Libertas 37.1 - Special Issue: Free Speech & Today's College Campus

WINTER 2016

Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

VOL. 37 •

NO. 1

February 1, 2016 Dear Friends,

T

he latest leftist fad in our schools is to create “safe spaces” where free speech is restricted or prohibited.

Wikipedia’s definition claims, “In educational institutions, safe-space (or safe space)…are terms used to indicate that a teacher, educational institution or student body do not tolerate perceived anti-LGBT violence, harassment, hate speech or disagreement, but rather are open and accepting to opinions aligned to their own.” (Underlining added).

This definition suggests safe spaces are largely related to sex discussions, and that may have been the origin of the concept. However, safe spaces have been expanded to prevent “disagreement,” indeed even discussion, with or about any leftist “protected” special interest.

As reported in the Washington Post, Northwestern University’s president, Morton Schapiro, broadens the concept to prevent inter-racial discussions at lunch. “[B]lack students [have] every right to enjoy their lunches in peace…White students, while well-meaning, [don’t] have the right to unilaterally decide when uncomfortable learning would take place.”

So our schools have come to the point where they will not “tolerate” disagreement or even efforts to desegregate a luncheon discussion.

These restrictive codes are never extended to protect the most maligned students: those with conservative backgrounds. Any student who is merely accused of violating these vague standards can be subject to financial and academic ruin.

We remember how eager college administrators and faculties were to judge the Duke Lacrosse team, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity brothers at the University of Virginia, and even the YAF chapter at The George Washington University (see page 15).

There is always a rush to judgment by the academic establishment whenever an accusation is made against conservative-oriented students. In response for simply sharing their views, conservative students are labeled as “haters” and even perpetrators of “acts of violence.”

The Left is awarded for faking “harassment” stories. Their reward: further restrictions or elimination of Constitutional protections for all students. Due process is denied. The right to free exercise of Christianity, freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech—each a core First Amendment right—are stripped away to prop up leftist fantasies.

This issue of Libertas suggests this trend needs to be confronted and stopped. As the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, even high school students have core Constitutional rights: It can hardly be argued that students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

It is time for conservatives to demand our schools respect core Constitutional protections of its students and eliminate their leftist-inspired, Orwellian “Safe Spaces.”

No school is a safe space for a student if his or her First Amendment rights are denied.

Sincerely,

Ron Robinson President

L IB E RTAS Winter 2016

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Volume 37

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Number 1

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus 10

Speech They Dislike Is Not “Speech”—It’s “Violence”

By David French, Attorney and Staff Writer, National Review

12

Censorship, Safe Spaces, and Free Speech Zones: The Best of the Worst Free Speech Offenders

By Emily Jashinsky, Program Officer for Public Relations

18

Young America’s Foundation: A Student’s Best Resource in Promoting Free Speech

By Patrick Coyle, Vice President

20

The Threat to Liberty on Campus

By Alan Charles Kors, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

22

Hijacking First Amendment Rights Under the Guise of “Free Speech”

By David Horowitz, Founder & President, The David Horowitz Freedom Center

24

Shapiro Brings the Truth About Free Speech to the University of Missouri

By Amy Lutz, Program Officer

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Bolton, Jordan, Schweikart, Blackwell, and Duffy Headline Midwest Freedom Conference

By Andres Taborda, Program Officer for Campus Recruitment and Haley Jones, Development Officer

30

Herrera Beutler, Allen, Rohrabacher, and Thiessen Inspire at 18th National High School Leadership Conference

By Alex Montgomery, Intern, Young America’s Foundation

34

George, Buchanan, Spencer, and Skousen Educate High School Students at the Reagan Ranch

By Amy Lutz, Program Officer

On the Cover:

Also in This Issue:

This issue of Libertas highlights the fight for free speech on today’s college campus, and Young America’s Foundation’s efforts to ensure our student activists have the resources, training, and tools necessary to advance their conservative ideas amidst intolerant leftist administrators and professors.

(Illustration by Joel Aaron Carlson)

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VOL. 37

WINTER 2016

Free Speech & Today’s

College Campus

•

NO. 1

Congressman McClintock Headlines Tax Cut Celebration YAF Publishes Latest Student Resource: Excuse Me, Professor “Principles of a Reagan Conservative” Course Inspires Students Foundation Hosts Inaugural “Standing Up for Faith & Freedom” Seminar 7 Keene, Edwards, and Robinson Headline Sharon Statement Seminar 9 World Chess Champion Kasparov Captivates Reagan Ranch Center Audience

Libertas, the Latin word for liberty, is a publication of Young America’s Foundation which highlights the programs, events, students, staff, and supporters of the Foundation. You may contact Libertas and Young America’s Foundation by writing to: Young America’s Foundation, National Headquarters, 11480 Commerce Park Drive, Sixth Floor, Reston, Virginia 20191; calling 800-USA-1776; or visiting yaf.org.

Editor: Jessica Jensen; Publisher: Ron Robinson; Publication Design: Jonathan Briggs; Assistant Editors: Jolie Ballantyne, Spencer Brown, Caroline Corazza, Patrick Coyle, Travis Creel, Clare Hinshaw, Simran Hughes, Emily Jashinsky, Haley Jones, Katrina Lautenschlager, Amy Lutz, Katie McMenamin, Colin Monaghan, Andres Taborda; Washington, D.C. event photographer: Jeffrey Marshall, Jensen Sutta, and Bob Updegrove; California event photographer: Jacqueline Pilar. This document and all herein contents, images, stories, graphics, and design, fall unto copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 Young America’s Foundation, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Any use of Libertas’ content without the written permission of Young America’s Foundation is prohibited.

Young America’s Foundation Board Of Directors Ron Robinson President of the Board Ronald Pearson Vice President of the Board Frank Donatelli Secretary and Treasurer of the Board T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr. Wynton C. Hall Peter Schweizer James B. Taylor Thomas L. Phillips Director Emeritus Reagan Ranch Board Of Governors Frank Donatelli Chairman Edwin Meese Co-Chairman Robert F. Agostinelli Governor George Allen Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar John Barletta Dr. Suzanne Becker Lisa M. Buestrin Robert Cummins George & Becky Norton Dunlop Richard Gaby & Barbara Van Andel-Gaby Robert Giuffra, Jr. Timothy S. Goeglein Ambassador Patricia L. Herbold Eric & Nicole Hoplin Marty Irving Harold Knapheide Mark Larson Rebekah Mercer Al Moore Doug & Pat Perry Thomas L. Phillips Rear Admiral JJ Quinn Fred & Ruth Sacher Richard & Jane Schwartz Lee Shannon Craig Shirley Owen & Bernadette Casey Smith Barbara S. Waddell Jay Webber National Journalism Center Board Of Governors T. Kenneth Cribb Jr. Chairman Kellyanne Conway Terry Eastland Rich Lowry Alex Marlow The Honorable Alex Mooney Katie Pavlich Ronald Pearson Matt Robinson Tom Winter Thomas L. Phillips Chairman Emeritus

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Congressman McClintock Headlines 1981 Tax Cut Anniversary Celebration On August 13, YOung AmericA’s FOundAtiOn celebrAted the 34th AnniversArY of President Ronald Reagan’s enactment of the largest tax cut in American history with a luncheon featuring Congressman Tom McClintock at Rancho del Cielo.

Congressman Tom McClintock of California underscores the importance In a ceremony at the Reagan Ranch on August 13, 1981, of lower taxes and limited government during his remarks at the Reagan President Reagan signed into law the Economic Recovery Tax Act, Ranch. which secured a 25 percent across-the-board reduction in federal income taxes. Through this measure and subsequent cuts, President Reagan’s leadership led to the reduction of the upper income marginal tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent. This new course led to the longest economic expansion of all time and allowed all Americans to keep more of what they earned.

To commemorate this landmark achievement, more than 170 Young America’s Foundation supporters and students gathered on the lawn of Rancho del Cielo—just a few yards from where President Reagan made history when he signed the tax cut bill.

Congressman McClintock opened his remarks by highlighting the importance and the inspiration of Rancho del Cielo: If you want to understand the spirit of the Reagan Revolution, if you want to understand the spirit that motivated all of us throughout that period to follow Ronald Reagan, and if you want to understand Ronald Reagan the man, the place to come is the Reagan Ranch and Young America’s Foundation.

McClintock concluded by reminding those gathered at Rancho del Cielo, “The Reagan Revolution was really about renewing the American Revolution and, by so doing, renewing America and all the promise it has for the future of mankind.” Preserving the principles that motivated President Reagan and America’s Founding Fathers “is going to start with organizations like Young America’s Foundation.”

Foundation Vice President and Director of the Reagan Ranch Andrew Coffin, who emceed the event, then presented a lifetime achievement award to Lew Uhler. Mr. Uhler served in Ronald Reagan’s cabinet during his governorship and helped to build the foundation of what became President Reagan’s tax and regulatory policies.

The day’s events coincided with Young America’s Foundation’s seminar on the “Principles of a Reagan Conservative,” taught

by Dr. Paul Kengor of Grove City College (see page five).

