Attorney General Jeff Sessions is encouraging students to protect speech on their college campuses, and issued a stern warning to those who attempt to suppress it.
“I hope students will push back, even in the classroom. Sometimes teachers are older and can bully in a classroom, a conservative student or a student who has a different viewpoint, liberal or conservative. I think proper, thoughtful objection from students can have an impact,” Sessions told the Washington Examiner at the Turning Point USA High School Leadership Summit on Tuesday.
He also added that students shouldn’t stand by when someone uses a heckler’s veto.
“We cannot allow perfectly legitimate speech or event on campus to be blocked because a few protesters are going to heckle and cause a disturbance. That’s a diminution of free speech. We cannot allow it.”
In addition to rallying students to protect speech on campus, Sessions argued that suppressing speech is un-American.
“These groups are not entitled to block Americans in their right to speak, debate, have an event, and express a contrary view,” he said. “They are not in the American tradition when they do so. They are not the voice of America.”
When asked if legal action could be taken against groups like Antifa, he said, “you could see something like that in the future,” but added he did not want to “speculate with legal certainty.”
Sessions also commented on free speech within private entities, noting that while it is a “complex” issue, “there’s certainly quite a bit of difference in the private right” of a company to control the speech of its employees and a public right to unabridged free speech on campus.
Under Sessions’ tenure, the Department of Justice has filed four statements of interest in campus free speech cases across the country, most recently at the University of Michigan.
