Attacks on free speech by the right at UNC-Chapel Hill

Since Tom Tancredo's speech at UNC was interrupted April 18th, there has been a lot of hand wringing about the preservation of free speech there and at other Triangle universities. Speakers have faced a hot reception at UNC before, and it isn't clear from the news reports that any group planned to stop Tancredo's speech, only protest and ask pointed questions.  From the reports, it sounds like the police cancelled the event because they were afraid something would happen after someone broke a window somewhere in Bingham Hall.  Some use that incident to attack UNC Students for a Democratic Society, liberals, or the left.  But rightists at UNC and in the general area have been violating leftist free speech in a quieter way for years.  Maybe the culprits are Clintonian liberals, but that seems unlikely. 

 

Someone steals leftist newspapers and vandalizes racks and boxes, especially near the Pit.  Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the papers were just especially popular that week or dumped, but it is obvious what is happening when a very large stack of papers vanishes in days, while a smaller stack used to last for a month, or when all of the papers are pushed into the bottom of a box.  This happens most weeks.  Earlier this year Triangle Free Press issues were being replaced every week with the rightist student magazine Carolina Review, but the editor at the time denied that his group was doing it and the provocation eventually stopped.  The rack had been put there by TFP, but twice the sign was ripped off.  At least occasionally Independent Weekly boxes are vandalized and possibly Alliance! issues were stolen when there was a rack at Davis Library.  Whoever is doing it is busiest during the spring and fall semesters and gone for most of the summer, and this has been going on for about four years.  Dumping newspapers is an attempt to prevent the public from hearing views, with the same result as preventing speech, except that the public knows when a speaker is censored.  

 

The wider community also has its rightist censors, but they are less diligent than those at UNC.  In town the windows on TFP boxes are sometimes kicked in.  It is a political attack or just disrespect of other papers when one paper covers another in marked spaces in Chapel Hill's public newspaper kiosks and at venues like libraries. 

 

It must also be political when flyers vanish.  A few years ago, and possibly today too, left political flyers disappear faster than other flyers in some places, particularly in Philips Hall (housing the mathematics and physics/astronomy departments) and on the public bulletin boards along Franklin Street. 

 

Those who blame the left must admit that individuals or groups on the right are guilty of denying free speech here and now.  The dependably bourgeois Daily Tar Heel knows what is going on, and its silence abets right and liberal attacks on the left, but that is to be expected from the right-leaning DTH. 

 

I respect the right to free speech and have never dumped rightist papers or flyers.  I generally don't consider it useful to vandalize rightist political expression or drive off speakers.  The rightist vandals and thieves need to stop if they don't want to be caught or cause escalation.  There is probably not an organized intimidation campaign, but those responsible are regular enough to be a drain on resources, though they have failed to stop anyone's speech.  Don't let them succeed - if you see someone clearly robbing or vandalizing a newspaper box, stop them or call the police, and let the paper's staff know about it.  Freedom of expression only exists if it is used and defended by the people themselves, not if it is left to the 'charity' of the government and civil rights lawyers.