YAF Publishes Latest Student Resource: Excuse Me, Professor ExcusE ME, ProfEssor, A new bOOk prOduced bY YOung AmericA’s FOundAtiOn in conjunction with the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), received nationwide media coverage following its debut.

The book, edited by FEE President Lawrence W. Reed, is comprised of 52 essays that tackle different clichés of progressivism. The easy-to-read essays serve as a handy resource to students.

Reagan Ranch Board of Governors members Rick and Jane Schwartz sponsored this important project.

Upon its release, the book was covered by Fox News, Sirius XM, The Hill, The College Fix, and Red Alert Politics. FoxNews.com published a headline story detailing the work Young America’s Foundation does on campuses, including its efforts to provide students with resources such as Excuse Me, Professor.

Reed presented the book to students at the Foundation’s Road to Freedom seminar as well as at the National Conservative Student Conference.

To receive a complimentary copy of this book or have it sent to a young person in your life, please call 800-USA-1776.

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Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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Kengor’s “Principles of a Reagan Conservative” Course Inspires Students at the Reagan Ranch Center and Online students FrOm All Over the cOuntrY FlOcked tO sAntA bArbArA to take part in the “Principles of a Reagan Conservative” seminar at the Reagan Ranch Center. Attendees participated in a three-day event, during which they received a crash-course in Reaganism from renowned Reagan scholar and professor Dr. Paul Kengor.

Dr. Kengor discussed topics including “Reagan Conservatism,” Dr. Paul Kengor, author and professor, teaches students about “Freedom & Faith, Faith & Freedom,” and “Peace Through Strength & Anti- the values and ideas which shaped the 40th President of the United States.

Communism.”

Students also attended an exclusive luncheon to celebrate the release of the book, Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed, by Dr. Kengor and Dr. Jeffrey Chidester.

This seminar, sponsored by Reagan Ranch Board of Governors member Al Moore, was also available as an online course.

Participants streamed all of Dr. Kengor’s lectures, answered quiz questions about the course topics, and asked questions during the seminar.

Online participant Felipe Cataquiz noted, “Learning about the works of Ronald Reagan and seeing the work that YAF does gives me hope and excitement for what’s to come.”

Following two days in the classroom with Dr. Kengor, the students traveled to the Reagan Ranch to take part in Young America’s Foundation’s annual celebration of the 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act (see page four). There, both students and supporters heard from Congressman Tom McClintock, who headlined the luncheon celebrating President Reagan’s signing of the largest tax cut in American history.

Following the event, students returned home more excited than ever to share what they learned about Reagan conservatism with their peers.

“I’m excited to share Reaganism with my family and friends and encourage them to attend a future YAF conference!” exclaimed Reagan Sorensen from Taft College.

(Above) Students Ashley Estebo and Branton Nestor receive seminar materials upon arriving at the Reagan Ranch Center.

(Left) Hayden Martin from Crafton Hills College asks Dr. Kengor a question during the three-day program in Santa Barbara.

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Arroyo, Manion, Miller, and Kengor Speak at Inaugural “Standing Up for Faith & Freedom” Seminar

Dr. Christopher Manion addresses students on the relationship between liberal social justice and big government.

EWTN host Raymond Arroyo delivers an engaging address from Dale Phelon Hall at the Foundation’s national headquarters.

in lAte 2015, YOung AmericA’s FOundAtiOn hOsted Our First “Standing Up for Faith &

Freedom: How to Advance Conservative Ideas at Catholic Schools” seminar, at our National Headquarters in Reston, Virginia.

The purpose of the retreat was to debunk the Dr. Paul Kengor discusses how the media Leila Miller, author of the blog Little misrepresents Pope Francis.

Catholic Bubble, tells the students, myth perpetrated at many Catholic schools that “Cultural elites do not define Catholicism. being a good Catholic means adopting the Left’s Our Catholic faith is defined and ideology. proclaimed by the actual Church.”

This one-of-a-kind program began with a welcome from Foundation President Ron Robinson who recounted his own experiences as a student at a Catholic university. Foundation alumnus and RealClearReligion Editor Nick Hahn then addressed students on the current state of Catholic higher education.

Leila Miller, author of the blog Little Catholic Bubble, spoke next on the important distinction between issues which are “non-negotiables” for a Catholic, such as the right to life, and issues of prudential judgment on which Catholics are free to disagree.

Following dinner students heard from Dr. (From left) Young America’s Foundation’s Program Officer for Campus Recruitment Andres Taborda, YAF activist Isabella Foxen, and Development Relations Coordinator Clare Christopher Manion, YAF alumnus, author, and Hinshaw participate in a panel session and offer their advice for advancing conservative son of the late Dean Manion, the conservative talk ideas at Catholic schools. radio host who funded the publication of Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative. Dr. Manion explained that liberal “social justice requires government force.”

Saturday featured an exciting line-up of speakers beginning with Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council who addressed the two most controversial issues facing students today: abortion and the redefinition of marriage.

Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights, underscored the importance of defending religious liberty.

Raymond Arroyo, YAF alumnus and host of EWTN’s The World Over, focused on the distinction between “what are required beliefs of a Catholic and what is prudential judgment.”

Students then heard from Dan Flynn, YAF alumnus and editor of Breitbart Sports, who illuminated the anti-Catholic history of the Left. A panel session followed, featuring YAF activist Isabella Foxen, Foundation Program Officer Andres Taborda, and Foundation Development Relations Coordinator Clare Hinshaw who provided practical means to advance conservative ideas at Catholic schools.

Grove City College professor and author Paul Kengor concluded the weekend with a speech outlining the media’s misleading representation of Pope Francis.

Students were enthusiastic about the speakers, topics, and opportunity to meet like-minded peers and eager to advance conservative ideas at their Catholic schools.

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Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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Keene, Edwards, Viguerie, and Robinson Teach YAF Activists at Sharon Statement Seminar students FrOm AcrOss the united stAtes gAthered in dAle phelOn hAll at Young America’s Foundation’s

Foundation Vice President Patrick Coyle moderates a panel featuring former YAF leaders (from left) David Keene, Michelle Easton, and Lee Edwards.

headquarters for a special seminar, “The Sharon Statement Revisited: Passing the Torch.” The program celebrated the 55th anniversary of the birth of the modern Conservative Movement and the drafting of the Sharon Statement, which the Washington Post described as “a declaration of principles of modern conservatism.”

Michelle Easton, president of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute; Lee Edwards, distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation; and David Keene, opinion editor at the Washington Times opened up the seminar with a panel discussion on their experiences as the early leaders of Young Americans for Freedom. From activism strategies to stories from their early days in the Movement, the YAF alumni offered encouraging words to students on why their involvement matters.

Throughout the weekend, speakers also offered insights about the Sharon Statement, which the New York Times has coined as the “central manifesto” of the Conservative Movement and a “seminal document in bringing different kinds of conservatives together.” Additional speakers included Wayne Thorburn, author of A Generation Awakes; Judge Loren Smith; Larry Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education; Dr. Michael Waller; Ron Robinson, president of Young America’s Foundation; Richard Viguerie, author and long-time conservative activist; and Patrick Coyle, vice president of Young America’s Foundation.

Topics presented included the history of Young Americans for Freedom and the drafting of the Sharon Statement at William F. Buckley’s home in Connecticut, how leaders like Ronald Reagan implemented conservative principles, and how students can continue to uphold the Sharon Statement through activism initiatives on their campuses.

Student participant Jason Ortiz from Fullerton College noted, “I learned a lot about the Sharon Statement and why the principles were selected to represent the Conservative Movement.”

(Top) Washington Times Opinion Editor David Keene inspires the young leaders.

(Middle) Dr. Mike Waller offers insights from his days as a Young Americans for Freedom activist.

(Bottom Left) Seminar attendees (from left) Rachel Wood, Emily Hensler, and Jason Ortiz enjoy the special program at Young America’s Foundation’s national headquarters.

Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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FREEDOM... ...is never more than one generation away from extinction.

—President ronald reagan

The Left controls our schools, but the future belongs to young people. Young America’s Foundation is the largest, most effective youth outreach organization in the Conservative Movement. We recruit and inspire America’s most promising young leaders to spread a love for freedom on their campuses. By reaching increasing numbers of impressionable young people, we will eliminate the Left’s advantage at our schools.

You can make a gift through your estate that will change lives, control what young people learn about America and freedom, and define your legacy on your terms.

Please contact Kimberly Begg, Esq., vice president and general counsel, at 800-USA-1776 or kbegg@yaf.org to request a free, noobligation copy of Young America’s Foundation’s popular Investing in the Future estate planning guide and workbook. Supplies are limited and will be sent on a first-come, first-served basis.

BO WorEstate NU kb Plan S: ook ni Incl ng ud ed

g I n v e s t i n

i n

to Strengthen the

t h e

F u t u r e

Guide Estate Planning ent Conservative Movem

Campus lectures, activism initiatives, Young Americans for Freedom chapters © Copyright 2016 Young America’s Foundation

National conferences, Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise programs, National Journalism Center internships

www.yaf.org 800-USA-1776

The Reagan Ranch Center 217 State Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101 National Headquarters 11480 Commerce Park Drive, Sixth Floor, Reston, Virginia 20191

Reagan Ranch & Reagan Ranch Center conferences, seminars, and internships

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World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov Captivates Reagan Ranch Center Audience Garry Kasparov stopped in santa BarBara as part of his BooK tour promoting his latest work, Winter is Coming. In an

event that brought many first time visitors inside the Reagan Ranch Center, Young America’s Foundation welcomed Kasparov to share from his experiences as a world champion chess player and outspoken Russian dissident.

