…. is from Betsy DeVos’s speech at the Independent Women’s Forum Annual Awards Gala last night:

Punishing speech protected by the First Amendment trivializes actual harassment. Harassment codes which trample freedom of speech derail the primary mission of a school—of learning… that is, to pursue truth. Sadly, students are often told there is no such thing as truth. Acknowledging it means certain feelings or certain ideas could be wrong. Too many institutions of higher learning come down on the wrong side of all that.

I think of the University of Michigan which established a “Bias Response Team.” The campus cops had the power to investigate students for incidents of “bias” and hurt feelings at the expense of free speech. And it wasn’t until a Circuit Court ordered the Team to be disbanded that the school agreed to never again revive its speech police and un-Constitutional harassment codes.

And although they did eliminate the Bias Response Team, in Ann Arbor alone, the school still employs 76 diversity-related administrators who cost taxpayers and students more than 10 million dollars in compensation every year. They focus on every kind of diversity except a diversity of ideas. And the University of Michigan isn’t alone. More than 200 other colleges and universities still have teams of speech bullies with the power to punish perpetrators of hurt feelings.

Feelings are important, but learning isn’t about feelings. It’s about thinking. And it’s a willingness to engage with any and all ideas—even ones with which you disagree or ones that aren’t your own. This Administration won’t let students be silenced. We stand with their right to speak and with their right to learn truth. Truth can be pursued, and it can be known. Students of all ages need the freedom to seek it.

MP: Actually, there are more than 80 “diversicrats” at the University of Michigan, see the table above. And that was for last year, I’m sure there are more now, and I’ll update the army of UM diversicrats next month when the 2019-2020 job titles and staff salaries are released.

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