Slapp Pro Memo

Why do these authors say restrictions on students’ speech rights are a “step in the wrong direction”?

“Free Inquiry? Not on Campus” by John Leo is an important essay that shows exactly how important it is to protect people's political views and opinions. In Leo's essay, he elaborates how times have changed and how we live in more of a liberal left-wing society and because of this everyone has to be more politically correct. Leo talks about the social change universities and colleges on how they used to promote free speech, but now are more like the speech police telling us what's opinions you should have on any given subject and any other opinion is considered wrong. Leo gives an example of this and writes “in October 2007, for instance, a student mob stormed a Columbia University stage, shutting down speeches by two members of the Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group.The students shouted they have no right to

One of the most misinterpreted aspects of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the freedom of expression. Group organizations have misused this much too often. In the past, many extremist groups have misused this right to protect themselves. A great example is the Westboro Baptist Church. This church is one of the many groups across North America that uses the Charter to protect themselves. The Charter protects them even though their actions and messages are harmful and not beneficial to society. If the Charter was to recognize these groups as dangerous, they wouldn’t have the chance to misuse these freedoms. Also, the fact that if a Canadian citizen were to use the excuse of the freedom of expression to defend their actions, they wouldn’t

Canada). As shown by McGuinty’s secret meeting, this process lacks all the things mentioned above; therefore, I believe that McGuinty chose the wrong process to make this decision. The right process would have involved those that would be affected by this decision. Instead they were purposely kept in the dark, which eliminated the possibility of free speech.

In his book, Unlearning Liberty (2014) Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) asserts that violations of free speech— whether by students, faculty, or administration—will have devastating effects in greater society. Lukianoff supports his assertion by describing cases he has seen throughout his career at FIRE. From administration punishing students to professors getting fired for clearly protected speech. Lukianoff’s purpose is to point out the misguided lessons about freedom that are being taught on campus and to encourage his audience to stand up for freedom on campus. Lukianoff writes in an earnest tone to an audience who recognizes the importance of freedom in America society.

With the government’s public service force not being allowed to wear religious clothing, this right is being compromised. Workers who do wear religious clothing were being stripped of their freedom to practise their religion, and the PQ is thus in violation of another section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Additionally, section 2 clause (b) presents the freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression. This too is being dishonoured, as religious clothing is a form of expression of one’s beliefs, and the government was looking past this. While some may argue that Section 1 of the Charter declares that the Rights and Freedoms are set out with “reasonable limits” there is little reason in the argument presented by the PQ. These reasonable limits are why general public decency and dress codes are permitted, however, there is no reason to limit the wearing of religious

issue. For instance, the article “'It's not a coercive law, Quebec says amid criticism over face-

Detroit Board of Education, the court said “the non-union members cannot be required to pay any part of a dues assessment that would cover the union’s political or ideological activity, to which those workers may (and often do) object. Forcing them to do so, ....violate their First Amendment rights.” This precedent applied to non-members of union. In cases like Abood, the court decided that expression and getting into the process of opting-out of union means ‘speech’ under the constitution of first amendment. Friedrichs clearly expressed their speech through involve in the process of opting-out of union, so the precedent supports that public employees’ speech were protected by the first

To sum, the case is about an advertising the newspaper included some inaccurate story about the civic leaders, civil right events, and Sullivan. Sullivan (a public official) believed that the defamatory comments that were made of him were making a negative impact on his life, thus he sued the New York times. The court in Alabama at the time ruled “The law … implies legal injury from bare facts of publication itself, falsity and malice are presumed, general damages no need to presume.” Thus, the court from Alabama gave Sullivan a compensation of five hundred thousand dollars. New York times decided to take this case to the supreme court because they believe their 1st amendment rights were being violated. Therefore, a new question arose whether the first amendment protects defamatory, false statements concerning public officials? The court ruled that the 1st amendment does protect the publication of all statements, even false ones, concerning the conduct of a public official except when the statement was made with actual malice. Once again, we notice the irony of freedom of speech the issue is citizens are not informed that under the 1st amendment there is sufficient rights guarantee. It is not solely having the right to express our emotions towards the government, it is to expose information to citizens and have the citizens decided for themselves. Democracy does not work if the government or public official try to hide information from its citizens. Democracy function when there is a clear majority of press that expose the truth and allow people to determine what the issue is. Press must be able to protect us against an overreaching government. Sometimes executive power tries to control the press because they do not want to inform the truth about that for example the Watergates scandal, Edward Snowden, Wiki leaks and

“What an anti-SLAPP law is meant to provide relief from such SLAPP suits. The process is usually a person being sued motions to strike case for reasons that its involvement is with speech about a public concern.” “The plaintiff must then show

Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, everyone is guaranteed certain rights. One that stands out and is essential to our society is the fundamental freedom of expression. Anyone can speak their opinion in public. However, the government can in some instances limit these freedoms. The question that causes a lot of debate is in what instances can the government genuinely limit people’s rights while being justified in doing so. I believe the restrictions on speech in Canada are appropriate. I believe that the government was correct in not intervening with the debate between Mark Steyn and the Muslim petitioners because his article did not warrant enough to risk the safety of Muslims, and by coercing Maclean’s to post an opposing viewpoint would be a violation of their fundamental freedom of expression.

Free speech is the backbone that holds democracy together.  Without a free speech, ideas would not be challenged, governments would not be kept in check, and citizens would not be free.  John Stuart Mill said once that, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person then he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”( Roleff, 21). The right to free speech is essential to “egalitarian democracy,”(Tsesis) however, this right is not absolute and must be limited in certain situations.

One of the main issues is a student’s right to free speech. This was brought to everyone’s attention back in 1943 in

However, it could be argued that s.40 is in fact a double-edged sword as it does not necessarily protect freedom of speech. In fact, it creates a scenario where complainants can launch proceedings without fear of financial reprisals and this may result in ruinous effects pertinent to

On that note, we must ask ourselves this: how free is freedom of speech allowed to be? Free enough to voice an opinion but restraining