Kasparov was introduced as one of the “greatest strategists of our time” by his friend, James Fenkner, who facilitated the introduction between Young America’s Foundation and Kasparov.

Thirty years ago, Garry Kasparov beat Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest undisputed world chess champion.

Kasparov went on to win eight world championships and is widely considered to be the greatest chess player in history.

He now has one of the most dangerous professions: a Russian opposition politician.

In February 2015, Kasparov’s fellow opposition leader and friend, Boris Nemtsov, was murdered under the dark shadow of the Kremlin. As chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, Kasparov advocated for the passage of the Magnitsky Act, which was the first law to specifically punish Russian human rights abuses.

Kasparov has written about his experiences as a chess champion and has recently forayed into the realm of books on public policy. This latest tome from Kasparov, Winter is Coming, is one of caution regarding the resurgence of authoritarian rule in Russia.

Holding the attention of the packed room at the Reagan Ranch Center for over an hour, Kasparov talked about the various roles Putin has held within Russia, working as a KGB agent and then director, before moving his way up to President.

Of his book, Karsparov told the Reagan Ranch Center audience:

Chess legend Garry Kasparov delivers a stirring speech on current foreign policy threats and his new book, Winter is Coming.

Foundation Vice President Andrew Coffin (left) meets with Kasparov and his advisor, Mig Greengard, in front of the Berlin Wall exhibit at the Reagan Ranch Center.

I wrote the book, Winter is Coming—it’s a warning. People criticize me for being so harsh and spreading criticism to the current [Obama]administration and…and the three others preceding Obama. I haven’t spared any criticism for Presidents following Ronald Reagan because I believed all of them tried to preserve the status quo. They were too afraid to move forward with the same passion and power and credibility as Ronald Reagan did. My response to this criticism [of my book] is that it’s a weather forecast. You shouldn’t criticize the weatherman just for giving an accurate forecast.

The nearly 150 guests at the program included local chess clubs, Russian ex-patriots, as well as the devoted core of Young America’s Foundation supporters from the Santa Barbara area.

Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

Students Learn What Teachers Teach: Speech They Dislike Is Not “Speech”—It’s “Violence”

By David French, Attorney and Staff Writer, National Review

By permission Bob Gorrell and Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Confused? College students seem to be. Young America’s Foundation—working with the polling company, inc./ WomanTrend—surveyed 1,000 college students about their attitudes toward free speech and political correctness. The findings? Students support free speech, until speech gets politically incorrect.

First, the good news: There’s solid support for free speech as an abstract concept. An overwhelming 93 percent of students believe it is “very” or “somewhat” important to “protect free speech on campus.”

Even better, 72 percent of students agreed that “protecting the right to free speech and open exchange of ideas” is more important than “making sure no one is offended by what others say.” A solid 64 percent strongly or somewhat agree that “political correctness and oversensitivity make it difficult to openly talk about culture, gender, race, ethnicity, discrimination, or racism.”

Interestingly, while student dedication to “diversity of opinion” was quite strong, it dropped by a statistically significant amount when the definition of intellectual diversity specifically included the conservative point of view.

An overwhelming 82 percent strongly or somewhat agree that “diversity of opinion, including hearing an alternative political or cultural perspective, enhances undergraduate education.” Yet that number drops a full 8 points (and it drops 13 points in the “strongly agree” category) when the statement is modified to read, “diversity of opinion, including hearing the conservative perspective, enhances undergraduate education.”

In general, the more specific the questions got, the more support for free speech evaporated. For instance, while 77

S

pend much time in American colleges and universities and you’ll become intimately familiar with statements that begin with the words “I support free speech, but . . . ” In other words, schools will proudly proclaim their dedication to free speech and academic freedom often while simultaneously maintaining and enforcing speech codes—policies that unlawfully restrict or prohibit constitutionally protected speech.

To take one example, the University of Michigan—one of the nation’s most prestigious public universities—in one policy condemns “bias-related incidents” such as “making fun” of a “person’s accent” or “insulting . . . someone’s traditional manner of dress or geographic origin.” Yet the university then declares, in an entirely different policy: “Expression of diverse points of view is of the highest importance, not only for those who espouse a cause or position and then defend it, but also for those who hear and pass judgment on that defense. The belief that an opinion is pernicious, false, or in any other way detestable cannot be grounds for its suppression.”

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Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus percent of students believed that students should be “allowed to fly the gay pride flag,” only 41 percent believed that students should be permitted to fly the Confederate flag. Only 42 percent said students “should be allowed” to use names such as “redneck,” “Bible thumper,” and “Uncle Tom.” In other words—to borrow the University of Michigan’s language—the instant that free speech starts to look like a “bias-related incident,” students start supporting censorship.

Perhaps most troubling of all, students expressed surprising levels of support not only for universal, mandatory sensitivity training (48 percent supporting, 41 percent opposing); they also largely endorse the far Left’s favorite theory justifying censorship, that speech can equal violence. Disturbingly, 53 percent strongly or somewhat agreed that “choosing to use or not use certain words can constitute an act of violence.”

Thus, we can begin to reconcile the seemingly contradictory results. Perhaps students aren’t confused at all.

Perhaps they’re merely good learners. Colleges by word and deed teach students that there is “free speech”—the speech

they find valuable enough to protect—and “not speech,” the expression they really, really don’t like. The gay pride flag?

Speech. The Confederate flag? Violence.

In 2012, my friend and former colleague, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education President Greg Lukianoff, published Unlearning Liberty, a book that comprehensively describes how colleges and universities are teaching students the “wrong lessons”—that they can convince themselves that they’re for “free speech” but simply against “harassment” or “incivility” or “intolerance,” with those exceptions so broadly defined that they swallow the free-speech rule.

In case after case, colleges punish free speech, all while assuring their student bodies that they’re merely protecting them from discrimination and harassment. As the YAF poll shows, the students have learned their lessons well. Free speech is the speech they like. Everything else? It just might be violence.

————————————————————————— *National Review originally published this article online on October 27, 2015.

YAF Poll: College Students’ Attitudes Towards Free Speech 1) How important do you think it is to protect free speech at colleges and universities?

Total — Very/Somewhat Important

4) Do you believe that students at your college should or should not be allowed to fly the gay pride flag?

93%

Should Be Allowed

77% 15%

Total — Just a Little Bit/Not at All Important

5%

Should Not Be Allowed

Do Not Know

3%

Do Not Know

2) Political correctness and oversensitivity make it difficult to openly talk about culture, gender, race, ethnicity, discrimination, or racism at my college/university.

8%

5) Do you believe that students at your college should or should not be allowed to fly the Confederate flag?

Should Be Allowed

41%

Total — Strongly/Somewhat Agree

64%

Should Not Be Allowed

44%

Total — Strongly/Somewhat Disagree

27%

Do Not Know

15%

Do Not Know/Cannot Judge

9%

3) It is appropriate for a university to require all of its students to complete sensitivity training.

6) Choosing to use or not use certain words can constitute an act of violence.

Total — Strongly/Somewhat Agree

53%

Total — Strongly/Somewhat Agree

48%

Total — Strongly/Somewhat Disagree

33%

Total — Strongly/Somewhat Disagree

41%

Do Not Know/Cannot Judge

14%

Do Not Know/Cannot Judge

11%

Poll conducted September 22 to 28, 2015, by the polling company, inc./WomanTrend on behalf of Young America’s Foundation.

Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

Censorship, Safe Spaces, and Free Speech Zones The Best of the Worst Free Speech Offenders

By Emily Jashinsky, Program Officer for Public Relations

F

or decades, conservatives have been fighting for their free speech rights on campuses, but, increasingly, the national media is paying closer attention to today’s heated encounters. With this well-documented rise of political correctness has come increasing tension between liberal professors and administrators—who take every opportunity to censor conservative speech—and the students who struggle daily to express their beliefs in and out of the classroom.

This tension has been simmering for a long time, and it seems as though it’s finally coming to a boil. Recent protests at the University of Missouri, Yale, and the University of California system have brought the suffocating attitudes and policies of liberal professors and administrators to the attention of a wider audience.

The country watched as campus leftists showed their true colors on national television, explicitly arguing against the

First Amendment, “muscling” student journalists out of their way, and demanding censorship of conservative ideas.

Since our founding, Young America’s Foundation has supported our student leaders in their efforts to promote freedom on their campuses. The challenges are great for these courageous young people. Hardly a day passes without a student activist approaching our team with reports of censorship at his or her school.

To understand the types of obstacles our students face, Young America’s Foundation has compiled the ten most egregious free speech controversies from college campuses in recent months. These incidents underscore how completely out of touch our institutions of higher education are with our treasured American values.

But conservatives should take heart in knowing that student activists pushed back in every single one of the cases listed below. Our student leaders are bold, educated, and prepared to fight for freedom.

Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor features Young America’s Foundation student activists at the University of Missouri standing up for free speech in the midst of leftist campus protests.

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Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

Mizzou Turned Upside Down Over False Accusations of Racism, Black Conservative Called “Uncle Tom” This case is easily our country’s most high profile campus controversy in recent memory. Large-scale protests and demonstrations in early November 2015 drew reporters and camera crews from around the world to the University of Missouri campus.

University President Tim Wolfe stepped down after the school’s football team joined with black student groups to

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus demand his resignation for allegedly failing to adequately address racial issues. Not satisfied, students continued to protest and demand more resignations.

Unsurprisingly, many of the allegations of racism turned out to be false or wholly unsubstantiated. Students and professors were captured on tape turning journalists away and speaking out against free speech rights.

While the protests were ongoing, one real and documented case of racism went completely ignored by the demonstrators.

When Mizzou’s conservative club took Young America’s Foundation’s activism advice and defended the school’s statue of Thomas Jefferson from campus liberals who had vandalized it, Jasmine Wells, a biracial member of the conservative club, was called an “Uncle Tom” on social media. Not a single one of the protestors expressed any concern.

The weekend after their campus erupted into chaos, members of Mizzou’s conservative club attended Young America’s Foundation’s Fall Conference at the Reagan Ranch where they heard from conservative powerhouse Ben Shapiro.

Within a day of Shapiro’s speech, Young America’s Foundation organized a free-speech oriented lecture by Shapiro on Mizzou’s campus (see page 24).

Hundreds of students attended the lecture, which received media coverage and high praise from students and others nationwide. Even more impressive, the live stream, which was watched by 30,000 during the event, has since reached more than 500,000 views.

Virginia Tech Young Americans for Freedom Defunded Over Immigration Event After Virginia Tech’s Young Americans for Freedom (VT YAF) chapter hosted a standing-room-only event on immigration reform with Bay Buchanan, the school’s Student Budget Board wasted no time in revoking VT YAF’s funding for “violating the principles of community.”

The Student Budget Board took issue with a flyer VT YAF had used to advertise the event. The flyer read, “Alien Invasion: How Illegal Immigration is Hurting America.”

The board voted to defund the YAF chapter, stating, “The combination of language and imagery is offensive, insensitive

and a blatant act of disrespect towards the immigrant community and the Virginia Tech community at large.”

Following news of this decision, Young America’s Foundation contacted the media to help share this outrageous story with a national audience. The story made significant headlines on Fox News, and a variety of other outlets covered the incident as well.

Buchanan, who was the youngest person to serve as United States Treasurer, told Fox News, “It is an outrageous effort on the part of these students to control speech to determine what is said and how it’s said.”

After a long battle, Virginia Tech administrators reversed the Student Budget Board’s decision and returned funding to VT YAF. Lauren McCue, the chapter’s chairwoman—who is now a member of Young America’s Foundation’s staff—noted, “The reinstatement of YAF’s funds by the administration is a landmark decision in the history of Virginia Tech. I am glad that I took a stand against the clearly ideological discrimination occurring against conservatives on my campus.”

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus University of California Board of Regents Considers Restrictive Speech Code As debates over free speech intensified at campuses across the country, the University of California system considered adopting an exceptionally restrictive speech code.

Among other restrictions, the policy encouraged students to report “derogatory language reflecting stereotypes or prejudice.”

The process ignited a fierce debate in California and in the national media, exemplifying the troubling trend of unconstitutional restrictions on exercises of First Amendment rights on American campuses.

While the policy was rejected, University of California administrators, led by Obama appointee Janet Napolitano, will likely continue their efforts to crack down on students’ rights to free expression.

Penn State YAF Ordered to Stop Passing Out Constitutions in Free Speech Zone On Constitution Day, Penn State Young Americans for Freedom decided to distribute pocket Constitutions in one of their campus’ designated “free speech zones.” Additionally, the chapter took the opportunity to educate their peers on the unconstitutionality of the speech zones.

Before long, a university bureaucrat approached their display and demanded they leave the space. Thankfully, Young America’s Foundation staff members were on hand to capture the entire exchange on video.

The administrators’ attempts to oust Penn State YAF from the free speech zone made national headlines and drew more attention to these bizarre restrictions on speech.

When confronted with the facts by then-chapter chair Jolie Ballantyne, the Penn State administrators literally ran away from the truth about their unconstitutional free speech zones.

YAF activist Jolie Ballantyne, who now serves as the Foundation’s conference director, protests Penn State University’s “Free Speech Zones.”

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Christina Hoff Sommers’ Speech Countered with “Safe Spaces” Georgetown University’s feminist community was outraged following the announcement that the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (CBLPI) was sponsoring a campus lecture by widely respected conservative feminist Christina

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus Hoff Sommers. They claimed Sommers’ insistence upon questioning false statistics about sexual assault amounted to “hate speech” and was “triggering” for students on campus.

Students set up “safe spaces” where anybody who felt unsafe because of Dr. Sommers’ words could seek shelter. They also held signs in the back of the lecture hall redirecting attendees who became endangered by Dr. Sommers’ “hate speech.”

After the event, Georgetown requested that CBLPI take down their online video of the lecture. In response, CBLPI President Michelle Easton remarked, “Could it be that the University is trying to conceal the embarrassing behavior and declarations of its feminist students at our lecture? Dr. Sommers’ lecture was a public event, and the camera was in plain view.

Surely the University understands that.”

This event brought the proliferation of “safe spaces” to national attention, shedding light on the Left’s new strategy to further isolate college students in bubbles of progressivism and completely eliminate conservative speech from campus.

Yale Students Riot Over Halloween Email In recent years, October has become a time for leftist professors to lecture students on why their Halloween costumes should be “politically correct,” “inoffensive,” and “microaggression-safe.” This involves discouraging students from wearing sombreros, dressing up like Pocahontas, or imitating their favorite rappers.

This new push against “cultural appropriation” inspired a Yale faculty member to send students a notably calm and rational defense of politically incorrect Halloween costumes, urging students to not be censored by the university, which had sent an earlier email reminding them to be “culturally aware” and “sensitive.”

This one thoughtful and reasonable email set off a firestorm. Students gathered to demand an apology and a resignation for the faculty member’s failure to create a “safe space.” As he attempted to reason with them on the quad, a viral video caught the students screaming expletiveladen rants about sensitivity in his face.

This event occurred in close proximity to the November 2015 protests at the University of Missouri, and both situations exposed, to a national audience, the alarming and bizarre leftist nonsense Young America’s Foundation’s students face on campuses every day.

GW YAF Threatened with Defunding, Called “Violent” for Resisting Sensitivity Training The George Washington University’s YAF chapter had no idea how much controversy it would cause by simply suggesting the university provide a religious exemption for students who wanted to opt out of mandated sensitivity training.

But after their peers found out these conservative students had resisted the student government’s compulsory Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus re-education camps, other campus organizations demanded the YAF chapter be defunded, compared the group to “ISIS” and “cancer,” and said the students had “committed an act of violence” against the transgender community.

GW YAF’s story went viral, earning coverage on Fox News, Daily Caller, Breitbart, Washington Times, and many other outlets. Most importantly, top administrators assured students that no mandatory sensitivity training would be held at The George Washington University.

GW YAF’s victory for free speech drew national attention to the pervasive trend of universitymandated sensitivity training, which is typically no more than a thinly veiled effort to institutionalize leftist ideas and label conservative beliefs “hate speech.”

American Sniper Screening Canceled for “Islamophobia” When the University of Michigan announced it would be screening the hit film American Sniper, Muslim and Middle Eastern students began circulating a petition demanding the screening be cancelled because of its allegedly anti-Muslim message. Students complained the film made them feel “uncomfortable” and unsafe.

The university announced it would cancel the screening of American Sniper and replace it with the children’s movie, Paddington.

Michigan YAF took the lead in pushing back against the university’s decision to pull the film. Chapter Chairman Grant Strobl appeared on Fox News to discuss the incident, calling for a return to sanity at his school.

After being harshly criticized in the national media, as well as by football coach Jim Harbaugh, for their strange decision, the university announced it would indeed be showing American Sniper and called their choice to cancel it a “mistake.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Ousted as Brandeis Commencement Speaker Amidst Protests Commencement season is always marked by leftist attempts to ban conservative ideas from these important ceremonies.

Brandeis University is no exception. The school decided to rescind its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to 16

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

receive an honorary degree and speak at commencement.

Students had circulated a petition demanding the invitation be revoked due to Hirsi Ali’s “anti-Islam” statements.

Hirsi Ali, who speaks for Young America’s Foundation, was born in Somalia and fled an arranged marriage in Kenya, where she survived violence, genital mutilation, and other atrocities at the hands of Islamist extremists. Her record of outspoken human rights activism, especially focused on protecting women from Islamic violence, irritated liberals at Brandeis.

Hirsi Ali’s statements against the religion that caused her so much pain were seen as intolerant and uninclusive, thereby disqualifying her from receiving an honorary degree from the university.

Hirsi Ali published the remarks she would have given in the Wall Street Journal, concluding, “The motto of Brandeis University is ‘Truth even unto its innermost parts.’ That is my motto too.

