It is a great honor to be at georgetown law, and the Georgetown Center for constitution where the exchange of ideas is indeed welcome and encouraged. And thank you for hosting me with to these students today. And i thank you students for allowing me to be a part of a National Conversation with you. As you embark on another school year, you and hundreds of your peers across the campus we hope will continue the inteelectric chul journey that is higher education. I love my education experience so much and i suspect you do too. You will discover new areas of knowledge. You will engage in debates, great and small, and many of the views you have will be challenged and some of your views may even change. Uill if your institution followur nations historic and Cultural Education traditions pursue truth while growing in mind and spirit. In short, we hope that you will take part in the right of every american, free, robust, sometimes contentious exchanges of ideas. As you exercise these rights, realize how precious, how rare, and how fragile they are. In most societies throughout history and in so many that i have had an opportunity to visit as a member of the Armed Services committee to some of the most difficult places on the globe such rights do not exist, in these places, openly criticizing the government or prexzing unorthodox opinions that lands you in jail or worse. So let me tell you about one example that occurred one autumn when a few idealist University Students came together as a group to advocate for a felt political need, wanting to recruit others to their cause, they staked out some ground on a campus walkway popular with students and approached them as they passed. They said things like do you like freedom . Do you like liberty . And then they offered these passerbies a document that they revered and believed represented these ideals the United States constitution. These young proselytizers for liberty did not block the walkway, did not disrupt surrounding activities, did not use intimidation or violence to further their cause. Nevertheless, a Government Official lab eled this behavior as provocative and in violation of government policy. And when the young people bravely refused to stop, citing their right to free speech, the local official had them arrested, handcuffed, and jailed. This troubling incident could have occurred on any number of tyranny where is the bedrock american ideals of freedom and thought and speech have no foothold whatsoever. But this incident happened right here in the United States just last year at a Public College in battle creek, michigan. A state official actually had students jailed for handing out copies of the United States constitution. Freedom of thought and speech on american campus are under attack. The American University was once the senter of academic freedom, a place of robust debate, a forp um for the competition of ideas, but it is transforming into an echo chamber of Political Correctness and homogeneous thought, a shelter for fragile egos. In 2017, the foundation for individual rights in education surveyed 450 colleges and universities across the country and found that 40 maintained speech codes that substantially infringed on constitutionally protected speech. Of the Public Colleges surveyed, which are bound by the First Amendment, fully onethird had written policies banning disfavored speech. For example, at Florida State university in idaho, the student code of conduct prohibits, quote, conduct that a reasonable person would find offensive, close quote. At clemson university, the student code of conduct bans any verbal or physical act that create, quote, an offensive educational work or living environment, close quote. But who decides what is offensive and what is acceptable . The university is about to search for truth. Not the itch situatimposition o truth by a government sensor. Speech and civility codes often violate what Antonin Scalia rightly called, quote, the first axiom of the First Amendment, which is that, quote, as a general rule, the state has no power to ban speech on the basis of content. In this great land, the government does not tell you what to think or what to say. In addition to written speech codes, many colleges now dane to tolerate free speech. Only in certain geographically limited free speech zones. For example, a student recently filed suit against Pierce College in California Public school alleging that it prohibited him from distributing spanishlanguage copies of the United States constitution outside the schools free speech zone. The size of the free speech zone . 616 square feet. Barely the size of two dorm rooms. These cramped zones are eerily familiar to what the Supreme Court warned against in the seminal 1969 case of tinker versus des moines, a case about student speech. It said, freedom of expression would not truly exist if the right could be exercised only in an area that a benevolent government has provided as a safe haven. College administrations administrators have also silenced speech by permitting the hekkcklers veto to control o gets to speak and what messages are conveyed. This these instances, administrators discourage or prohibit speech if there is eve an threat that it will be fete meth by protest. In other words, the school favors the hecklers disrupt tich tactics over the speakers First Amendment rights. These administrators have seemed to forget that as the Supreme Court put it in watson versus city of memphis more than 50 years ago, Constitutional Rights may not be denied simply because of hostility to the assertion of their exercise. This permissible attitude toward the hecklers veto has spawned a Cottage Industry of protesters who have learned that School Administrators often will