Free speech not allowed

SlyReaper said:
I didn't know the Chelsea Russell case was also without jury. I think I tried to find out at the time, but couldn't find any information about it. It makes sense - it would be difficult to find a jury willing to convict, unless you found a way to stack it with SJWs. It wouldn't even be nullification, I think. The wording of "grossly offensive" is vague enough for any jury member to go "well I wasn't offended, so I don't think it's grossly offensive".

This trial without jury thing is a whole other layer of horrible. It was originally introduced to deal with cases of gang-related crime, the fear being that other members of the defendant's gang might get to the jury and intimidate them. But of course, once established, the scope of it expanded, as these things always do.
Click to expand...

Chelsea Russell wasn't tried in the absence of a jury due to any legislation relating to gangs. She was tried in a magistrates court (I. E a court that doesn't have a jury and has either has a bench or two/three lay magistrates or a single district judge) because the offence she was charged with is an 'either way' offence which can be tried in either a magistrates court or a crown court.

With the latter being the one with the jury. (and it was a summary only offence only trialable in magistrates for offences prior to the 13th of April 2015)

Chelsea could have elected for trial by jury for her case but she would have run the risk of a more severe sentence if found guilty and also higher costs in a crown court trial.

Summary (magistrates) trials are very common in the UK and are used to try most traffic offences and lots of assaults (common asaault/assault by beating are summary only offence) , thefts, criminal damage and offences of a similiar mavity.

So there is nothing unusual in the mode of trial employed here.

I suspect she was likely following legal advice when she decided not to elect a crown court trial.
 
Interesting article here: 'Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions.'

Capture.png


These figures run contrary to popular perception.
 
VincentHanna said:
But...But

LEFT WING LIBERALS ARE TAKING OVER UNIVERSITIES!

Or something.
Click to expand...

it doesn't really refute that (vague) claim though...

as an extreme suppose lecturers were 90% "left wing liberal types" perhaps you'd expect more to be fired given some lecturers were fired over speech

suppose there wasn't much conservative speech on campus in the first place as it has been generally seen as unpopular and so most conservative academics don't speak out so much... well you'd be less likely to be fired if you're less likely to voice political views in the first place whereas the right on lefty liberal can spout as much of their rhetoric as they like unchecked unless they say something particularly bad that it gets flagged up

also who is more likely to be speaking about politics in the first place - the physicists aren't likely to be airing political views as frequently as say a gender studies lecturer... and the latter is quite likely to be a "left wing liberal" whereas the former perhaps is from a population with a wider range of views (albeit it wouldn't be surprising to still be generally left leaning)
 
dowie said:
as an extreme suppose lecturers were 90% "left wing liberal types" perhaps you'd expect more to be fired given some lecturers were fired over speech
Click to expand...

But you would not expect them to be fired for leftist speech. And yet, they are.
 
Evangelion said:
But you would not expect them to be fired for leftist speech. And yet, they are.
Click to expand...

not necessarily - I literally just looked at the first one in the list for example:

Just look at the first story for example - professor compared 911 victims to nazis:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19940243/ns/us_news-education/t/professor-fired-after--nazi-comparison/

He didn't actually get fired for that, they ruled it was protected speech under the first amendment. It did however prompt them to take a closer look at some plagiarism issues.

The incidents in the dataset are classed as racist, anti white (apparently different to "racist"), anti Semitic etc.. it isn't clear how these have been categorised into conservative/liberal. There are 12 racist incidents for example, 4 anti LGBT etc.. they do cite whether criticism of the speech came from the left or the right or unknown, for example anti semitism complaints came from the right - does that make anti semitism left wing speech?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eeTHZQOh9faZ2P3C_O3sVBuRAG1LzIZnsq6LB50NUHk/

For some of them I think it is wrong that the people concerned were forced to resign, for others it is rather clearer why they got fired or resigned.
 
Evangelion said:
In other words, 'not always.' And yet... they definitely are. Which was my point.
Click to expand...

Well yes clearly people are fired or end up resigning for a range of things, though the graphic you posted is rather dubious which was my point.

But if anti semitism is "liberal" these days then...
 
Evangelion said:
Interesting article here: 'Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions.'

Capture.png


These figures run contrary to popular perception.
Click to expand...
Why is this surprising? Universities are heavily populated by people with left wing views. Of course they're going to fall foul of this kind of censorship more often. Either way, it's a bad thing. I don't want anyone to be fired for expressing an opinion, regardless of their politics.
 
SlyReaper said:
Why is this surprising? Universities are heavily populated by people with left wing views. Of course they're going to fall foul of this kind of censorship more often. Either way, it's a bad thing. I don't want anyone to be fired for expressing an opinion, regardless of their politics.
Click to expand...
it's also common for the hard left to fight amongst themselves against anyone with slightly different views to themselves as they all believe they are the only ones who are right. Perfect example is the 'TERF' Vs Trans' battle which I find amazingly hilarious
 
Evangelion said:
Interesting article here: 'Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions.'

Capture.png


These figures run contrary to popular perception.
Click to expand...

So even of if we take the most extreme examples of the blue and red lines in 2017 for 'faculty terminations for political speech' which look to be circa 19 for 'liberal speech' (which is all too often anything but 'Liberal' ) and circa 6 for 'conservative speech' we can see that 'conservatives' are likely disproportionately represented, per capita, as some estimates put the Liberal to Conservative ratio or professors in the US as 12 to 1 in favour of the liberals.....

Still this is a typical tactic of identitarian political advocacy.... Report a headline figure or table from a study removed from any context and claim it proves something it doesnt... And hope thoose reading it have a poor grasp of statistics and/ or can't be bothered to do even little digging.

I imagine some more digging into the individual cases citited would reveal more issues with the methodology used... As alluded to by some other posters here.
 
SlyReaper said:
Why is this surprising? Universities are heavily populated by people with left wing views. Of course they're going to fall foul of this kind of censorship more often. Either way, it's a bad thing. I don't want anyone to be fired for expressing an opinion, regardless of their politics.
Click to expand...
People being fired for being plain mental would be a better tag line.

Being idealist and left-leaning at uni is pretty normal IMO. It tends to get beaten out of you once you get into the real world and realise that humanity is generally ****. :p
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom