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Gregory S. Baylor: A report from FIRE?s Campus Freedom Network Conference

By Alliance Alert

ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing at Speak Up Movement / University: "Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending a conference sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's Campus Freedom Network. Along with Greg Lukianoff (FIRE?s President), Adam Kissel (the Director of FIRE?s Individual Rights Defense Program), and Professor Daphne Patai (a member of FIRE?s board of directors), I participated in a panel discussion entitled, "The Philosophical and Practical Underpinnings of Academic Liberty." ... In my prepared remarks, I observed that utilitarian rationales are not the only ethical arguments for free speech ? one can make 'deontological' claims as well. People are entitled to speak and people are entitled to receive information, whether or not the effects of the expression are desirable. These entitlements can be called 'rights,' and thinkers differ on where these rights come from. I believe that people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to liberty ? which includes the right to free speech. To be sure, many today reject the claim that rights come from God, but this conception of rights animated the thinking of the Framers."

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on July 21, 2010 (boomark / email).