Universities are also "speakers," with an independent mandate to teach, research, and pursue truth for the common good. And this requires taking sides.
Since 2020, we’ve seen hundreds of “anti-CRT” and “Don’t Say Gay” bills; thousands of book bans; efforts to defund libraries; campaigns to silence faculty, erode academic freedom, and gut university independence; laws that disenfranchise voters, criminalize protest, outlaw reproductive freedom, and seek to erase trans kids; the Jim Crow-styled expulsions of Black officials; a potential pardon for a convicted murderer because he killed a #BLM protester; and organized threats and harassment targeting DEI officials.