OPINION:
In the news last Thursday morning was a report of a member of Pennsylvania’s legislature demanding that the University of Pennsylvania cancel three scheduled conservative speakers. The rationale of Democratic State Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes was that these individuals would speak against the Democratic Party’s uniform shibboleths of progressivism, Marxism, Socialism and Communism. According to leftist definitions, anything these speakers say is bound to qualify as “hate speech.”
Conservatives’ usual cure is to apply to a court for an injunction to prevent the canceling of the speech in question. This is at best a short-sighted cure.
I believe a better course of action is to seek criminal charges for denying the speaker’s civil right to free speech in violation of the First Amendment. They should simultaneously bring a civil action for large monetary damages and a writ of mandate ordering the defendants abide by the First Amendment.
I used a variation of this package of remedies under California’s Constitution against the state and a city. The city settled immediately and the state settled on the verge of trial when its appeal of the trial court’s refusal to dismiss the action failed.
MAJ. JAMES M. DORN
U.S. Army Reserve (retired)
Chino Hills, California
