They accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it.
? Nelba Blandon, Nicaraguan Interior Ministry Director of Censorship in 1984, referring to La Prensa

UNCW Prof. Mike Adams has an excellent column on a very important victory for free speech and assembly at UNC-Greensboro and the role of freedom-minded students and also our own Pope Center for Higher Education Polcy in bringing that victory about. Before the victory, however, UNCG nearly exhausted their tyrannical toolbag of tricks in trying to convict students who held a peaceful protest against the school’s idiotic “Free Speech Zones” outside *gasp!* the FSZ’s. Adams recounts their efforts:

When the UNCG protestors held up signs saying ?UNCG Hates Free Speech? they were protesting a ?free speech zone? policy that any seventeen-year-old taking high school civics would recognize as unconstitutional. Of the 200 acres on the UNCG campus, only two small areas are designated as ?free speech zones? ? areas designed to accommodate the expressive activities of 15,000 students.

What happened after the protest was predictable. UNCG issued ?citations for disrespect? to the students which, in effect, sent the following message: UNCG students are not allowed to freely speak if they are going to say that UNCG hates free speech. …

Jaynes and Sinnott … were charged with ?violation of respect? – for refusing to follow the administration?s order to move to a free speech zone …. The UNCG student attorney general told Sinnott and Jaynes that neither could take any notes out of the hearing with them or even talk about the hearing with anyone else after the fact-basically imposing a complete ?gag order.? In other words, they were asked to destroy any evidence of whatever constitutes ? or does not constitute – ?due process? at UNCG. …

UNCG dropped the ?speech zone? charges against the two students the week before the trials and, instead, substituted a new charge. The new charge was for violating a direct order by not turning over the contact information of every single person at the protest. …

By all means, read the whole thing.