I will be very surprised if UNC pulls the sports programing from this network. I will also be very ashamed of them if they do. Carolina has strived to be a bastion of free speech even if the speech is unpopular. I vehemently denounce the comments made by Limbaugh, but he has a perfect right to express them. Pulling out from this network will set a bad precedent from which there is no return. Will the University now have to monitor the content of every station throughout the Tarheel Sports Network and approve of every comment or piece of music which is played? The University would then have to pull its games from any station that plays certain music which contains lyrics that are degrading to women. Any station that plays a Chris Brown song will have to be blackballed. This is a very slippery slope that the University would be treading on. I have never supported boycotts of any kind as I feel that is a coward's way to handle a problem. I believe this great University whose diploma I cherish will not buckle to special interests, but will stand for the right of all Americans to exercise their right of free speech without retribution.
Rush Limbaugh has a right to free speech. He doesn't have a right to be listened to, or the implied endorsement of a state university on a co-branded radio station bearing his name - "Rush Radio".
Susan Fluke has a right to free speech without being intimidated by the weight of Limbaugh's slander and infamy and 13 million listeners.
This is not about prior restraint, or a slippery slope. A misogynistic exhibitionist went over the invisible edge of decency.
In a 2008 letter to then UNC system President Erskine Bowles about a proposed hate speech code in response to racist grafitti in NC State's "free expression tunnel", the ACLU wrote:
As has already been evidenced by student responses to the statements, when hate is out in the open, people can see the problem. They can organize effectively to counter bad attitudes, possibly change them, and forge solidarity against the forces of intolerance. Further, while college administrators may find speech codes attractive as a quick fix, as one critic so aptly noted: "Verbal purity is not social change." We believe that codes that punish bigoted speech treat only the symptom. The problem itself is bigotry.
What you see is a response to Limbaugh's bigotry. Decent people do not have to stand and listen to it, and UNC does not have to be associated with it, especially when it impinges on a student's right to free speech without intimidation.
Comments
Head Rush
Sorry, couldn't get this image out of my head so I had to put it down on paper. UNC needs to get out of Rush Radio.
UNC Sports - Raleigh's home for Rush Limbaugh
Here's what you get when you Google UNC and WRDU
Free Speech is for Everyone.Not Just Those You Agree With.
I will be very surprised if UNC pulls the sports programing from this network. I will also be very ashamed of them if they do. Carolina has strived to be a bastion of free speech even if the speech is unpopular. I vehemently denounce the comments made by Limbaugh, but he has a perfect right to express them. Pulling out from this network will set a bad precedent from which there is no return. Will the University now have to monitor the content of every station throughout the Tarheel Sports Network and approve of every comment or piece of music which is played? The University would then have to pull its games from any station that plays certain music which contains lyrics that are degrading to women. Any station that plays a Chris Brown song will have to be blackballed. This is a very slippery slope that the University would be treading on. I have never supported boycotts of any kind as I feel that is a coward's way to handle a problem. I believe this great University whose diploma I cherish will not buckle to special interests, but will stand for the right of all Americans to exercise their right of free speech without retribution.
Thank you for demonstrating you have no idea what
...what subsidized speech means as compared to free speech.
So much irony, so little time.
Rush Limbaugh has a right to free speech. He doesn't have a right to be listened to, or the implied endorsement of a state university on a co-branded radio station bearing his name - "Rush Radio".
Susan Fluke has a right to free speech without being intimidated by the weight of Limbaugh's slander and infamy and 13 million listeners.
This is not about prior restraint, or a slippery slope. A misogynistic exhibitionist went over the invisible edge of decency.
In a 2008 letter to then UNC system President Erskine Bowles about a proposed hate speech code in response to racist grafitti in NC State's "free expression tunnel", the ACLU wrote:
What you see is a response to Limbaugh's bigotry. Decent people do not have to stand and listen to it, and UNC does not have to be associated with it, especially when it impinges on a student's right to free speech without intimidation.