The Christian Science Monitor

The shifting politics of free speech in America

Counter protesters are held back by a line of Boston Police as attendees at the Free Speech rally on The Common leave the area Aug. 19 in Boston. The Boston Police kept rally attendees and counter protesters separated by barricades and police personnel.

The First Amendment again drew national attention this week as two high-profile right-wing personalities appeared at prestigious universities on separate coasts to denounce what they say is an attack on free speech at college campuses across the country.

On Sunday, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos addressed a crowd at the University of California, Berkeley’s historic Sproul Plaza. The 20-minute speech was a decidedly truncated version of the four-day “Free Speech Week” Mr. Yiannopoulos had been touting since his last scheduled appearance here was canceled in April. (According to reports, the necessary permits and fees were not filed this time.) Still, his presence drew dozens of counter-protesters who decried racism and white supremacy and whose shouts, Yiannopoulos later wrote on Facebook, “made it

'Card-carrying member of the ACLU'Role of courts and universities

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