Ironically this executive order is just a sop to conservative identity politics. Public universities are already bound by the First Amendment.
The ultimate "problem" that this EO is trying to solve is that Republican ideas are bad and intelligent people don't take them seriously.
Ok, but we have seen some seriously stupid ideas on the left lately as well. I'm looking at you AOC. Not to mention this reparations nonsense. I will grant it isn't across the board stupid like neocon ideas, but still... Besides, if a speaker says stupid shit just point out how it's stupid. No need to shut them down. Also, if you need to organize on that scale to shut down a speaker you are most definitely taking it seriously. Although to be fair, these protesters probably don't fit in the intelligent category you referenced.
But the point is that these provocateurs want those protests. It's why they send the most incendiary speakers they can find. Milo for example has absolutely nothing to offer in the way of ideas or expertise, and yet before all that pedo business he was engaged in a college speaking tour. Why? Because Republicans want to paint universities as intolerant bastions of liberal indoctrination, rather than institutions of high expertise that have concluded that Republican ideas are fundamentally unsound.
Trump sort of rode a wave of anti-intellectualism to the White House, and he sold snake oil to a base that believes the men who tell them that the solution to complex problems are very simple ("Build a wall, drain the swamp, lock her up, etc."), and not to believe the people who tell them that the solutions to complex problems are...complex. So, to put it simply, if someone is telling you there's a simple solution to a problem that America has in 2019, they are either dumb, lying or both. Smart people and honest people will tell you exactly how hard a problem is to solve, especially one that's unsolved. And when he realizes that ostracizing the tyranny of experts may come with certain....credibility costs....he issues an EO spouting free speech on universities. As if the problem of false equivocation ("Alex Jones deserves just as much airtime as the Harvard PhD, for no discernible reason other than free speech!") is a free speech issue propagated by leftist universities, with their evil facts and malicious science, or that not every venue is as friendly to this fraternity of fuckwads as Fox & Friends. I think the real conversation Trump is having right now is along the lines of "I need to test the waters to see what will get people so stirred up, they ignore the Mueller report." John McCain? Nah. Robert Kraft's handjob scandal? Gross. Make fun of the queers with the Brazil dude? No one cares. Fuck with the colleges during March Madness? Hm.... EDIT: ISRAEL, WHY THE FUCK NOT? Who in Trump's base even knows why that's a controversy? Cue abortion debate and bombing a country within the next 60 days. Also, Fox liquidated just about everything BUT the cable news to Disney, I wonder what they see around the bend....
To belabor the point, gay rights activists didn't file suit against Bob Jones University for not allowing them to speak there under the 1st amendment. Why not? A variety of reasons, chief among them one party in this has a legitimate political stake and a platform that has mass appeal. The other party believes that girls make Jesus cry, magic is real and touching your pee pee makes you go to hell. It's trolling, bro.
You have the right to talk. And I have the right to not listen to you. What pisses me off is that people (college students) throw fits because someone comes to their campus who they disagree with. Milo was an idiot and a troll, but so fucking what? He wasn't going around kicking poodles and forcing people into their non-gender-conforming bathrooms. I'm all for the exec order. They don't have to take government funding, but if they do, they have to play by the government's rules. Where's the problem with that?
The problem is that they already play by the government's rules, and this EO is designed to give the President the power to punish schools that are "too liberal," under the guise of free speech.
Incoming twitter tirade on "why do they call it a liberal arts degree?! Make America Great Again with a CONSERVATIVE arts degree!!!"
Yeah, but it never amounts to anything. Trump is always allegedly oppressing this group or that group, but he's either too inept or cares too little to actually do it.
Read what you wrote again. And then remember, this is the President we're talking about. Not just some celebrity on tv. Not your favorite sports star. This is a dude who, with the push of a button, could start a nuclear war and wipe out civilization as we know it. Don't you think he should be held to a higher standard? A standard that, maybe, shouldn't be excused away with "but it never amounts to anything."
I know, it's pathetic. No argument there. Just saying it's not worth freaking out over, other than in the "holy shit, this idiot is our president" sort of way.
If someone in a marginalized community says that someone in power is oppressing them, why is it seemingly okay to just dismiss what that person says? If a person agrees that oppression is occurring, what difference does it make that they're agreeing for selfish or unselfish reasons? Shouldn't the discussion be about the oppression and not strawmanning the intent of someone that agrees that oppression is happening?
At this point I'm honestly just sick of having the coversation. Take the hate crime 'rise'. Hate crimes are less than 1/10 of a percent of murders yet it's all they want to talk about. It's fucking stupid and I don't care.
So Trump has nominated Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after reading a WSJ op-ed by him attacking the Fed. Unsurprisingly, the op-ed was flattering of Trump's policies and attacked the Fed for being an impediment to Trump.