For it is only through truth, unsparing truth, that your generation can hope to do better than mine in the struggle for peace, freedom, and equality of the sexes.”

UCSB Professor Assaults Pro-Life Teenager College students are not the only young people facing attacks on their free speech rights. Sixteen-year-old Thrin

Short and her sister, 21-yearold Joan Short, decided to display pro-life literature on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Before long, a feminist studies professor approached the students, stole their materials, and called them “terrorists.”

The professor proceeded to physically assault Thrin, a crime she would later be charged with in court.

Later, in defense of her actions, the professor testified that the pro-life material had “triggered” her and given her a “moral right” to commit criminal acts.

The irony of this incident? The assault occurred in a free speech zone.

As can be imagined, this story made headlines across the country, and Thrin and Joan Short also shared their experience with young people attending Young America’s Foundation’s High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch.

The professor later plead guilty to criminal assault charges and the university settled a lawsuit with the pro-life activists.

Thrin Short and her sister, Joan, share their story of being assaulted by a leftist professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara while they were distributing pro-life literature.

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

Young America’s Foundation: A Student’s Best Resource in Promoting Free Speech

By Patrick Coyle, Vice President

“Do you support free speech on campus?”

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f you ask any student whether they support free speech, most will say “Yes.” In fact, a recent poll conducted by Young America’s Foundation revealed that 93% of students agreed that it is important to protect free speech.

However, when pressed further on how far they are willing to defend all speech, no matter how offensive it may be to their sensibilities, the numbers quickly change. More than half of liberal young people, 54%, supported some form of censorship to ensure that no one is offended. A Pew poll found similar results, with 40% of millennials saying they are okay with limiting speech that offends others.

These results should frighten anyone who supports freedom, but the results should not surprise anyone familiar with the politically correct atmosphere that has controlled American college campuses for decades.

Leftist antagonists, along with their willing accomplices in university administrations, have sought time and again to restrict conservative students’ right to voice their opinions.

However, Young America’s Foundation has always pushed back against these heavy-handed administrators and liberal bullies and even challenged laws all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure free speech rights are protected.

A History of Protecting Students’ Rights to Free Speech During the Foundation’s 1983 National Conservative Student Conference, YAF activists Floyd Brown, Michael Boos, and others led a demonstration against Soviet policies outside the Soviet Union’s Embassy in Washington, D.C. Brown and others present were summarily arrested and charged with attempting to bring the Soviet Union into “disrepute.”

Young America’s Foundation did not let these charges go unchallenged—especially when leftist and pro-Communist demonstrations were allowed outside other embassies. The Young America’s Foundation case, Boos v Barry, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices finally 18

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struck down the D.C. law that prohibited protesting outside of embassies.

The Foundation’s battles to protect free speech continued, however.

In 1995, the University of Virginia (UVA) refused to fund Foundation activist Ron Rosenberger’s Christian student newspaper, Wide Awake. The school claimed doing so would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

However, the school had already routinely funded other religious groups, including a Muslim student organization and other clubs with religious affiliations. During Rosenberger’s tenure as a member of the Foundation’s staff, the U.S. Supreme Court heard his case and knocked down UVA’s policy that infringed upon the free speech rights of Christians at the University of Virginia.

Bringing Free Speech Advocates to Campus Since these landmark Supreme Court decisions, Young America’s Foundation has come to the defense of many other students who have had their free speech rights undermined by leftist professors and administrators. Often, we only need to expose the intolerant Left’s actions to the national media (see page 12).

National Conservative Student Conference attendee Floyd Brown is arrested for demonstrating outside of the Soviet Union’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1983.

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

One of the Foundation’s most effective tools in advancing free speech, however, comes in the form of speakers themselves. Young America’s Foundation’s campus lecture program—unmatched by any other conservative organization—brings today’s leading conservative speakers to high school and college campuses where they advocate for the ideas absent (or worse, banned) from most classrooms and campus quads.

Our speakers—prominent authors, policy officials, media personalities, and others—challenge the leftist status quo on the campuses they visit. They debunk today’s popular leftist notions, including “safe spaces,” “microaggressions,” and “trigger warnings,” which intimidate students into being silent.

These key spokesmen effectively challenge liberal arguments in front of large audiences, giving students, faculty, Young America’s Foundation’s “Campus Free Speech Box” provides students with a variety of materials to and administrators opportunities to help defend their rights to express their values and ideas at their schools. hear conservative views directly and not through the filter of the mainstream media or the professors The Foundation’s latest tool, our “Campus Free Speech themselves. In addition, the large audiences attending Young Box,” is sent to students upon request and includes America’s Foundation’s campus lectures underscore that everything a student club needs to begin promoting free young people are tired of never-ending liberal indoctrination speech. The kit includes flyers, posters, stickers, t-shirts, and and eager to hear new ideas. pocket-size copies of the United States Constitution for easy Recently, the Foundation worked with conservative distribution on campus. activists at the University of Missouri to rush Ben Shapiro Complementing our many student resources, the to speak at this embattled campus besieged by leftwing Foundation’s program and legal team also work directly protests (see page 24). Shapiro, whose speech was part of with our young activists when liberal administrators, student the Foundation’s Wendy P. McCaw Freedom Lecture series, groups, or professors attack their rights. Additionally, at nearly spoke to a packed audience of more than 400 students on the every Foundation conference and seminar, students receive importance of campus free speech. More than 500,000 have guidance and training on how to stand up for their rights in since viewed his engaging address online. More importantly, the face of hostile campus leftists.

Shapiro’s speech left the conservative students in attendance All of these activities and resources—from lectures to with the knowledge, inspiration, and confidence to stand training to media exposure—ensure our students are not strong for their values in the midst of leftist intolerance. alone in their efforts to advance freedom on their campuses.

As Ronald Reagan said, “Young America’s Foundation Free Speech Resources programs offer invaluable assistance to young men and In addition to our lecture program, Young America’s women searching for the encouragement and understanding Foundation is continually developing new resources and necessary to reinforce the values of a free society.” materials for students to utilize at their schools.

With the help of our thousands of student volunteers and Throughout our history, we have created and sent students the generous Americans who support our shared cause of compelling posters advocating free speech and highlighting freedom, we will continue to offer this necessary assistance to leftist hypocrisy. young people nationwide.

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

The Threat to Liberty on Campus

By Alan Charles Kors, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

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he student radicals of the late 1960s and early 1970s claimed that they wanted freedom of speech, association, and conscience. Sadly, it turned out that so many wanted it not as an end in itself but merely as a means to advance their partisan agenda.

They succeeded in destroying most of the in loco parentis functions of the university. The students who followed them, however, did not look up to the aging heirs of the 1960s as moral and political leaders; indeed, those new students made fun of the 1960s, recoiled from its styles, and, in a majority, even voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.

For the heirs of the 1960s, those new students had to be saved from American society, and freedom for students was the first thing to be sacrificed to that agenda. They took coercive authority over our campuses and over our schools of education. Their program dominates kindergarten through senior year of college and beyond.

They believe that most undergraduates are political children who enter universities inadequately aware of the effects of American “racism,” “sexism,” “heterosexism,” and, its source, capitalism.

They believe that most Americans who are themselves so-called “minorities” (each of us, in fact, is a minority of one)—blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians, students of Asian descent, and, though they are in fact a majority, women—do not adequately understand the nature and methods of their “oppression,” and, indeed, often have internalized the very values by which society oppresses them.

Leninists labeled this phenomenon of judging from the perspective of your oppressors “false consciousness,” and their murderous contempt for those with false consciousness drowned the world in blood.

Today’s fortunately unarmed “facilitators” of “diversity and multicultural education” at hundreds of colleges and universities label it “internalized oppression,” identifiable by any questioning of their view of reality.

Since there is indeed resistance—as the very existence of Young America’s Foundation shows—the full weight of administrative authority must be brought to bear over students’ extracurricular and private lives, in order to give

politically correct moral enlightenment and inspiration to undergraduates. Their central (and deceitful) mantra: “Diversity.”

Campus notions of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” mean only the following: there is one dominant culture in the West, the enemy of authentic debate, human freedom, and altruism everywhere; capitalistic, sexist, racist; spreading ignorance, injustice, despotic power, and poverty everywhere.

Any voices that challenge it (and if they’re actually students, put them on a pedestal, give them immunity for all their depredations, and send them off for leadership training), and only such voices, are “multicultural.”

That is why, for example, black radicals are multicultural, but black conservatives or libertarians are not. Exhibiting a deep racialism and misogyny themselves, our universities assume that ego strength correlates to externalities, and that whites and Christian men have it, while blacks and women do not. So, while Christian students are asked to bear any number of affronts to their beliefs in the name of freedom, a woman or black must be protected from the punch line of a joke, as if women and blacks were too weak to live with freedom or the Bill of Rights. Let us say it emphatically: No one who tells you that you are too weak to live with freedom is your friend.

What universities mean by diversity and multiculturalism, above all else, is simply “not white,” although “not male” and “not heterosexual” are not all that far behind. They speak of “white” and “white privilege” as a single cultural phenomena, linking those look-alike, think-alike Finns and Sicilians, French atheists and Eastern Orthodox Slavs, North Dakotans and New Yorkers into one identity. They believe that this is a deep analysis. They now must deal with the rage and often pained (and painful) silliness of those “excluded” students who believed them.