capitulate to their demands. Protesters are now routinely shutting down speeches and debates across the country in an effort to silence voices that insufficiently conform to their views. A frightening example occurred at middlebury college. Student protesters violently shut down a debate between an invited speaker and one of the schools own professors. As soon as the event began, the protesters shouted for 20 minutes, preventing the debate from occurring. When the debaters then attempted to move to a private broadcasting location, the protesters, many wearing masks, a common tactic used by the detestable ku klux klan, pulled fire alarms, surrounded the speakers, and began physically assaulting them. In short, middlebury students engaged in a violent riot to ensure that neither they nor their fellow students would hear speech that they may have disagreed with. Indeed, the crackdown on speech crosses creeds, races, issues, and religions. At brown university, a speech to promote transgender rights was canceled after students protested because a jewish group cosponsored the lecture. Virginia tech disembodied an africanamerican speaker because he had written on race issues and they worried about protests disrupting the event. So this is not right. This is not the great tradition of america, and yet School Administrators have bent to this behavior. The effect is to coddle and encourage. Just over a week ago, after the orwelliannamed antifascist protesters had successfully shut down numerous campus speaker vents in recent months with violent rights, berkeley was reportedly forced to spend 600,000 and have an overwhelming Police Presence to simply prove that the mob was not in control of their campus. A home of free speech. In advance, the school offered counseling in advance of this speech. They offered counseling to any students or faculty whose sense of safety or belonging was threatened by a speech from ben shapiro, a 33yearold harvardtrained lawyer who has frequently been targeted by antisemites for his jewish faith and who vigorously cond n condemns hate speech from the left or the right. Well, in the end, mr. Shapiro spoke to a packed house and to my knowledge no one fainted, no one was unsafe, no one needed counseling. I hope. Yet after this small victory for free speech, a student speaking to a reporter said in reaction, i dont think berkeley should host any controversial speakers on either side. That perhaps would be the worst lesson to draw from that ep sod, i firmly believe. I know that the vast majority of students like you at the Constitution Center need no lecture on the dangers of government imposed group think. But we have seen a rash of incidents often perpetrated by small groups of those students and professors unable or unwilling to defend their own beliefs in the public forum. Unfortunately, their acts, these trends have been tom rated by administrators and shrugged off by other students. So let us directly address the question, why should we worry about free speech that may be in retreat on our universities . Of course for publicly run institutions the easy answer is that is upholding free speech rights is not an option. But an unshakeable requirement of the First Amendment. As Justice Robert jackson once explained, quote, if there is a fixed star in our constellation in our institutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion. But even setting aside the law, the more fundamental issue is that the university is supposed to be a place where we train virtuous citizens. Its where the next jen rag gen of americans are equipped to tribu contribute to a free society filled with many often contrary voices. Our legal heritage thought that reason and knowledge produced the closest approximatation of truth and from may, hopefully often arises justice. But reason requires discourse and frequently argument and that is why the free speech guarantee is fond not just in the First Amendment but it permeates our institutions, our traditions, and our constitution in this free unique exceptional land. A jury trial, the right to crossexamine witnesses, the speech and debate clause, the very art and practice of lawyering, all of these are rooted in the idea that speech, reason, and confrontation are the very bedrock of a good society. In fact, these practices are designed to ascertain what is the truth and from that truth good policies and actions can be founded. Federalists against the antifederalists. Abraham lincoln against steven douglas. Dr. Martin luther king against george wal it was dr. Kings words that crushed segregation and over became the balance. He was unrelenting in making a clear moral argument that in the end could not be denied. Words over violence. At so many times in our history as a people, it was indeed speech and still more speech that led americans to a more just and perfect union. The right to freely examine the moral and the immoral, the prudent and the foolish, the practical and the inefficient and the right to argue for their merits or demerits remain indispensable for a healthy republic. It has been known since the beginning of our nation James Madison knew this when as part of his protest against the alien and sedition acts, the speech codes of his day, he said that the freedom of speech is, quote, the only effectual guardian of other right. In a quote that im reminded of daily in this job, Thomas Jefferson knew this when he said in words now chiselled in his monument, quote, i swear upon the alter of god eternal hostility against any form of tyranny over the mind of man. No little matter there. So soon you will be perhaps a professor, University President , the attory general of the United States, maybe president of the United States. And you will have your