MSU Trustees agree to consider condemning Nick Griffin speech

Both examples Both of your examples involve teachers making statements about "facts" - pretty uncontroversial ones at that.  While I would suggest that even teachers should be careful in what they endorse, that's an incredibly complex discussion.  But outside of teachers, I'd suggest there is little or almost nothing the government need endorse, at least in terms of politics.  But there is a vast difference from a teacher saying that rocks exist which have been dated to 4 billion years (despite the wishes of a tiny minority to prevent that), and an entire governmental body, in this case the Regents, officially condemning a particular group.  Aside from anything else, the latter is a waste of time and more appropriately left to the individual Regents themselves, not the body.

Of course, you are correct.  Government doesn't treat the ideas themselves as equally true.  The very existence of laws implies that the people have made collective choices of value of ideas.  I'm talking about government specifically endorsing or condemning individuals though - for the ideas they may advocate for.  That's a lot different than government endorsing or acting on an idea that is necessarily implicit to what government must do.  And I'm not saying government is even barred from condemning individuals - I'm just saying that prudence dictates that it should reserve those condemnations for very limited circumstances.  Government's role should be limited to protecting individuals from other individuals who might trespass on their rights, providing for the self-defense, and more arguably providing for some common-goods.

We agree on the state of the law regarding viewpoint neutrality.  It isn't fully "settled", nor was the Wisconsin case "settling it" that long ago (15 years?), but I don't see the general outline of the law changing. Even though we agree, many universities continue to abuse their power through speech codes (still not settled) and arbitrary or subtle attacks on disliked groups.

Chetly wrote:

I don't think the government should be in the business of "officially endorsing" or "condemning" speech. Think "viewpoint neutrality" here.

Viewpoint neutrality only governs what government can do, not what they can say. Government must treat the expression of all ideas as equal under the law; that does not mean they have to treat all ideas as equally true or valid. The government makes factual statements and judgments a near-infinite number of times every single day. Can a history teacher in a public school not "endorse" the reality of the holocaust? Can a science teacher not "condemn" geocentrism as false?

Now if the MSU administration would just come around to the proper role of government and administration and end the entire "recognition of student groups" process, and cut its subsidy for student groups, we wouldn't have to worry about it having to finance them equally and with content neutrality, and issues like "taxpayer's footing the bill for the speech location and any security necessary" would all be moot, wouldn't it? Todd, Ed, I think we can find a bi-partisan consensus on de-recognizing YAF as a student group --- along with de-recognizing and de-funding every single other group. Let students CHOOSE who to give or not give their money to through member dues, donations, and participation. Let student groups pay for the "real cost" (without a profit) of hosting speakers, along with anyone else (obviously universities are in a business of allowing groups to host speakers, but they need not fund or subsidize every request).

As a legal matter, this was settled a long time ago. Yes, the university could choose not to fund any student groups at all, but good luck finding a university who doesn't. If they are going to fund student groups, however, they cannot pick and choose which ones to fund. By recognizing any group they are establishing a designated public forum and cannot engage in viewpoint discrimination. The university cannot defund or derecognize YAF, as some of the folks who oppose them want the university to do; that does not, however, prevent either us or the university from condemning and exposing their actions and words to the world.

Actually, Ed I don't think the government should be in the business of "officially endorsing" or "condemning" speech. Think "viewpoint neutrality" here. Each of the 8 Trustees though should have issued individual press releases condemning the speech, they could have done it earlier today, and wouldn't be wasting time analyzing budgets and finding savings (oh, they don't really do that, so I guess they have the time, but they shouldn't have the time) and doing the real business of the university.

Now if the MSU administration would just come around to the proper role of government and administration and end the entire "recognition of student groups" process, and cut its subsidy for student groups, we wouldn't have to worry about it having to finance them equally and with content neutrality, and issues like "taxpayer's footing the bill for the speech location and any security necessary" would all be moot, wouldn't it?  Todd, Ed, I think we can find a bi-partisan consensus on de-recognizing YAF as a student group --- along with de-recognizing and de-funding every single other group.  Let students CHOOSE who to give or not give their money to through member dues, donations, and participation.  Let student groups pay for the "real cost" (without a profit) of hosting speakers, along with anyone else (obviously universities are in a business of allowing groups to host speakers, but they need not fund or subsidize every request).

This is appropriate... This is a good way to handle such things. The university can express their disapproval of the message without preventing the message from being delivered. I hope they do vote to condemn what was said.

Good Nice to see some sanity at MSU.