Jeff Sessions: 'Freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack'

WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration remains embroiled in a debate about the right to free expression among professional athletes, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took the debate to college campuses Tuesday, declaring that “freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack.”

“The American university was once the center of academic freedom — a place of robust debate, a forum for the competition of ideas,” Sessions said in address at Georgetown University’s Law Center. “But it is transforming into an echo chamber of political correctness and homogenous thought, a shelter for fragile egos.”

Referring to a survey of 450 colleges and universities by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Sessions said that 40% “maintain speech codes that substantially infringe on constitutionally protected speech.”

“But who decides what is offensive and what is acceptable?” Sessions said. “The university is about the search for truth, not the imposition of truth by a government censor. Speech and civility codes violate what the late Justice Antonin Scalia rightly called ‘the first axiom of the First Amendment,’ which is that, as a general rule, the state has no power to ban speech on the basis of its content.”

The attorney general continued: “In this great land, the government does not get to tell you what to think or what to say.” 

Sessions’ speech here comes just days after President Trump excoriated professional football players who engaged in individual protests during the national anthem in support of social justice causes. 

The criticism prompted athletes in all professional sports to lash back at Trump, with many NFL football teams staging their own protests Sunday.

While Sessions talked of robust support for free speech, he joined President Trump in his rebuke of professional football players who have demonstrated during the national anthem.

“The president has free speech rights, too,” Sessions said in a question and answer period following the speech.

“He sends soldiers out every day under the flag to defend their rights… I would condemn their actions,” he said, adding that the demonstrations wrongly “denigrated our political symbols.”

Sessions appearance here also drew protests from students, dozens of whom assembled on the steps of the law center, asserting that they had been denied entry.

“We were uninvited,” said Amber Smith, a third-year law student and protest leader. “We are deeply disappointed in Georgetown Law.” 

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