own pressing issues to grapple with. But i promise you that no issue will be better decided with less debate, with indifference from the audience, and with voices not listened to and unheard. There are those who will say that certain speech isnt deserving of protection. They will say that some speech is hurtful, even hateful. They will point to the very speech and beliefs that we abhor as americans. But the right of free speech does not exist only to protect the ideas upon which most of us agree at a given moment in time. Justi justice eloquently stated in 1927 in whitney versus california, quote, if there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and falicies to avert the evil by the prosecution of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. And let me be clear. Protecting free speech does not mean condoning violence like we saw recently in charlesvillotte. I call for universities to stand up, but a Mature Society can tell the difference between violence and unpopular speech and a truly free Society Stands up, speaks up for cherished rights precisely when its most difficult to do so. As Justice Holmes once wrote, quote, if there is any principle of the constitution that more imperatively calls for the attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought. Not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate. For the thought that we hate. And we must do so on our campuses. Universities and faculties must defend Free Expression boldly and unequivocally. That means president , reeg ents, trustees, alumni as well. A national recommitment to free speech on campus is long overdue, an action to ensure First Amendment rights are overdue. Starting today, the department of justice will do its part in this work. We will enforce federal law, defend free speech, and protect students Free Expression from whatever end of the spectrum it may come. To that end, were filing a statement of interest in a campus free speech case this week and we will be filing more im sure in the weeks to come. This month we marked the 230th anniversary of our constitution. What a remarkabl document indeed. We have the longest exiing constitution in the world and it is an extraordinary thing. This month we also mark the 54th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in birmingham. Four little girls died that day as they changed into their choir robes because the clan wanted to silence their voices for civil rights. But their voices were not silenced. Dr. Martin luther king would call them the martyr heroins of a crusade for human dignity. I urge you to go back and read that uelogy and consider what it had to say to each of us today. This is the true legacy and power of free speech that has been handed down to you and you can be sure it made people uncomfortable when Martin Luther king spoke about sec gregation, particularly in the south. This is the heritage that you have been given and that you must protect, so im here today to ask you to be involved, to make your voices heard, to defend the rights of others to do the same. For the last 241 years we have staked a country on the principle that robust and even contentious debate is how we discover truth and resolve the nations most intractable problems. Your generation will decide if this experiment in freedom will continue. Nothing less than the future of the republic depends on it. Thank you all. Its great to be with you. [ applause ] well, thank you, mr. Attorney general, for those remarks. As you know, this talk has attracted considerable interest from the student body as well as from my colleagues and we have some questions that have been submitted to us by the students who are in attendance today. Many of the questions are actually similar. They ask about the same question. I have to say the most popular question concerned you may be surprised to hear this, the nfl. So here is one question for your comment. Can you comment on the recent debate over nfl player protests . As attorney general, does it concern you that these players are being condemned by many, including the president , for exercising their Constitutional Rights to free speech and protest . Well, the president has free speech rights too. He sends soldiers out every day to defend this country under the flag of the United States on to the National Anthem and the unity that those symbols call on us to adhere to, so i agree that its a big mistake to protest in that fashion. Because it weakens the commitment we have to this nation that has provided us this freedom. I would note, of course, that the players arent subject to any prosecution, but if they take a provocative act, they can expect to be condemned and the president has the right to condemn them. I would condemn their actions, not them as a human abouting. There are many ways these players, with all the assets that they have,an express their political views other than effect denigrating the symbols of our nation, a nation thats provided our freedom to speak and act. As a matter of fact, the next student question is a followup question on what you just said so let me read it. If the method citizens have thus far employed to register objection to policies, practices, and situations are unsuitable, and divisive in the administration as eyes, what can citizens do to properly register their opinions . People have a right to register their opinions, to protest, to criticize in any number of ways. I guess its up to the owners and the people who create these games and pay for the ball fields to decide what you can do on a ball field. But the freedom of every individual player is paramount under the constitution. Its protected. We have to protect it. I think that its not a contradiction there. How much does context matter