DeWayne Wickham and the First Amendment

Good day all. Here’s a question for you. Who is Dwayne Wickham and why should we be concerned about his views on the First Amendment? Dwayne Wickham is the Dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication, and as such, should be militantly defending the First Amendment against any form of censorship.

Unfortunately, Dean Wickham thinks that there should be restrictions if someone wants to write something that is offensive. In this case, he’s going after the publication, Charlie Hebdo and their attacks against Islam. In a column Dean Wickham wrote in USA Today, he blames the staff of Charlie Hebdo for getting themselves murdered by Islamic terrorists:

Charlie Hebdo has gone too far.

I don’t think so, but then I’m not a highly trained member of the journalistic community.

In its first publication following the Jan. 7 attack on its Paris office, in which two Muslim gunmen massacred 12 people, the once little-known French satirical news weekly crossed the line that separates free speech from toxic talk.

I wasn’t aware that there was a line between free speech and toxic speech. And what is toxic speech anyway? Well, I’m sure this Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Dean will be happy to tell us.

Charlie Hebdo’s latest depiction of the prophet Mohammed — a repeat of the very action that is thought to have sparked the murderous attack on its office — predictably has given rise to widespread violence in nations with large Muslim populations. Its irreverence of Mohammed once moved the French tabloid to portray him naked in a pornographic pose. In another caricature, it showed Mohammed being beheaded by a member of the Islamic State.

That doesn’t sound “toxic” to me. In fact, considering how evil that political system masquerading as a religion, I consider this rather tame. Perhaps Dean Wickham should look at propaganda posters from the World Wars. In any case, Dean Wickham, who’s entire working life revolves around free speech and freedom of the press, seems to like the idea of suppression of free speech when he thinks it’s appropriate.

While free speech is one of democracy’s most important pillars, it has its limits. H.L. Mencken, the fabled columnist who described himself as “an extreme libertarian,” said that he believed in free speech“up to the last limits of the endurable.”

The link above referring to the last link leads to a 15 minute Youtube video of an interview with H.L. Mencken. I looked up the text that Dean Wormer Wickham was referring to and I suspect that he and Mr. Mencken would not be in agreement. If I read the quote correctly, Mencken would not try to stop the publication of a cartoon of Muhammad getting sodomized by a pig. He may have objected to it, but he would not try to stop it. I think it’s safe to say that Dean Wickham disagrees. Pity for him that the President of France does not agree with Dean Wickham.

French President Francois Hollande, apparently, disagrees. He defends Charlie Hebdo’s latest depiction of Mohammed by saying that protesters in other countries don’t understand France’s embrace of free speech.

And I think we’re beginning to see the problem with Dean Wickham.

But even as Hollande defends Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish images of Mohammed that many Muslims consider sacrilegious and hateful, his government has imprisoned dozens of people who have condemned the magazine with talk the French won’t tolerate. Those arrested are accused of speaking in support of the attack on the magazine, and a separate assault on a kosher store in Paris by a lone Muslim gunman with links to the men who attacked Charlie Hebdo.

I don’t know French laws, especially in this matter, but I think there might be a bit more to those arrests then just publicly supporting the terrorists. Considering that Muslims have a penchant for carrying out their threats against anyone who isn’t a follower of Islam, the French law enforcement officials might not be in the mood to take any chances. If I recall correctly, you can’t make threats of violence in the United States either. So, what does Dean Moonbat Wickham want to do? He wants to use the doctrine of a clear and present danger to shut down anyone who might want to insult Islam, Aloha Snackbar.

In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is not protected by the First Amendment. Crying “fire” in a quiet, uninhabited place is one thing, the court said. But “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

Screaming out “FIRE” in a theater when there isn’t one is a bit different from publishing nasty cartoons of Muhammad. If someone screams fire, people tend to think there may be one and that they need to leave the premises right away. This can cause a panic and lead to people being killed or injured. There is a difference between this and publishing pictures. In a theater, you have a captive audience. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to buy a magazine with content that offends you.

Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment.

I would recommend that Dean Dumbass Wickham talk to a constitutional scholar. I do believe that ruling has been overturned by later courts and is no longer valid. I think the fact that you had to go back to the turn of the last century to find rulings that aid you in making your point speaks volumes.

If Charlie Hebdo’s irreverent portrayal of Mohammed before the Jan. 7 attack wasn’t thought to constitute fighting words, or a clear and present danger, there should be no doubt now that the newspaper’s continued mocking of the Islamic prophet incites violence. And it pushes Charlie Hebdo’s free speech claim beyond the limits of the endurable.

So what would you do Dean Wickham? Have the publication stopped? Have the writers and editors arrested and jailed? Destroy all copies of the offending images? Do you know what I find unendurable? You’re calls to suppress the First Amendment because someone’s feelings were hurt. In fact, I think your column should be considered as fighting words to people who support the First Amendment, something you obviously don’t. There is only one reason you want to suppress writings and speech that offends Muslims.

You sir, are a coward. You are frightened that you might get your head chopped off by Islamic militants and you will willingly cave in to whatever demands they make. In case you hadn’t noticed, the nutjobs from the Westboro Church, who have a history of protesting at military funerals by screaming out “God Hates Fags!” have never been stopped by the courts. These idiots have been attacked and run off, but when things started to go violent, the police moved in and protected their right to speak what passes for their minds.

You sir, Dean DeWayne Wickham, are unfit to hold the position you now do. You are supposed to defend the First Amendment and support the right to free speech. I’m sure you have no problem at all with the New York Times blowing several classified operations, all of them fully legal, and causing real harm to the War on Islamic Terror. (This was back in the Bush administration and I understand they were contacted and asked not to publish. Not ordered, asked)

Mr. Wickham, you need to be terminated from your position as Dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication immediately. Your column in USA Today shows that you are not fit to teach future journalists. I know that you won’t be fired of course, not unless the pressure on that school increases dramatically, but at the very least, those students should be made aware that you do NOT have their back.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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