A Clockwork Orange: Free Speech, Disneyland, ICE and Horny Ruskie Ladies

UCI SPEAK FREELY
Speak, debate, let what was said sink in, debate some more and form an educated opinion. This is what is supposed to happen on college campuses. But these days, someone captures video of the rough-and-tumble on a cellphone, edits it just tight enough to conform to the shooter’s world-view, then promptly posts it on social media to shame the speaker.

How we have arrived at where we have arrived at, and what to do about it, is the point of the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, which revealed its inaugural class of 10 fellows on Feb. 8. The fellows will spend a year researching timely, vital First Amendment issues, with a goal of developing tools, analyzing data and presenting lessons from history to be highlighted at a national conference later this year. Each will reside for a week at one of the 10 UC campuses to engage with students, faculty, administrators and community members.

The California legislature last summer passed Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 21, which urged state colleges and universities to adopt free speech statements consistent with the principles UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman articulated in a 2016 campus policy statement. When UC President Janet Napolitano launched the center last October, she appointed as its advisory board co-chairmen Gillman, a leading constitutional scholar, and Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean of the UCI School of Law, the current dean of UC Berkeley’s law school and a respected constitutional law scholar himself. Gillman and Chemerinsky co-authored Free Speech On Campus, hailed as a primer on the complex subject.

Other board members include: former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), former U.S. Secretary of Education and CEO of the Education Trust John King, Facebook strategic communications director Anne Kornblut, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, Washington Post columnist George Will and National Public Radio White House correspondent Tamara Keith.

With Gillman charged with overseeing the administration of the center, “UCI becomes a command post for the study of free speech,” boasts a university press release that also notes that among its chancellor’s first duties is searching for an executive director.

“Freedom of expression is the indispensable element in all our other rights in this country,” says Chemerinsky in the release. “Today’s students are rightly concerned about hate speech, bullying and polarization. We can and must educate them and ourselves about free speech and civil discourse. It is essential to democratic government and our future.”

WILL DISNEYLAND BECOME THE HAPPIEST HOMELESS SHELTER ON EARTH?
The answer to that question, in your best Mickey Mouse voice, is “righty-oh”—if online petitioners get their way. A Care2 petition asks Anaheim’s Magic Kingdom to provide shelter for the hundreds of homeless whose encampments have been targeted for destruction by the county.

“Those who have signed the Care2 petition are asking Disneyland to step up and help its community, since it clearly has the means to do so,” states Rebecca Gerber, Care2’s senior director of engagement, in an email. “Disney could make a real impact by providing shelter in one of its hotels or donating money for shelter.”

Orange County has a shortage of beds for those who would be forced out of the makeshift camps, according to the ACLU, which is among the nonprofits that have so far successfully used the courts to keep the homeless in the riverbed.

As of Feb. 12, Gerber’s petition had 16,262 signatures toward a goal of 17,000. Disneyland, which has not commented on the petition, did just reveal it is raising prices for single-day tickets and season passes.

“Homelessness is right on Disney’s doorstep, and Disney has built its brand on magic,” Gerber says. “What’s more magical than manifesting help in the face of hardship?”

COLD AS ICE
Long before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) got a tool to access license-plate-reader information, the police departments of Orange, Tustin, Anaheim and Fountain Valley were already supplying that data to the federal agency.

That’s in a recent Electronic Frontier Foundation report on cop shops in at least 14 California cities sharing the plate info with ICE for years. No need anymore: ICE recently struck a deal with Livermore-based Vigilant Solutions to obtain the data directly.

SHIT PEOPLE SEND US
Here’s a little inside baseball: Emails addressed to

oc*********@oc******.com











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