Morally, our campuses have denied the only authentic meaning of liberation: the freedom to individuate, by one’s own lights, free of external coercions and impositions. It is the right of all free men and women to decide for themselves the meaning and importance, or relative unimportance, of their race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and sexuality. No one has the moral right to decide that for you, and to assign to you official voices, denying the

“No one who tells you that you are too weak to live with freedom is your friend.”

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus individuality that lies at the heart of human dignity. Nonetheless, we have Women’s Centers and Multicultural Centers that operationally distinguish between “real” women and blacks with appropriate radical consciousness and somehow ersatz, fake women and blacks who have “internalized their oppression.”

Power of such magnitude needs to demonstrate that it controls the symbolic environment. Starting in the 1980s, this took the form of speech codes so outrageously absurd that at public universities they were invariably found unconstitutional by the courts and at private universities that adopted codes that read like parodies, administrations were generally shamed into disowning them.

A new anti-individualist racial and sexual radicalism, however, has returned the will to censor and coerce (always selectively) to our campuses. This has been reinforced by the Office for Civil Rights of the Obama administration’s Department of Education, which mandated that administrations formally tend to their supposedly brutal campuses, where almost no one female, non-white, or non-traditional should feel safe. With these developments, we have entered a new academic age, one in which “microaggressions,” “offense,” and “white privilege” are deemed to threaten America’s “victims.” Now, students who love individual liberty are faced with the demands and outrages of students for whom individual liberty is itself the enemy.

Of course, a private, voluntary association (such as a private university) may adopt whatever rules, within the law, it chooses.

Most universities, however, promise academic and individual freedom and a marketplace of ideas and expression, but then deliver selective oppression and censorship; most promise nondiscrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexuality, but then extend rights and programs differentially precisely on such grounds. There are names for that: fraud; false advertising; and breach of contract.

Substantively, the suppression of speech, expression, opinion, and satire forms a barrier to that freedom in which an education worthy of free men and women can occur: debate; disagreement; speaking about what others would deem unthinkable; the right to heterodoxy and eccentricity and passions. It denies the indispensability of freedom to learning; the dignity and strength of meeting speech that one abhors with further speech, with reason, with evidence, with cold contempt, or with moral outrage and moral witness.

Speech restrictions become yet more insufferable by virtue of their intended double-standards in practice, without

which they could not last for a nanosecond. Their proponents talk about civility, but they do not care one whit about civility, and, indeed, they are the most uncivil individuals around. Rather, they believe that universities should be at the forefront of reassigning rights unequally in pursuit of their social visions.

Speech codes create an arena of double standards, arbitrary and partisan enforcement, and the raw use of power to enforce a partisan agenda. When it comes to the free speech of so-called progressives, universities proclaim that passions are an essential part of freedom of expression. How, then, ask for “civility” to protect selfproclaimed “progressive” groups from the passions of others? Has anyone ever been found guilty of harassing a conservative Catholic, an evangelical, or a libertarian?

Offices of Student Life have moved from service-providers to self-proclaimed “progressives” whose mission is to bring the benighted children of America into the enlightenment of partisan awareness.

They have substituted a politically therapeutic university for a critical, educational university.

Hundreds of campuses have ideological litmus tests for residential and student-life positions; hundreds have transformed their freshmen orientations and residential programming into a combination of intrusive therapy and partisan boot camps. In the place of crushing penalties for political incorrectness, they will offer, with equal cruelty, a “settlement” where the frightened respondent agrees to undergo invasive “sensitivity training” on matters of race and sex. This is nothing less than thought-reform more appropriate to the University of Beijing in Mao’s China than to the universities of a free society.

Students do not choose universities to be their parents or therapists, let alone a political police enforcing partisan whims. Higher education needs individuals for all seasons who bear witness to beliefs antithetical to the new tyrannies: legal equality; the sacred right of self-definition by the lights of one’s conscience; and individual liberty and responsibility over the group-politics of victimization and entitlement.

It is, above all else, our liberty and legal equality that define us in this world as human beings with dignity, capable of morals. The struggle for freedom at universities is one of the defining struggles of our age. Please join brave students in that struggle with rigor, vigilance, will, and courage. There truly are no sidelines.

“The struggle for freedom at universities is one of the defining struggles of our age.”

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

Hijacking First Amendment Rights Under the Guise of “Free Speech”

By David Horowitz, Founder & President, The David Horowitz Freedom Center

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n 1964, a series of historic protests took place at the University of California Berkeley, with far-reaching consequences largely unappreciated at the time. The events were triggered when leftwing students defied a university rule, launching a mob protest that became the first major occupation of a university campus in American history. Thousands of students were eventually involved and 800 were arrested. The arrests led to further demonstrations, and, eventually, to the capitulation of the university’s liberal administrators to the activists’ demands.

The organizers called themselves, “The Free Speech Movement” and have been memorialized as such by an accommodating progressive culture, not least by the university itself. Today, the school’s central plaza features a “Free Speech Monument” approved by university officials who also created a Free Speech Movement Digital Archive in the school library and a Free Speech Movement Café in the school complex. Reunions of the protesters have been held every ten years at which the leftwing activists gather to celebrate themselves for getting away with criminal behavior and for achieving, in their own eyes and the eyes of their

© Copyright Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images

academic admirers, a landmark victory for “civil liberties.”

In fact, the Free Speech Movement was not about civil liberties. Nor was it about free speech; nor could it have been, since that is a right already guaranteed by the First Amendment and obviously honored by the liberal administrators at UC Berkeley and at all other public universities at the time. What the “Free Speech Movement” was about was the right to conduct specifically political activities on the university campus, including the recruitment of students to political causes.

Before the surrender to the Berkeley mob, such activities had been considered inappropriate for institutions dedicated to the “disinterested pursuit of knowledge.” The Berkeley protest was about shattering this “ivory tower” concept of the university—the idea that institutions of higher learning should be places for the dispassionate, therefore non-partisan and non-political, examination of ideas.

The victory of the student mob was momentous. It led to a series of institutional developments that transformed American universities into partisan arenas hostile to America, to white people, to Christians, to males, and to views at odds with the agendas of the Left.

These events proved to be the opening of a dark chapter not only for the academic world but also for the nation at large. The politicization of academic institutions soon spread to schools throughout the country, affecting the training not only of English professors, historians, and sociologists but also jurists, journalists, and the nation’s future leaders. For the next five decades, a steady and poisonous strain of leftist ideologies poured into America’s political and cultural mainstreams, with consequences that are now all too visible.

Barely five years after the Berkeley protest, black students carried loaded shotguns into the administration building at Cornell, demanding the creation University of California students protest restrictions on political activities on the Berkeley campus of a Black Studies department whose through a sit-in demonstration in 1964.

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curriculum they would design and whose faculty they would appoint. As at Berkeley, a liberal administration capitulated to the demands, which signaled the beginning of the end of a liberal arts curriculum governed by professional standards of discourse and scientific methods of inquiry.

Black Studies was not a scholarly profession but an ideological movement dedicated to the proposition that white people are oppressors and blacks mere victims—that America is a “white supremacist” nation. Cornell made clear that a university field could now be created through physical intimidation. This marked the beginning of the Left’s colonization of the academy and the transformation of liberal arts faculties into the debased Mario Savio, leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, speaks to assembled students on the indoctrination facilities we see today.

Berkeley campus on December 7, 1964.

Black Studies led to other new fields like Chicano Studies and Gender Studies—a category up of leftists. Most college students pass through four years of familiarly referred to as Oppression Studies. These schooling without ever encountering a conservative adult. “interdisciplinary” fields liberated the tenured activists It was equally inevitable that the “free speech” leftists would from standards of scholarship that had been established soon insist on restrictive “speech codes” —the precursors of over the course of a hundred years and had made American “triggers” and “microaggressions” whose purpose has been to universities the wonders of the educational world. suppress dissenting ideas by declaring them “racist,” “sexist,” To be part of these politicized departments, faculty and or simply indecent. Today, liberal arts colleges are the most students had to be “politically correct.” That is, they had to be regressive and least free institutions in America. believers in and enforcers of the leftwing ideas and narratives The so-called “Free Speech Movement,” which introduced that formed the new curriculum—a curriculum no longer political crusading into the halls of learning, has led to dedicated to an inquiry into the truth but one that challenged the destruction of a great institution, and a flourishing of so-called “oppressors” and advanced the cause of social justice. ideological bigotry, viewpoint repression, and intellectual These developments signaled the end of the classical liberal fraud. The Universities of Missouri, Yale, Dartmouth, and idea that students in a democracy should be taught how to many other schools have recently witnessed eruptions by think and not told what to think; that a college curriculum student mobs demanding the suppression of ideas that should inform students, not indoctrinate them; that scholarly disturb them and compensation for their alleged injuries in inquiry should be dispassionate and non-partisan. In sum, the form of politically mandated hiring of faculty and millions the decades that followed the Berkeley and Cornell events of ransom dollars, which they can use to make future mob th -century saw the return of liberal arts schools to their 19 protests even more compelling. Today, student leftists are origins as doctrinal institutions designed to train students for demanding that universities provide them with a place “safe” the priesthood. In the new incarnation, it was the priesthood from dangerous ideas—a bizarre but predictable result of the of leftwing ideologies and social myths the curriculum was “Free Speech Movement” at Berkeley half a century before. designed to serve.

