College life was once idealized as a place where students went to expand not only their intellectual knowledge and get an education that would hopefully lead to a good job, but also a place where people learned to think and had their ideas challenged, and their minds expanded.
Those who oppose democracy are the enemies of independent critical thinking. Would be authoritarians want compliance, not challenges.
In order for critical thinkers to be able to challenge their government, they need free speech rights under the First Amendment.
Trump has been attacking the First Amendment on college campuses since he returned to office.
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The scope and degree of Trump’s attacks have not been put together until Sen. Bernie Sanders released a new report on Wednesday.
Here are three examples of what Sen. Sanders found:
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A Trump-appointed District Court judge in Maryland found that the Trump administration “initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished.”
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A District Court judge in California held “the Administration and its executive agencies are engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”
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A District Court judge in Massachusetts noted that “core constitutional rights” are an “essential hedge against authoritarianism.” The judge warned, quoting George Washington, that “if freedom of speech is taken away, then ‘dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
The Sanders report also found that the Trump administration is trying to control higher education.
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