[443] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
free speech...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aram Harrow)
Tue May 1 21:58:07 2001
Message-Id: <200105020157.VAA16535@mint-square.mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU, yegg@alum.MIT.EDU, alsmith@MIT.EDU
From: "Aram Harrow" <aram@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 21:57:43 -0400
...seems to be remarkably difficult for people to think about
clearly. usually when i see the phrase on this list, it means that
the poster is about to "speak freely" without factual constraints.
1. the first amendment begins with the phrase "Congress shall make no
law..." actors that this prevents from curtailing your speech
rights include: the federal government, state and local governments
and public universities. actors that this does _not_ prevent from
restricting your speech include: corporations, private universities
and fellow members of mailing lists. one cannot argue that the ATO
members have any legal or constitutional right to free speech, only
that government has no right to abridge their speech. an extensive
discussion may be found at:
http://www.splc.org/resources/private.school/private.html
the summary is that the only relevant checks on MIT conduct come
from contract law and MIT documents like student handbooks. i
very much doubt that this will become an issue.
2. re: harassing extropians and pro-lifers. this is the very reason
that free speech is supposed to exist! rather than having the
government suppress views that we don't agree with, the marketplace
of ideas is supposed to reject them, in part by vehemently
disagreeing with them. admittedly the notion of a "marketplace of
ideas" is seriously flawed because of its inability to account for
unequal power relations (i.e. secretaries need protection from
being propositioned - their bosses don't). however, making SUV
drivers feel guilty and writing thousands of harassing letters to
apartheid south africa are what free speech is all about. if
pro-lifers can show teenage girls pictures of aborted fetuses, then
i should be able to wave around bloody coat-hangers until they have
difficulty appearing in public. and making fun of (all two of the)
extropians (who enjoyed academic rigor so much that they spent 7+
years here) is one of the few unifying activities that MIT has.
hmm. a little low on the MIT content. this listserv should be
moderated, so garbage like this wouldn't infringe on 333 brains.
tant pis...
-aram
p.s. i just saw this in an email:
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
i haven't read it, but am still willing to take bets on how much that
document is affected by "free speech" or "first amendment" concerns.