————————————————— Because the new academic fields were fiefdoms of the David Horowitz is the head of the David intolerant Left, insisting that all inquiry was and should be Horowitz Freedom Center. He has spoken political, it was inevitable that conservatives, libertarians, and on more than 400 college campuses and other dissenters would become a vanishing faculty breed. is the author of Progressive Racism, Half a century after the Berkeley “Free Speech Movement,” which will be published by Encounter in more than 90 percent of most liberal arts faculties are made the spring.

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© Copyright Associated Press/Robert W. Klein

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus

Ben Shapiro Brings the Truth About Free Speech to the University of Missouri

By Amy Lutz, Program Officer

in lAte nOvember, pundit, AuthOr, And cOnservAtive pOwerhOuse ben shApirO Addressed an overflowing crowd of students at the University of Missouri.

The lecture, sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, boasted a crowd of 400 people, and since the event, more than 500,000 people have watched the speech online. Shapiro’s lecture, titled “Truth is a Microaggression,” was part of the Foundation’s Wendy P. McCaw Freedom Lecture series.

In October 2015, a dozen conservative activists from the University of Missouri (Mizzou) attended Young America’s Foundation’s Midwest Freedom Conference in Columbus, Ohio (see page 26). There, they were inspired to become more active on campus and, the following week, the young conservatives staged a rally in support of an on-campus Thomas Jefferson statue, which had been vandalized by campus leftists.

These same conservative activists then attended Young America’s Foundation’s Fall Conference at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara. There, the students were inspired to truly take a

Author and columnist Ben Shapiro draws a standing-room-only crowd at the University of Missouri.

Hundreds fill the lecture hall at the University of Missouri to hear Ben Shapiro defend campus free speech.

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Special Feature: Free Speech & Today’s College Campus stand on their campus, and in a matter of six days, the students planned, in partnership with Young America’s Foundation’s staff, the lecture with Ben Shapiro.

During the days leading up to the campus lecture, Mizzou’s conservative club activists plastered their campus with sidewalk chalk messages, hung thousands of posters, and also passed out hundreds of flyers.

During his remarks to a standingroom-only audience, Shapiro slammed the school’s liberal activists for taking over the campus in the name of

“stopping white privilege.” Shapiro debunked leftist concepts, including “white privilege,” “safe spaces,” and “microaggressions,” and called for conservative students to be bold in their activism.

Liberal activists attempted to halt the speech by pulling the fire alarm twice during Shapiro’s presentation, but both the alarm and the liberal activists were quickly silenced.

This lecture gave Mizzou’s conservative students an outlet to advance their ideas and values amidst the campus’ turbulent liberal protests.

The audience reacted with several rounds of applause and left feeling emboldened in their efforts to stand up for free speech.

Several media outlets, including Breitbart, Townhall, and Real Clear Politics, covered the program, and Young America’s Foundation

received much positive feedback from students, supporters, and allies from across the country.

One parent wrote: Last night at the Shapiro speech, my son said he finally could relax because people were around him who think the way he does about world events… he did not feel alone. For my son, we thank you.

Shapiro meets with members of the University of Missouri’s conservative club, including (from left) Skyler Roundtree, Shapiro, Sarah Garza, and Jay Patel, prior to his remarks.

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Bolton, Jordan, Schweikart, Blackwell, and Duffy Headline Midwest Freedom Conference

By Andres Taborda, Program Officer for Campus Recruitment and Haley Jones, Development Officer

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oung America’s Foundation hit the road in October for our Midwest Freedom Conference in Columbus, Ohio. More than 200 students from 22 states and 64 schools gathered to hear from distinguished professors, lawyers, activists, diplomats, and public policy leaders.

The regional event began with a special dinner banquet featuring Dr. Larry Schweikart, author and professor of history at the University of Dayton and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller A Patriot’s History of the United States. Dr. Schweikart described the leftist lies that are taught in history classes today. All students in attendance received a copy of Dr. Schweikart’s book, 48 Liberal Lies About American History.

The next day featured a full line-up of exciting speakers.

James Bopp Jr., a prominent First Amendment attorney and Young Americans for Freedom alumnus, offered insights on defending free speech. Ambassador John Bolton, who represented the United States at the United Nations under President George W. Bush, followed. Multiple news outlets, including Townhall, Breitbart, and the Washington Examiner, reported on the Ambassador’s calling for the resignation of Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Honorable Ken Blackwell, who served as Ohio secretary of state from 1999 to 2007 and mayor of Cincinnati, spoke to students on the importance of religious liberty. “You can either act and engage, or be trampled and acted upon by (Continued on page 29)

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Ambassador John Bolton makes headlines with his speech at the Midwest Freedom Conference, during which he called for Secretary of State John Kerry’s resignation.

Foundation alumni, including (from left) Conference Director Jolie Ballantyne, Program Officer for Public Relations Emily Jashinsky, and Virginia Tech YAF chapter leader Lauren McCue participate in a panel on student activism.

Congressman Jim Jordan encourages the young activists to stay involved and stand strong for their beliefs.

First Amendment Attorney James Bopp Jr. underscores the need for young people to defend free speech.

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Rachel Campos Duffy takes a photo with Missouri students following her speech on the importance of advancing conservative ideas on campus.

Students Laurel Nitzel (left) and Jose Cuello (right) participate in a question and answer session with a speaker at the Midwest Freedom Conference.

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The Honorable Ken Blackwell, who served as Ohio secretary of state from 1999 to 2007, underscores the need to protect religious freedom nationwide.

More than 200 participants gather for the weekend-long Midwest Freedom Conference in downtown Columbus, Ohio.

this march of big government against your individual liberty,” he explained.

Students also engaged with Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio.

He updated the audience on the latest happenings in Congress and encouraged them to get involved in the Conservative Movement.

“I learned a long time ago that, typically in life, things don’t just happen,” Congressman Jordan said. “If you want to accomplish anything of meaning, anything of significance, if you want to attain anything of real lasting value, it takes work, it takes effort, and most importantly, it takes a willingness to get off the sidelines and get in the game.”

Dr. Paul Kengor, a professor, author, and regular Young America’s Foundation faculty member, spoke on the principles of Reagan conservatism. A student favorite, Dr. Kengor stayed through the end of the conference to speak to the many students who approached him with questions on President Reagan’s values and accomplishments.

Rachel Campos Duffy, television personality and national spokeswoman for the LIBRE Initiative, offered a vibrant speech on the importance of standing up for conservative values on campuses and encouraged everyone to get engaged in the fight for freedom.

“We conservative pro-lifers are the defenders of freedom. We are on the front lines defending women and millions of helpless innocent babies who long for a chance to live and be free,” Duffy said. “I want to thank you, and God bless you all for what you do for the cause of freedom.”

The weekend program finished with a student activist panel moderated by Katrina Lautenschlager, program assistant for Young America’s Foundation. Jolie Ballantyne, conference director; Emily Jashinsky, program officer for public relations; and Lauren McCue, a YAF chapter leader at Virginia Tech, offered advice and strategies to combat the liberal biases students face in academia and on campus.

Following the conference, Stephanie Rhinesmith from Benedictine University expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to attend: “This organization provides students on the front lines an opportunity to learn how to fight for conservative values and beliefs back on campus. Thank you for helping connect conservative students from across the country.”

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Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, who attended the Foundation’s programs as a student, meets with high school conference attendees Dalee Wilcox and Jason Whitman from Washington State.

Herrera Beutler, Allen, Rohrabacher, and Thiessen Inspire Young Leaders at the 18th National High School Leadership Conference

By Alex Montgomery, Intern, Young America’s Foundation

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igh school students from around the country traveled to our nation’s capital for Young America’s Foundation’s 18th Gratia Houghton Rinehart National High School Leadership Conference. More than 100 participants enjoyed hearing from a wide variety of engaging speakers—many of whom participated in the Foundation’s programs when they were students.

The conference began with an opening dinner banquet featuring Governor George Allen, Reagan Ranch Presidential scholar and 67th governor

1 8 TH G R AT I A H O U G H T O N R I N E H A R T N AT I O N A L H I G H S C H O O L L E A D E R S H I P C O N F E R E N C E

Foundation alumnus Marc Thiessen, who served as a speechwriter in President George W. Bush’s administration, discusses President Obama’s failed foreign policy and the dangers we face from radical Islam.

Governor George Allen highlights the need for strong conservative leadership to address today’s most pressing issues.

of Virginia, who discussed specific reforms conservatives can implement in important areas of public policy.

Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, an alumna of the Foundation’s programs, began the first full day of the conference with an inspiring speech on leadership, using personal stories to encourage students to aspire to greatness. Underscoring the importance of hard work, she told the young participants, “The world doesn’t owe me; I have to go out and make it.”

