Free Speech

The University of Maryland recently pulled the on-campus screening of an "adult" movie entitled "Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge". Needless to say, many students as well as the coordinator of the event, Planned Parenthood, are outraged. President C.D. Mote, Jr. made this decision after Republican State Senator Andrew P. Harris threatened to pull their funding. This is one of the problems with government-funded schools.

An April 9th Baltimore Sun op-ed stated that this action "sent the wrong signal about the university's commitment to academic and intellectual freedom." (Would this be the same freedom to question evolutionary theory?) In protest, some "students planned a shortened screening last night on campus and asked some professors to participate in a discussion of porn, free speech and what they saw as the legislature's arbitrary intrusion into their affairs." Also in 2004, the state AG "wrote a memo saying the university can legally prohibit 'offensive language' under certain carefully defined circumstances without violating the First Amendment. How that applies to porn films is unclear, however, since obscenity is not constitutionally protected speech." However, I do believe that at least one Supreme Court case has ruled that porn is free speech.

The op-ed finishes by saying, "There's no doubt pornography degrades women and coarsens society. It is not harmless entertainment, and recent reports suggest it's dangerously addictive among college-age men." How about all post-pubescent men! "We hope young people figure that out pretty quickly through forums like the one held last night. In the meantime, lawmakers' threatening to shut down the university won't help and may make matters worse. It's a heavy-handed way of dealing with a complicated issue; moreover, do we really want lawmakers scrutinizing every film, lecture, play or poetry reading students attend? It's the better part of wisdom for them to realize that's not their job, and that attempting to do so sets a troubling precedent that can jeopardize the many years of work that have been invested in raising UM's stature." That "work" was done at taxpayer expense.

First of all, I don't want lawmakers regulating any speech-related college function. This isn't their job, but so are many other things that we have slowly let them do over the years. Why should we get so bent out of shape on this issue? Raise cane on all of the other ones!

Secondly, the First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting free speech" although someone might argue that the 14th amendment conferred on the states this clause. Even if Maryland's Constitution has a free speech clause, does the stripping of public funds violate it? The senator certainly didn't want them to show the porn, but they still could have done so. (As long as my son lives under my roof, if I tell him that his butt will hurt if he hits his sister, can he not still choose to hit her?)

Furthermore, Andrew Harris is just one member of the minority party (30% of seats) of the Maryland state senate. What power does he have over the budget? Certainly his amendment would fail if he was alone or even if all of his Republicans colleagues agreed. For his threat to have any "teeth", it would need strong bipartisan support which makes me wonder why he was the only one listed. Who else signaled their support of this threat? Does the op-ed want us to believe that only Republicans want to suppress speech?

Finally, if it's O.K. for the federal government to fire CEOs, limit salaries, negate bonuses, dictate production lines, etc. for companies feeding at the public trough, can they not also dictate anything they want to a college doing the same? If UM wants to show porn, then they should do so on their own dime. It should be noted that the viewing was going to be paid by student fees, but it was still scheduled to show in a campus facility. No college is forced to take public funds...yet, but if and when they do, they must be prepared for "the strings". Unfortunately, some banks were forced to take public TARP funds, and we now see why...control.

As the Bible says, the borrower is servant to the lender. Pray that we the people do not become borrowers to one of the biggest lenders on earth, the U.S. government or that they do not become servants to another rising lender...China.