here . Are those whose viewpoint in the minority in a particular community, such as a College Campus, in need of any special protection . Will that be a factor that the doj will take into account when setting its policies . Whose in the minor and whose in the minority in the given specific community . Well, all of us need to understand that people who have minority views should be respected and should be listened to them. But you dont think we need to apply any special rights to a ritymajoroup. Ihink theres a danger that a Majority Group might be denied a right to speak, to speak their views, somehow be suppressed and that should always be guard against. The constitution protects everybodys speech, the majority and the minority. Thats i think the great tradition we have in this country and i really think we should defend it. And i have felt and we talked about it with a lot of my staff and young people right out of college, super talented young people, and theres an unease that things are going on on campuses that make them very uncomfortable that they feel not free or affirmed when they express views that might be contrary to the majority. But i dont think the constitution says you would treat one Group Different from another. I think fundamentally everyone has the basic right to express themselves. We got a speech related question from students. And that is it says this. As an advocate of free speech, how do you feel about the use of senate rule 19 to limit speech on the senate floor during confirmation hearing as was done to senator warren when she was criticizing your nomination to be attorney general . Well, she had certainly had a right to criticize my nomination. I think she really had the right to read the letter that she was blocked, or at least temporarily blocked from reading. The senate rule 19 says you should not, it was passed in 1902 after a fistfight broke out on the floor of the senate, that you shouldnt personal disparage another senator. So i was both a senator and a nominee. So i wasnt on the floor and i didnt hear anything about it. I would just say that i think i general the senate is one of the most open debating forums in the history of the world. Robert bird says there were two great senates and one of them is the u. S. Senate. People feel that and we should be very cautious before we constrict any member of the senate from speaking on issues and in the way they choose. Now, you grew up in alabama. You were a college student. So did you have any experience expressing minority opinions in your college . What college was this again . I introduced you. Huntington college. Great place. And did you have any experience being the minority viewpoint in your College Campus . Well, yeah. Huntington is a little methodist liberal arts college, so we there were no republicans back then. Somehow somebody, an english teacher had prevailed upon me to start reading the National Review and id become somewhat conservative in my thinking. But the establishment was a wallace machine. It dominated alabama. We started a little effort. The first time theyd ever had a Republican Club on huntington colleges campus and my wife was a member too. We battled, campaigned, lost almost every time we campaigned, but even in law school not many republicans in the law school bunch you can be sure. But the times changed. Its amazing. Now virtually every statewide elected official is republican. So i have a feel for what its like to stick in there for what you believe and not cowtow to somebody who has a different view. People have a right to not have their mind dominated, certainly by the government and nobody else really. Were required, all of us are, to use our best judgment and to seek truth and try to do the right thing. And full debate normally clears the air. Helps you make better decisions. That certainly was the idea of the founders. I believe its still valid today. Could you tell us more about this initiative that the doj is taking that you mentioned in your speech. Youre filing a statement of interest in a case . Whats this case . Well, its a case about a Christian Group that was attempting to express themselves in a way that any Group Promoting any agenda, political or religious, we believe should have been allowed to do. And were improperly we think constricted in that right. The constitution provides, you know, free speech, the right to assembly, the right to petition. It also provides the right to Free Expression of religion as a little additional right there that is important. So we think that this case came up promptly because its got a deadline for us to file. We can file a statement of interest without being a party in a case. Its one of the unusual rights that the department of justice has. Federal government has. To file a statement, a brief, without being a party in a case and we think its appropriate to kind of affirm what the proper parameters of free speech are in this college in georgia. We know you have to be at another engagement and were going to have to let you go. But maybe the last question can be about this particular event. As you know, there are many protestors both in front of this building and in the hallway outside this hall, including members of our faculty who are protesting. This event is being simulcast in a classroom thats outside this auditorium so that everybody who couldnt come in here could hear it there. Im wondering if you have any message since words are going to convey outside this room, any message to the folks outside this room . Any message to the professors or students that are protesting or just folks that couldnt be join us here in the auditorium today . First id like to thank you for the opportunity to be with you. I know this is a very talented