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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
, 13 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
This one's a doozy.

Michele Di Franco is a student at the University of Ottawa and an executive of uOttawa Students for Free Speech. Earlier this month, he brought a $150,000 defamation suit against Michael Bueckert, a PhD student at Carleton University.
The reason? Bueckert wrote a post on Medium about how campus free speech groups, including Di Franco's, helped to advise the Ford government as it crafted its campus free speech legislation. Many of these groups, Bueckert notes, have alt-right sympathies.

medium.com/@michael.bueck…
Di Franco was not impressed. According to his attorneys, he was being falsely portrayed by Bueckert as "a racist, a misogynist, and a homophobe", and was especially incensed that Bueckert called him "alt-right" for (among other things) appearing on Gavin McInnes's show.
Here's the cease and desist letter, in which he demands a retraction, apology, and $2000. Highly recommend you give it a read.

scribd.com/document/40028…
Bueckert lawyered up and sent this response. Also very much worth a read.

scribd.com/document/40067…
Which culminates with a counter-offer of its own.
Anyway, Di Franco filed the lawsuit and Bueckert is now raising money for his defense. You can make a donation here.

gofundme.com/legal-fees-for…
But the larger point (once you peel back the layers of irony) is the proliferation of cases involving self-proclaimed free speech warriors using litigation to attack and counter speech they don't like.

I'm talking Jordan Peterson v. @kate_manne

thecut.com/2018/09/jordan…
Maajid Nawaz suing the SPLC.

popehat.com/2018/06/18/the…
Gavin McInnes doing likewise.

Michael Rectenwald suing NYU.

nypost.com/2018/01/13/dep…
And of course Lindsay Shepherd's negligence suit against Wilfrid Laurier, in which she holds the university responsible for private speech that she herself publicized.

cbc.ca/news/canada/ki…
Obviously these people are cowards and hypocrites. That goes without saying. But expect more suits like this in the future. It's the only card they have left. Because if there's one thing Free Speech Warriors can't stand, it's someone taking their speech seriously.
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More from @JeffreyASachs see all

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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
In no particular order, some "heterodox" beliefs I have about higher ed that I think everyone on the Left should share.

1) There is a large lib/Dem-to-con/GOP imbalance among university faculty and it is naive to think that this is solely due to benign self-selection.
2) This imbalance almost certain affects faculty research (e.g. the types of questions asked, how results are interpreted), and probably also affects student learning outcomes and overall satisfaction, esp. for conservative students (e.g. via lack of mentorship).
3) Students self-censor in the classroom and elsewhere on campus. Much of this self-censorship is harmless (or even good!), but some probably isn't. Faculty and administrators should take more seriously the latter types.
Read 8 tweets
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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
Today was quite a day on Twitter. There are a terrifying number of people who want it to make it illegal to call someone "racist" without proof. No, they don't know what this proof would look like, but that's a minor obstacle. Oh, and they all think of themselves as anti-PC.
The instinct is wholly understandable. You can lose your reputation! I am not unsympathetic. But guess what? That's how free speech works. It doesn't just protect your right to invite a racist to campus. It also protects my right to *call* you racist without getting sued.
It is veeeeeery frustrating how many people steadfastly refuse to grok this. And, moreover, how many people who rail against jackbooted university administrators are ready at the drop of a hat to put judges in charge of defining precisely who is and is not a racist.
Read 4 tweets
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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
I'm going to tell you the One Big Thing I know about campus free speech, something So Big that people across the spectrum, from @TheFIREorg and @BretWeinstein to @OsitaNwanevu and @jbouie, all know it to be true.

