Chalk and Awe

Chalk and Awe - WSJ:

If you find Donald Trump’s presidential campaign a source of pure despair, allow us to offer some mitigation. The campaign is having at least one salutary effect, as reported by the New York Times:

Students at several college campuses are clashing with their administrations and debating the limits of free speech after finding chalk messages voicing support for Donald J. Trump scrawled on campus property.

Last week [now the week before last], at Emory University in Atlanta, officials scrambled to respond to a student demonstration after roughly 100 messages were found on campus. The students felt that there was an anti-diversity subtext to the so-called chalking written on campus about Mr. Trump.

That description of the controversy illustrates the sheer insanity of 21st-century campus culture. An expression of support for a candidate is what is known in First Amendment law as “core political speech,” and there is no exception that permits censorship of any speech because it has “an anti-diversity subtext,” whatever that even means.

To be sure, Emory is a private institution, so that its administration is legally unconstrained by the First Amendment. But a regime of censorship runs counter to the Emory motto, Cor prudentis possidebit scientiam: “A wise heart seeks knowledge.” What does an unwise heart do? The Emory Wheel, a student newspaper, has the answer:

“I’m supposed to feel comfortable and safe [here],” one student said. “But this man [Trump] is being supported by students on our campus and our administration shows that they, by their silence, support it as well . . . I don’t deserve to feel afraid at my school,” she added.

But maybe this is, if you’ll pardon the expression, a teachable moment. Emory’s president, James Wagner, showed some spine in a meeting with the aggrieved students:

“What do we have to do for you to listen to us?” students asked Wagner directly, to which he asked, “What actions should I take?” One student asked if Emory would send out a University-wide email to “decry the support for this fascist, racist candidate” to which Wagner replied, “No, we will not.” One student clarified that “the University doesn’t have to say they don’t support Trump, but just to acknowledge that there are students on this campus who feel this way about what’s happening . . . to acknowledge all of us here.”

As the Times notes, Wagner eventually issued an equivocal official statement and an unequivocal unofficial one:

“As an academic community, we must value and encourage the expression of ideas, vigorous debate, speech, dissent and protest,” he wrote.” At the same time, our commitment to respect, civility and inclusion calls us to provide a safe environment that inspires and supports courageous inquiry.”

Mr. Wagner was then filmed scrawling a chalk message of his own: “Emory stands for free expression!”

“Thanks in large part to the Emory University students who pathetically panicked after seeing pro-Trump messages written in chalk on campus sidewalks, pro-Trump messages are now appearing on other college campuses,” the blog Legal Insurrection reported over the weekend. “The whole thing is going viral on Twitter under the hashtag #TheChalkening...”