Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at Georgetown Law this week. Though he spoke about free speech via invitation from Professor Randy Barnett, his presence was not entirely welcome; several students and faculty protested the event. Though the protesters claimed to be frustrated with Sessions’ speech because they claim he actually supports hate speech, it’s unclear where they get that idea. It is clear they only support free speech for a few select groups and under certain circumstances — which isn’t supporting free speech at all — and exactly Sessions’ point during his own speech.
In his speech, Sessions gave several examples of students’ free speech rights in jeopardy, specifically an incident where college students were arrested handing out copies of the Constitution. He said the Justice Department was supporting a group of Christian students who hadn’t been able to express their religious beliefs freely on a college campus in Georgia. Sessions told students to stand up for everyone’s free speech rights, but to abstain from violence or protecting violence.
Barnett asked Sessions a question a student submitted about the recent NFL debacle. “As attorney general, does it concern you that these players are being condemned by many, including the president, for exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and protest?” Sessions replied, “The president has free speech rights, too. The players aren’t subject to any prosecution, but if they take a provocative act they can expect to be condemned. And the president has the right to condemn them.”
The most interesting aspect of this entire event wasn’t what Sessions said about protecting free speech but the folks on the campus who showed up to “take a knee” to protest, claiming Sessions doesn’t always protect free speech.
Georgetown Law faculty arrives to take a knee in protest of Sessions’ appearance on campus. pic.twitter.com/aOEaUgAQAJ
— Will Racke (@hwillracke) September 26, 2017
One woman with a bullhorn said, “He has proven himself over and over again as against free speech, against justice, and today we take a knee.” It’s true sometimes some groups appear to lose their free speech rights, but it’s not the NFL players with whom these protesters kneeled in solidarity. It’s often Christians, or Christian groups, who seem to be most at risk of losing their First Amendment rights.
For example, this high school football coach took a knee in prayer following a game, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that was not constitutional. “When Kennedy kneeled and prayed on the fifty-yard line immediately after games while in view of students and parents, he spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected,” the 9th Circuit wrote.
Even the DOJ has failed to protect the free speech rights of several churches in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Trump, a complex case involving the Johnson Amendment and a churches’ right to express themselves without fearing they will lose their tax-exempt status.
So while one could see the case for the DOJ or Sessions failing to protect all free speech rights equally, that doesn’t appear to apply to anyone but Christians anyway — and protesters weren’t protesting that. They were protesting on behalf of a bunch of rich, whiny NFL players who don’t want to stand for their national anthem because they are entitled and have lost perspective (and also, #woke).
I’d stand in solidarity with protesters arguing Sessions is unfair too if they were applying this logic to all groups, particularly people of faith. But since even the protesters care to protect certain kinds of free speech, while their own attorney general is giving a speech about “free speech,” even that’s a special kind of irony. One that should be ignored.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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