Marc Thiessen, a Foundation alumnus and former speechwriter for

Foundation Vice President Patrick Coyle (left) welcomes student Wilson Harris (right) to the conference in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

President George W. Bush, described the failures of the Obama administration’s foreign policy and gripped students with his vivid portrayal of the threat of radical Islam. Thiessen also reflected on his involvement with the Foundation: “It all started for me 25 years ago when I was sitting right where you are—at a Young America’s Foundation conference.”

Dr. Burt Folsom, history professor and author, rounded out the morning with an interactive discussion on how government hinders the success of entrepreneurs and the private sector.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher reflects on President Reagan’s lasting accomplishments.

That afternoon, students enjoyed another lively session with Dr. Folsom, as well as a screening of the Foundation’s film, Still Point in a Turning World: Ronald Reagan and His Ranch.

Kate Obenshain, author and Foundation alumna, urged students to be leaders at their schools and to not allow others to squelch their free speech rights.

The day concluded with a dinner banquet featuring former YAF activist Congressman Dana Rohrabacher who (Continued on page 33)

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High school students from around the country enjoy a twilight tour of the National Mall at the conclusion of the annual conference.

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Student Madeline Hervey from Georgia meets like-minded friends during the 18th Gratia Houghton Rinehart National High School Leadership Conference.

Paul Teller, chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz, spends an evening offering advice and answering questions from the young conservatives during a late night “Bull Session” at the high school conference.

Foundation alumna and New York Times bestselling author Katie Pavlich meets with student Paolo Orosa from Virginia.

Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute President Michelle Easton welcomes the high school conference students to a special luncheon held for the young women attending the weekend-long program.

shared fond memories of President Ronald Reagan while also providing insight into the legislative process.

The next day began with remarks from Laurel Conrad, YAF alumnus and lecture director at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, who gave a thoughtful presentation on the life and accomplishments of Clare Boothe Luce—a woman who truly exemplified what it means to be a conservative in public service.

Bay Buchanan, activist and 37th treasurer of the United States during the Reagan administration, inspired students to be fierce debaters and not to stray from their principles.

Young America’s Foundation President Ron Robinson led an interactive session on the principles of conservatism, helping the students identify what they believe so that they may better defend their values.

Forbes editor and Foundation alumnus John Tamny shared insights based on his new book, Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downtown Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics.

New York Times bestselling author Katie Pavlich—also a Foundation alumna—spoke on the Left’s war on women.

Foundation Vice President Patrick Coyle wrapped up the program with an informative session on campus activism—arming the students with the tools they will need to advance freedom at their schools and beyond.

The conference concluded with a twilight tour of the national monuments in Washington, D.C., during which students enjoyed their newfound friendships while actively experiencing American history.

The students returned home with a deeper understanding of conservative ideas and how they apply to today’s public policy issues.

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Professor and author Dr. Robert George underscores the importance of protecting freedom, the Constitution, and the values upon which our nation was founded.

George, Buchanan, Spencer, and Skousen Educate

By Amy Lutz, Program Officer

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oung conservatives gathered in Santa Barbara for Young America’s Foundation’s fall High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch sponsored by Reagan Ranch Board of Governors members Richard and Barbara Gaby.

“It was powerful to see so many passionate teenagers leading the charge in the Conservative Movement,” said Chace Paulson of Mukwonago, Wisconsin. Chace and her peers spent three days

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hearing from conservative speakers and networking with like-minded high schoolers from across the country.

During the opening banquet, students heard from Dr. Mark Skousen, economist and editor of Forecasts & Strategies.

“Mark Skousen gave us a fantastic lecture on principles of economics that was easy to understand,” said Dakota Sall, from New Braunfels, Texas.

A student from Trinity Classical Academy meets President Reagan’s close friend and Secret Service agent John Barletta during a special conference session at Rancho del Cielo.

Forecasts & Strategies Editor Dr. Mark Skousen explains fundamental principles of free market economics to the student audience.

Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer discusses the threats posed by radical Islamic jihadists.

High School Students at the Reagan Ranch The following morning, students heard from Foundation President Ron Robinson, who led a breakout session on the principles of conservatism.

Attendees then enjoyed a screening of Young America’s Foundation’s film, Still Point in a Turning World: Ronald Reagan and His Ranch.

During the Wendy P. McCaw Reagan Ranch Roundtable luncheon, students and supporters enjoyed remarks from author and Princeton

University professor Dr. Robert George who spoke on “Constitutional Structures and Civic Virtue.”

“Young people haven’t heard the conservative argument because it is frozen out in academic institutions,” said Dr. George as he proceeded to thank Young America’s Foundation supporters for making it possible for students to become involved in the Conservative Movement.

That afternoon, students walked in President Young America’s Foundation | Libertas | Winter 2016

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Students (from left) Dakota Sall, Sierra Hansen, and Ryker Marble meet like-minded friends during the high school program.

Cecelia Corbin receives her certificate of completion at the conclusion of the High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch.

Student Michael Mayer from Ohio meets with Bay Buchanan near the Berlin Wall exhibit at the Reagan Ranch Center.

Reagan’s footsteps at his beloved ranch, Rancho del Cielo, where they toured the ranch house, tack barn, Secret Service Command Post, and helipad.

“I’m honored to be able to walk where [President Reagan] walked and lived,” said student Tatum Lucas of Simi Valley, California. At the Ranch, President Reagan’s longest serving Secret Service agent John Barletta shared stories from his days protecting Ronald Reagan.

That evening, Bay Buchanan, who served as 37th treasurer of the United States during the Reagan administration, inspired the young audience with a speech on the importance of leadership.

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“There are a lot of people in the country that are discouraged…but when I meet you young people, I think there is no doubt in my mind that we are turning over this cause to some fine, strong individuals,” noted Buchanan.

The following morning, Foundation alumnus and writer Dr. Michael Waller shared stories from his days as an activist and the lessons he learned.

Following Dr. Waller’s remarks, Foundation staff members Spencer Brown, Amy Lutz, Emily Jashinsky, and Jolie Ballantyne led a panel discussion on campus activism and encouraged the high school students to stand up for their beliefs at their schools.

Foundation President Ron Robinson engages student Carter Anderson during his interactive discussion on the principles of conservatism.

High school students enjoy a behind-the-scenes tour of President Reagan’s ranch, including a stop in his tack barn, which houses much of his original riding gear.

Young people from around the country enjoy an afternoon at President Reagan’s Western White House during Young America’s Foundation’s fall High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch.

“I want to tell my liberal friends that there IS another side of the story…and YAF is it.”

— OliviA benAlcAzAr bAltimOre, mArYlAnd

The final afternoon featured Robert Spencer and Bruce Rottman. Spencer spoke on the threat of Islamic extremism while Rottman gave a primer on basic free market principles.

Foundation Vice President Patrick Coyle rounded out the conference with a presentation on how the students can apply the lessons they learned at the conference towards activism efforts at their schools.

Following the conference, student Olivia Benalcazar of Baltimore, Maryland, expressed her enthusiasm for all she learned throughout the weekend: “I want to tell my liberal friends that there IS another side of the story…and YAF is it.”

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Young

A me r i c a ’s

F o u n d a t i o n

2016 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Save These Dates!

Conference

Date

Location

YAF Chapter Training Seminar

January 29 and 30

Reston, VA

Freedom Conference — Nashville

February 12 and 13

Nashville, TN

High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch

March 17 to 19

Santa Barbara, CA

Standing Up for Faith & Freedom Seminar

April 8 and 9

Reston, VA

High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch

June 23 to 25

Santa Barbara, CA

National High School Leadership Conference

July 6 to 9

Chevy Chase, MD

National Conservative Student Conference*

July 25 to 30

Washington, D.C.

Summer High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch

August 11 to 13

Santa Barbara, CA

High School Conference at the Reagan Ranch

October 20 to 22

Santa Barbara, CA

Fall Conference*

November 11 and 12

Reston, VA

* For college students only

Additional Conferences to Be Announced!

For more information visit YAF.org or contact director of conferences Jolie Ballantyne at 800-USA-1776 or JBallantyne@YAF.org The Reagan Ranch Center • 217 State Street • Santa Barbara, California 93101 • 888-USA-1776 National Headquarters • 11480 Commerce Park Drive, Sixth Floor • Reston, Virginia 20191 • 800-USA-1776

www.yaf.org

The 2017

RON ROBINSON Join me and foremost conservative thought leaders for stimulating discussions on important issues facing this country aboard an exciting cruise to the Land Down Under!

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Exclusive Dinner with: • Tony Abbott 28th Prime Minister of Australia

Additional Speakers Will Include: • Ron Robinson • Cleta Mitchell • Michelle Easton • Governor George Allen • Susan Allen • Eric Hoplin

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Young America’s Foundation | Libertas magazine | www.yaf.org

NON PROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID HERNDON, VA PERMIT NO 6551

Winter 2016 Volume 37 • Number 1

National Headquarters 11480 Commerce Park Drive Sixth Floor Reston, Virginia 20191 800-USA-1776 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

S

kyler Roundtree (left), who serves as chairman of his conservative club at the University of Missouri, meets with Fox News’s Jesse Watters (right) during the leftist protests and anti-free speech demonstrations at Mizzou.