Outrage swirled among liberal commentators after Senate Republicans voted to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren for impugning the motives of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions in a floor speech Monday night.
Warren herself seized upon the opportunity, theatrically taking to Facebook Live to finish the letter from Coretta Scott King she had been reading when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell interrupted her speech, racking up more than 7 million views in less than 24 hours.
Before long, the hashtags #LetLizSpeak and #ShePersisted were trending on Twitter, inviting dramatic comparisons between Warren and icons of American history like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman.
The Left was so deeply incensed by the silencing of Warren, it is only fair to question why this impulse to defend the sanctity of free expression is absent when conservatives are routinely subject to silencing every day on college campuses.
The Senate, of course, is not a university classroom. And nobody is arguing that Warren’s free speech rights were violated. But the Left’s immediate reflex to rally around an individual facing censorship is notable for its conspicuous absence when non-liberals are targeted.
In fact, it is more than fair to assume that many of the most notorious censors on our nation’s campuses are now eagerly registering their indignation over the comparatively trivial silencing of Warren.
Many on the Left charged Republicans with sexism over the dust-up. California Senator Kamala Harris responded, “By silencing Elizabeth Warren, the GOP gave women around the world a rallying cry.” The Hill noted that the phrase “She persisted,” has already been turned into a “rallying cry” of the women’s movement.
Where was this activism when Rutgers faculty members urged the school to cancel a commencement speech by Condoleeza Rice, the first black woman to serve as secretary of state, in 2014?
In America, it bothers us when people are not able to express themselves, regardless of their political beliefs.
Or at least it used to.
If progressives devoted one ounce of the energy to protecting and preserving free speech on college campuses that it has devoted to supporting Elizabeth Warren in the past 24 hours, higher education would be greatly improved.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
