Alabama takes bite out of censorship by striking down ‘free speech zones’

The very idea of a “free speech zone” is absurd, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s because America herself is a free speech zone.  That’s precisely why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first priority of the Constitution.  They knew that someday, the people of this nation would need to have the ability to recognize and publicly acknowledge wrongdoing in their society in order to move it forward, preserving liberty for the generations of Americans yet to come.

By divvying up our nation into “free speech zones” and whatever the opposite of that is, we acquiesce to tyranny outright.

That is why the Alabama state legislature has made an incredible move in the right direction this week.

According to a report by a local news outlet, the Alabama state legislature voted in favor of a bill that will ban “free speech zones” on college campuses in the state. In recent years, many colleges have restricted the areas on campus where free expression is permitted by creating “free speech zones,” which are areas on campus where students are supposed to go when they want to engage in free speech. Breitbart News has reported extensively on the topic. Recently, courts around the country have begun to strike down these policies as a violation of the First Amendment.

Senate Majority Leader Greg Reed (R) told reporters that this bill was one of his top priorities for the year. “Protecting free speech on college campuses is a top priority for Republicans in the State Senate, and I am glad we could get this important bill across the finish line,” Reed explained. “What this bill does is protect the free exchange of ideas on the campuses of taxpayer-funded, public universities. Nothing is more important than safeguarding the First Amendment.”

The subject of free speech on college campuses has been simmering since early 2017, when gay conservative author Milo Yiannopolous was forced to cancel his appearance at UC Berkeley after liberal students began to riot.

Subsequently, Berkeley canceled a number of followup appearances by other conservative figures, fearing that the liberal mobs would again decimate the campus and the community.