{"id":2670,"date":"2017-05-14T02:52:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-14T06:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=2670"},"modified":"2017-05-14T02:54:52","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T06:54:52","slug":"commencement-speeches-have-nothing-to-do-with-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/commencement-speeches-have-nothing-to-do-with-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Speeches Have Nothing To Do With Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s that special time of year when protests erupt over commencement speakers at various colleges and universities around the country.\u00a0 Then editorial writers and talking heads blather endlessly about the subject, and comment sections on web sites erupt in abuse and foolishness.<\/p>\n

\"2014-09-30-talkingheads\"<\/a>I\u2019ve watched the yearly uproar about commencement speakers being invited (or uninvited) with disappointment.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the discussion is consistently off base.<\/p>\n

One thread that comes up over and over is that students protesting a speaker\u2019s invitation interfere with free speech. That\u2019s just idiotic, and completely misunderstands the Bill of Rights.\u00a0 Someone like Dick Cheney, for instance, is free to speak about his beliefs, his past, his hopes and dreams, his view of foreign affairs, whatever he likes anywhere he wants to.\u00a0 And he does. He\u2019s a public figure and can appear on TV talk shows, can publish Op Ed pieces, blogs, essays and books.<\/p>\n

But the First Amendment says nothing about people who are invited to speak somewhere and are paid to do so.\u00a0 It specifically refers to government intervention in individual expression.\u00a0 That\u2019s just not the case where a speaker proves controversial and campus protests arise.<\/p>\n

Just as foolish as invoking \u201cfree speech\u201d: the noxious moralizing about how students should be open to a free expression of ideas.\u00a0 The Washington Post <\/a>editorial board hasn\u2019t been alone in taking that tack, but are they for real? After four years of college, you don\u2019t want a lecture in the middle of a grueling, dull, long ceremony in the heat\u2013and you shouldn\u2019t get one.\u00a0 Some schools even have two speakers from opposite political sides of a question to \u201cpromote open discussion.\u201d\u00a0 What a joke!<\/p>\n

\"graduates_1\"<\/a>Commencement speeches aren\u2019t seminars or workshops with Q&A.\u00a0 They\u2019re supposed to be inspiring and entertaining.\u00a0 Funny, if possible.\u00a0 They\u2019re throwaway, forgettable, a moment\u2019s ornament as Edith Wharton put it in another context.\u00a0 And that\u2019s okay, because graduation is about transitions, about moving on, about celebration.\u00a0 The ceremony isn\u2019t an intellectual milestone for anyone involved. It\u2019s not meant to go down in history, and the speaker sure isn\u2019t Moses coming down from the mountain top.<\/p>\n

Academic freedom doesn\u2019t suffer and nobody\u2019s rights are interfered with if someone gets invited at a very hefty fee to speak to a graduating class of students, and is suddenly uninvited.\u00a0 Free exchange of ideas?\u00a0 What a laugh. The only exchange is the speech the speaker gives and the check that speaker leaves with or gets in the mail.<\/p>\n

\"colbert\"<\/a>Lev Raphael is the author of the suspense novel Assault With a Deadly Lie<\/em><\/a> and 24 other books in many genres which you can find on Amazon<\/a> and Barnes & Noble<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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