Some Speech Rights are More Equal than Others

A college newspaper, following in the footsteps of the tabloid New York Times, has fired a columnist for not complying with the paper’s, or its University’s, thoughtcrime avoidance requirements.

Syracuse University student Adrianna San Marco was fired from her gig as a columnist at a local paper, The Daily Orange, when she dismissed the notion of “institutional racism” in an opinion piece for a separate, conservative website.

And she wasn’t even writing for the ex-employing paper; her piece was published by LifeZette. Here’s Daily Orange Editor-in-Chief Casey Darnell:

We aren’t afraid of controversial views, but we have a responsibility to avoid promoting harmful ones. We don’t censor conservative columnists[.]

Not afraid? Yet he and his organization censored speech. If he doesn’t understand that, his journalism professors have failed him badly. If he doesn’t understand that suppressing speech is precisely the promotion of harm then Syracuse has failed him badly. His parents should demand their money back.

Syracuse University did not respond to a request for comment.

Of course not.