Are you ready? Here it is:
There is virtually no institution in American public life where you have greater freedom of speech than the university. And the depressing corollary: you will probably never again be as free to express yourself in public as you were when you were a student.
Think for a moment about how you spend your day. You leave the house each morning and head to work. From 9 until 12 you're in the office or shop floor. Lunch is in the employee cafeteria or a local restaurant. Then at 5:00 you head home for dinner with the family.
Read 14 tweets

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Matthew Wolff 🏳️‍🌈
@MatthewWolfff
Trump’s incoherence on free speech: gagging Doctors’ counsel on patients’ right to abortions, while promoting payed hate speech at colleges.

Anyone can speak freely on campuses, but hate mongers don’t have the right to be payed for it.

Free speech =/= state sponsored hate.
Trump brought Hayden Williams to the CPAC stage.

Williams, not a student, was attacked by a student at UC Berkeley while distributing right wing pamphlets.

The student was arrested & charged, Berkeley released a statement of commitment to free speech.
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Berkeley spent $4 mil last year alone to bring conservative speakers sponsored by conservative student clubs, like Candace Owens.

Owens claimed Hitler would have been fine if he confined his actions, such as the holocaust, to German borders.
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TheSupremeBot.357
@ASimplePatriot
The list of bogus ‘hate crimes’ in Trump era is long.

(Thread) nypost.com/2019/02/21/the…
1) In wake of arrest of Jussie Smollett, who was charged with staging his own racist/homophobic attack, here are some of the other crimes that have been given play by media since 2016 election — that turned out to be frauds:
2) Just before the 2016 election, the 111-year-old Hopewell Baptist Church was attacked with fire and graffiti that said, “Vote Trump.” “The message of the vandalism is obviously an attempt to sway public opinion regarding upcoming election,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).
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YesVAThereIsASanta
@YesYesVirginia
I thought I’d build on this thread re 45 non-Russia shadiness to document some of the things I’ve pulled together recently.

The actual Michael Wolff "Fire and Fury" quote is that 45, Jeffrey Epstein & Barrack were the “nightlife Musketeers” back in the day
Before I get into Tom Barrack, some recent news on "reviled billionaire pedophile" Jeffrey Epstein. Interestingly, looks like Steve Bannon met with Epstein last Wednesday.

pagesix.com/2018/08/11/ste…
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David L Davis, Ph.D
@raindawgtao
Trufficking
A woman has accused Donald J Trump of brutally raping her when she was the 13-year-old sex slave of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
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Why we should believe it
bit.ly/2zXfCPZ
Days before the 2016 presidential election, Katie Johnson [an alias]had been scheduled to give a major press conference, where she was expected to tell her story of being brutally raped by Trump, while she was being kept as a sex slave by billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
Voldemort of Lawsuits
Referring to the television news, Savan described a nexis search, assisted by Media Matters, that revealed only one television mention of the case, which occurred on MSNBC’s The Last Word, with Lawrence O’Donnell bit.ly/2ehNAyu
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Andrew Peng
@TheAPJournalist
#BREAKING from @NBCNews: Annapolis shooting suspect identified as Jarrod Ramos, 39, who sued the paper in 2012 for defamation. capitalgazette.com/news/ph-ac-cn-…
I’ve just reviewed what appears to be Jarrod Ramos’ Twitter account. From 2012-2016, the Annapolis shooting suspect tweeted constantly about his hatred of @capgaznews: “...the fake watchdogs remain my sworn blood enemies”
In 2012-16, Ramos described the staff at @capgaznews “delusional vigilantes,” and called for the publication to close.
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Angus Johnston
@studentactivism
Historian Niall Ferguson urged conservative students to "unite against the SJWs" on a Stanford speakers' committee, encouraged "opposition research" on one student member.

stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/ema…
Why did Niall Ferguson attempt to suppress left-wing students' voices on the speakers' committee? Why, because it "was in danger of being taken over by elements that were fundamentally hostile to free speech," of course.
Oh, and look at this. The student Ferguson and his buddies were trying to dig up dirt on? Was the subject of an apparent dirty tricks operation from a conservative Stanford newspaper last month. stanforddaily.com/2018/04/12/ass…
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