Free Speech Rights Quotes
In 1897 one of the most contentious political issues in America was that of “free silver”—allowing silver to back American currency as well as gold. The country’s economy could not grow because more currency could not be issued for want of gold to back it. Meanwhile, the U. S. had a great deal of silver. William Jennings Bryant {640992} and the Democrats {591769} advocated free silver, and the Republicans fought to maintain the gold standard. The president of the very conservative Brown University advocated free silver to the shock of the trustees. They sent Andrews a letter asking him not to speak publicly on the subject as it would jeopardize donations and endowments. Andrews resigned. The incident caused a national furor about academic freedom with the public and most of the alumni siding with Andrews. He rescinded his resignation but was pushed out the following year. Later, the trustees named a building after him.
Many Turks deny that there was a genocide and claim that the Armenians were conspiring with the Turkish Russian enemies. In order to stop the public discussion of the subject, they went to a local court and got a judge to rule that they could not use a public university for such a controversial subject. The Prime Minister and other Turkish leaders were outraged. Quickly a private university offered to provide the facility for the event with the original participants still involved. However Erdogan has had two political faces in his career—one as a moderate reformer where freedom of speech was values, and the other as the head of an Islamic political party where Islamic law makes some kinds of speech a capital crime (Heresy and blasphemy).
