The following link is to an article by Ken Connor titled It May Be 2008 at Home, But in the Academy It's 1984:

Townhall.com::It May Be 2008 at Home, But in the Academy It's 1984::By Ken Connor

This excerpt from the article reveals an assault on free speech —— not coming from government but coming from the education industry:

In our postmodern world, however, many scholars are learning the hard way that "academic freedom" has become an Orwellian term meaning "academic tyranny." Today, in the academy, one is free only to advance notions that are consonant with the prevailing politically correct
orthodoxy. Challenges to that orthodoxy are often met with denials of tenure, refusals to renew contracts, or expulsion.

Nowhere is this more evident than when the notion of Darwinian Evolution is questioned. And nowhere are the limitations of academic freedom more in evidence than in the debate overIntelligent Design.

Academia’s assault on speech is twofold:

1. Free speech is not only prohibited —— the thought police punishes offenders.

2. Politically correct speech is demanded —— and rewarded.

In the real world it is offensive speech that requires the most protection not kissy-kissy, touchy-feely, sermons. That basic truth should apply to the classroom even more than it applies elsewhere.

Once again, Socialists are hellbent on silencing opposition while forcing their own message on everyone. And, as always, Socialists use tax dollars to promote their religion. Everything related to restricting speech in the classroom is being supported by tax dollars.

Is it possible to make academic censorship a First Amendment issue? It should —— so long as tax dollars are involved. Obviously, those folks in state and federal government who collect and spend our tax dollars agree with limiting speech, as well as encouraging politically correct speech. Were that not true they would deny all funding to higher education for starters.

The things you cannot say, and the things you must say, is clearly an evolutionary step in America’s culture. In the past, the opponents of free speech confined their attacks on free speech to silencing it. Go back to Oliver Wendell Holmes and come forward and you’ll see that until recently no one was required to listen. The long-running debate used to be about shutting people up. Nowadays, it’s about making them listen as much as it is about shutting them up.

The following background info about the most famous free speech issue in America’s history was taken from Wikipedia:

“Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is an expression that misquotes Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, but is used anyway by lawyers and politicians to express the limits upon which free speech may be
expressed under the terms of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Holmes, writing for a unanimous majority, ruled that it was illegal to distribute fliers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war. Holmes wrote:

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they
will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. Holmes wrote of falsely shouting fire, because, of course, if there were a fire in a crowded theater, one may indeed shout "Fire!". Falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, i.e. shouting "Fire!" when one believes there to be no fire, this lying speech in order to cause panic is not protected by the First Amendment.”

Schenck was later overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which ruled that speech could only be banned when it was directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot), the test which remains until this day. Some now see the Schenck argument to be mistaken, contending that pamphleteer was more like yelling fire outside a building to prevent people from entering than it was trying to encourage people to stampede out.

Despite Schenck being overturned, the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has since come to be known as synonymous with an action that the speaker believes goes beyond the rights guaranteed by free speech, reckless or malicious speech, or an action whose outcomes are blatantly obvious.

Justice Holmes never addresses how free speech traveled from the year 1791 to the year 1919 without his opinion guiding the country. To me, “free speech” is absolute, or at least it should be. If an individual’s constitutional Rights are not as absolute as the government’s Rights, the individual has no Rights at all. At best, the individual’s constitutional Rights are nothing more than lawyers’ laws dressed up to look prettier than they actually are.

It is a bit of a stretch to say that falsely yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater would cause thinking humans to rush to the exits trampling one another. Since the “Fire!” ruling was overturned, I have not heard that millions of American theatergoers were trampled to death every year.

And what protected theatergoers before 1919?

My perception of the “Fire” restraint on free speech is that political free speech would remain absolute, but not all speech would be so blessed. At least that is what the High Court seemed to be saying at the time. That one prohibition appeared to be reasonable on the face of it, but now political free speech is no longer absolute; right along with the other kind. Would the Nifty Nine from a bygone era have made that pronouncement had they known that, intelligent design, campaign finance reform, and politically correct speech would follow? It is impossible to say.

According to the experts, the High Court was supposed to throw out Campaign Finance Reform. The Court failed to do that. That made a lot of legal scholars look less than expert. Since the experts had it wrong, you have to wonder what the High Court will do about enforcing censorship in TAX DOLLAR FUNDED academia should the Court ever accept such a case?

One unshakable fact about speech: All speech, by its very nature, is most closely related to “Let the buyer beware.”

Incidentally, how many times did the words “limited speech” appear in print, commentaries, High Court decisions, etc., prior to 1919? How many times did James Madison use those words?

It is no secret that all governments just love protecting meaningless speech, while all governments claim the absolute Right to define “clear and present danger.” In every form of government “Do not falsely shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” becomes “Do not shout ‘Fire!’ in an empty theater.” Then it becomes “Do not shout ‘Fire!’” And finally “Do not speak at all.”

One unavoidable truth pertaining to free speech doublespeak: Absolute is always absolute.

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Flanders

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible. Eric Hoffer