group indeed or you wouldnt be in this law school. We respect your views, no matter what they are. We will defend your views and the right to express them in appropriate and effective ways. Certainly on the great tradition that this country has founded on. We would call on our universities and administrators and officials to intellectually push back against some of the trends that were seeing today by which some people seem to think they have a right to block somebody elses beliefs and the expression of those beliefs. I think its a fundamental thing. I think if we teach that f we teach the very fundamental necessity of that, then fewer people will feel that they can have legitimacy by blocking someone elses speech. Particularly on a College Campus. My heaven sakes, College Campuses where it should be the most. Youre forming your ideas. Youre thinking things through. It was such a fabulous time for me and i changed in a lot of different ways over that period of time. Im sure you will. So we celebrate the diversity of opinion. We celebrate your freedom to ask questions, to push back and to challenge what may be orthodoxy in many different areas. Thats part of americas heritage. And ive got to tell you, the American Heritage of law and Public Policy and the way we approach it is very unique. Ive traveled the globe. Ive been in afghanistan. We helped them write a constitution. But professor barnett, they had no heritage on it. It was written up here, but it didnt their lives didnt impactthat. So weve been blessed with a heritage that causes us to understand in a more deep way than most people in the world can why freedom is important, why debate is important. Why free speech is important. So i would urge you to understand and think about the very uniqueness of this right that we have to defend it, steadfastly against anyone that would dominate somebody in their thought and speech. Ible we i believe well be a better and more healthy public afterwards. Its an honor to be with you. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Attorney general. [ applause ] real appreciate you coming. That was a great speech. I really enjoyed it. Thank you all. [ applause ]. This weekend on American History tv on cspan 3, saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, university of virginia professor Gary Gallagher on the legacy of the civil war. The loyal white citizenery and africanamericans and former con fed ra and send at 10 00 a. M. President bl inton marking the 60th anniversary of integration of little rock central high school. I wanted to say you did 60 years. Take a victory lap. Put on your dancing shoes. Have a good time. But instead i have to say youve got to put on your marching boots and lead us again. Then at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on oral histories, we continue our series on photo journalists with an interview with darryl heikes. You always tried to be anyplace we did when we were working, especially the white house, to have the optimum lens in your hands and the maximum amount of film whenever something happens because somebody in just a split second it could be there and youve got it and the person standing actually does or doesnt have it. At 9 00 p. M. Eastern, hamilton playwright and actor Lynn Manuel Miranda accepts the Historical Society 2017 freedom award. When youre a theater kid you make friends from different grades and social groups. You learn to work hard to create something greater than the sum of your parts. Just for the sake of making something great, you learn to trust your passion and let it lead the way. Without humanities and arts program, i wouldnt be standing here. Without alexander hamilton, its very probable that very few of us would be here either. American history tv. All weekend, every weekend. Only on cspan3. House majority whip Steve Scalise returned to congress today. More than three months after being shot in virginia while practicing for a baseball game. Heres what House Speaker paul ryan had to say about congressman scalises return. Wow. I dont know about you guys, but pretty awesome day here in the capitol today. I cant tell you, im a little emotionally pushed. It was really, really nice to see steve today. I dont think theres much to add to what we just saw on the floor, but i can tell you we are so grateful and so relieved to have Steve Scalise back. He is such a fighter. He is just a force of nature. And that was before this ordeal. Watching him fight through the struggles that he fought through and do so well, its just were in awe of this. I tell you what, im in awe of his family. Jennifer, madison, harrison, their strength and courage is just phenomenal. And so our prayers are answered. Were so grateful. Crystal and bailey, thats what we call them, just amazing people who just completely stepped up, followed their training, threw courage to the wind and saved a lot of peoples lives, including steves. So were really, really happy to have our friend back and were so grateful to the people who made this possible. For as lon as live, i will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible. Its a story that hasnt made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into a genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts. That out of many we are truly one. For the past 30 years, the Video Library is your free resource for politics, congress, and washington public affairs. So whether it happened 30 years ago, or 30 minutes ago, find it in cspans Video Library at cspan. Org. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. Ohio congressman tim ryan cochairs the congressional Addiction Treatment and recovery caucus. He talked about efforts by local, state, and federal governments to combat opioid