any crackpot allowed to do so will be using it as evidence of their authority for years afterwards. Students can always invite a speaker to come talk to them, they just might have to do without the implied endorsement of their institution behind them.

By the way I'm speaking as somebody who once organised a public speaker in a campaign negative towards Israel at a UK University which ended up being much more controversial than I expected (naive teenager that I was). There was never any question of stopping the debate purely because some people didn't like it, we explained the scope and intent and it went fine barring one or two overly aggressive audience members when it came to Q&A.

 

[Fallow]

Censorship is when an entity (technically only the state, but whatever) goes out of their way to stop someone saying someone. Not going out of their way to help someone say something is not the same thing.

The definition of censorship does not say anything at all about a state being the only possible offender. You are conflating censorship with the Constitution, which is only concerned with censorship committed by the state.

A university cannot and should not help everyone say everything, they pick and choose those people they think are best suited to do so. Some random bloke down the pub is not the equal of someone with 30 years in a field when it's time to pick someone to give a speech.

Brilliant. Absolutely correct.

And here's the funny part.

• 
  1) The university leadership (hopefully selected by meritocractic procedures) have exactly this "30 year" experience in the field. They are the ones that invite speakers. They are the ones that would presumably know what's good for the students and the university.
  
  2) The speakers were banned (or "no-platformed" if you want to be the pretend good guy) by students, aged 18-22, with no experience in anything at all save complaining.

So, I agree with you wholeheartedly, we should listen to the wise and experienced. And they are found on a specific side of this debate.

 

[Mikeybb]

I've always personally liked the idea of allowing anyone a venue to speak.
Perhaps it's a little naive of me.

My thought being that if a person is allowed their venue and opportunity to speak then if they do happen to be very, very wrong (whether it be a matter of philosophy, ideology or arguments leaning more to the empirical) then there it is.
In public and announced.
Possibly recorded for posterity and later arguments.
No claims of suppression or opposition to martyr themselves with, no phantom of institutionalized prejudice to frighten people with (real or imagined) and, most importantly, no obfuscation of the most dubious aspects of their ideology.

Then, with a public venue, someone who is extolling the virtue of something truly horrible can receive the appropriate response for their claims.
By this I mean absolute apathy.

Crowds of angry people trying to stop them never convince someone they're wrong.
They can be a force to galvanize a belief, not break it.
Some people seem to fuel there beliefs not based upon the amount of people who agree with them, but type of people who say they are wrong.

Like I said above.
It may be a little naive of me.
I like to hold faith in the idea that when exposed to a truly bad idea that common sense and reason will win out for the vast majority of people.

I wholly expect this has painted me as a gullible idealist and expect this will result in numerous PMs from African princes offering me wonderful opportunities.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Censorship is when an entity (technically only the state, but whatever) goes out of their way to stop someone saying someone. Not going out of their way to help someone say something is not the same thing.

The definition of censorship does not say anything at all about a state being the only possible offender. You are conflating censorship with the Constitution, which is only concerned with censorship committed by the state.

I'm not, not being a US citizen. Censorship (in context) has to be done by the state, because it has to apply to society as a whole. I'm not being censored if a particular university doesn't let me say something on their premises, I can always go somewhere else and say it. I am being censored if a state doesn't let me say something in their state, because going to another one is no small task.

A university cannot and should not help everyone say everything, they pick and choose those people they think are best suited to do so. Some random bloke down the pub is not the equal of someone with 30 years in a field when it's time to pick someone to give a speech.

Brilliant. Absolutely correct.

And here's the funny part.

• 
  1) The university leadership (hopefully selected by meritocractic procedures) have exactly this "30 year" experience in the field. They are the ones that invite speakers. They are the ones that would presumably know what's good for the students and the university.
  
  2) The speakers were banned (or "no-platformed" if you want to be the pretend good guy) by students, aged 18-22, with no experience in anything at all save complaining.

So, I agree with you wholeheartedly, we should listen to the wise and experienced. And they are found on a specific side of this debate.

Well, I meant that someone with experience should be preferably picked over someone without, but in any case, it doesn't really matter who chooses or why, if they are person/s given that authority, it's their university, their choice. They can choose to allow someone to speak, or not, as they decide. They aren't obliged to choose people I like. I'm not obliged to like who they choose, but that's not censorship on their part.

 

[Vanilla ISIS]

Are you seriously saying it was the SJWs that caused him to have a stroke? With their free speech? That stuff's dangerous, someone should do something about it...

The guy is 74 and he's constantly working.
He posted a silly Tweet and all of a sudden, his own community turned against him.
That can wear an old person out.
I'm not advocating for censorship (and neither would Dawkins).
What should happen is that people should stop pandering to these morons who can't take any form of criticism, while criticising everything and everyone themselves.

I just read an article about a group of student protesters in a US university who complained to the administration that homework and other school assignments are interfering with their activism (no, it wasn't The Onion).
These people are dumb and the whole world needs to see that.

 

[Gengisgame]

Well yes that is censorship, that is a textbook definition of censorship "preventing someone from speaking there view to an audience because you don't like it"

No, thats not censorship, its merely withholding them a platform to speak from and not giving them money as payment for speaking. If any of the people mentioned really wanted to speak they could've quite easily. They wouldn't even actually need approval to do so. This group that is so concerned about potential speakers being no-platformed could host any speaker in their recurring meetings, and if the speakers won't attend without payment they could pool their personal cash to pay the speaker.

Lets not pretend that's how it works, there is no democratic balancing act that takes into account what students want, certain views fall under protected umbrellas and certain views do not as I see you argue under the flawed idea that these are things only a handful of people wanted to see, if that where the case then they wouldn't be sought after in the first place and have full crowds when they get in.

Well, for starters, you're not entirely wrong. There are certain things that aren't permitted. Why? Because of this thing called the law. You can't have stand on a platform and tell the audience to rip the Jewish students out of their dormrooms and slit their throats. In Russia you can't have an LGBTQ activist speaker. There's a basic baseline that has nothing to do with morality but instead what is and isn't legal. If you want to decry censorship you're not entirely wrong but its not the university to blame, but the government. So even when you're right you're focusing on the wrong organization.

As for the general trend, well, no. I mean, if enough people at my college want the Westboro Baptist Church to speak then they'll be given a platform. Doesn't matter how disgusting the speech is as long as its invited and welcome by enough people to justify it. If I wanted a speaker to show up to my college and I was the only person who cared and the speaker requested $5,000 in speaking fees, well, they'll tell me that I'm piss out of luck. There doesn't need to be people protesting the speaker, just a lack of enough interest to justify the speaker showing up. When a university is busy and has to stretch its resources it becomes more difficult, as different events begin competing for the limited resources. I mean, its really a quite "duh" thing. This happens in middle school and high school as well with afterschool clubs and elective courses.

Dude you cannot disagree on a fact, that's like stopping someone from entering a building and saying you are protecting them, not denying them entry, your still denying acess. Views are not allowed because of what they are, that is the reason, ipso-facto- the definition of censorship.

That's just more deflection NONE OF THESE THINGS WHERE ILLEGAL

Legality was never the issue.

So if we have had people bring up:

Attendance: not an issue

Legality: not an issue

Financial: not an issue.

If people here keep trying to bring up false points and deflect to deny access then maybe we do have a problem with free speech.