The UT administration and the UTPD did not take too kindly to these demonstrators carrying signs with topics ranging from ending the Federal Reserve to ending wars- both those in the Middle East and the War on Drugs. Four people were arrested and charged with trespassing for protesting or collecting signatures outside of a designated “free speech zone”.

Luckily, Norman Horn of the Libertarian Longhorns was there and he managed to capture two of the four arrests on his video camera. One video is below, the other can be found here.

Of course the whole idea of a “free speech zone” is ridiculous. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”. By arresting these four people, the UTPD and the UT administration are in clear violation of the United States Constitution and our natural rights of life, liberty, and property that we liberty-minded people hold so dear.

FIRE successfully challenged the constitutionality of the “free speech zones” at the University of North Texas, which resulted in UNT changing its free speech policy.

Norman Horn, the Libertarian Longhorns, the people that were arrested, and the other concerned students and citizens who braved the Texas heat to spread the message of liberty deserve our highest praise and gratitude for helping defend liberty and the Constitution against the tyranny of an always growing government that seeks to regulate and control more and more of our lives everyday.

If you are in the area try to meet them at their Meetup and wish them luck and support. You will also have the opportunity to meet some of the great student leaders in the area and discuss a wide variety of subjects from activism to agorism. Philadelphia is also the host city for the free kick-off SFL Regional Conference this year with Stefan Molyneux and David Boaz. If you are not in the Philly area, don’t fret, the tour will probably be coming to a city near you soon.

For more information about Liberty on Tour visit www.libertyontour.com and for more information about SFL Regional and International Conferences visit www.politicalconferences.org.

To many people, “Berkeley” is synonymous with “protest.” Mentioning the University of California, Berkeley often conjures up images of bearded bohemians and flower children peacefully rallying for a “hippie” cause of the past, such as the famous Free Speech Movement of the mid-sixties. Indeed, Berkeley’s protest culture has given the university a reputation for being a bastion for freedom of expression, which can be quite attractive to prospective students looking for a unique college experience. I know because I was once one of them. At Berkeley, so I thought, I would be immersed in an Eden of free speech, a liberal’s utopia, where all opinions were tolerated.

Unfortunately, I have found this idealistic vision of my university to be more fiction than fact nowadays. While Berkeley’s tolerance for free speech (for the most part) lives up to its reputation, my school has also come to tolerate many illiberal and even unlawful actions that make a mockery of the marketplace of ideas.

As University of Wisconsin -Madison professor Donald Downs pointed out in a recent article (which was also highlighted in a July blog post by Adam), Berkeley has a long history of allowing “free expression” to go too far. Just last November, a group of demonstrators illegally occupied a landmark building on campus, Wheeler Hall, for an entire school day in protest of recent tuition hikes while hundreds of supporters outside cheered them on. Although the police easily gained access to the building briefly after the occupation began, the administration insisted on hearing out the protesters’ demands, thus leading to a twelve-hour standoff in which an estimated 3,800 students were not allowed to attend classes-including many of my close friends.

Of course, the demonstrators have every right to express their frustration in a peaceful manner following the university’s reasonable, First-Amendment-compliant rules. Indeed, there had been several rallies in the preceding days in which their grievances were aired in a lawful fashion. However, by occupying a university building, subsequently damaging property, and denying thousands of students access to their paid education, the protesters went too far.

Legitimate exercise of the freedom of expression, after all, does not include disrupting classes or events, physical violence, or property destruction. Perhaps Oliver Wendell Holmes explained the limit of free expression best when he said, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” People are free to exhibit their anger in nonverbal ways up until the point where it interferes with the rights of others.

Therefore, although the intent of the Wheeler Hall occupants to end tuition hikes may have been noble, the vehicle through which they expressed their demands was not. In my experience, the failure of Berkeley’s administration and political activists is that they often confuse the two. As a result of this misunderstanding, any movement that claims to have good intentions (or is deemed as such by the administration) is essentially given a green light to violate campus rules and even state laws. Thus, civil libertarianism at Berkeley has often evolved into libertinism, as demonstrated through several events following the Wheeler Hall occupation.

For example, less than two weeks after the occupation, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s house was attacked when 40 to 75 protesters overturned plants, broke windows, and threw lit torches at police. “My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives,” recalled the Chancellor. Sadly, this is just one example of lawlessness. In February of this year, more than 200 rioters took to the streets of Berkeley, vandalizing private businesses, burning public property, and even hurling dumpsters at police. Berkeley’s student newspaper, The Daily Californian, captured the riot in this chilling video.

Unfortunately, Berkeley’s confusion about the limit of expression has morphed into some lawless protesters’ illiberal acceptance of violence as a means of activism. Such reckless actions do not promote freedom of speech but hinder it. How, after all, can two parties have a true exchange of ideas when one side is threatening violence? To be fair, the demonstrators who committed the illegal acts are a minority of the larger protest movement and are unrepresentative of the whole. However, this fact does not excuse the acceptance of lawlessness as a method of expression by many administrators, students, and protesters.

As a California Golden Bear, I am proud of my university’s history of open discourse. In practically everything, my college experience at Berkeley thus far has been everything I expected and more. I am unafraid to admit that I genuinely love my college. Yet, love is not equivalent to blind devotion. I recognize the faults in my school and urge it to change- partly because it is in my self-interest. The free exchange of ideas cannot survive where there is also a free exchange of fists. Until my university fully comprehends this principle, free speech will continue to be chilled by lawlessness at Berkeley.

As a young person and native Texan, it’s been awesome to see the philosophy of liberty being embraced by so many young people in Texas.  New pro-liberty groups are being formed everyday on universities in Texas, not to mention the rest of the country.

One of the many organizations helping to expose students to the ideas of liberty is Young Libertarians of Texas.  Young Libertarians of Texas’ mission includes reaching out to students, forming libertarian organizations, providing both education and training to young libertarians, as well as creating a strong network of young libertarians serving as a social outlet and support group.  Zack Smith, founder of Young Libertarians of Texas, is an alumnus of Abilene Christian University where he studied Psychology and Communications & Ministry.  For more information of YLT, visit their website or join their facebook group.

Also, be sure to make it out to THE premier liberty event in Texas, the Students For Liberty Texas Regional Conference on November 6 at UT-Austin.  RSVP on facebook and register here.

Nowadays, there are many recipes floating around the liberty movement on successful leadership training. Take a few cups of flyering tips, three teaspoons of fundraising, a few pinches of tabling, 6 airline tickets for speakers, 254 slices of pizza, preheat at 365 and you have a flawless club. Not the case, unless you have a secret ingredient. Being a club leader means being an entrepreneur. More than anything else, this entails having purpose; it means capitalizing on the opportunities you discover to appeal to a campus filled with leftist professors and apathetic students. Success in running an organization, as in most ventures, is more than about the rule book.

Image from myartlink.net

The pivotal starting point is in your mind – the springboard to all your ideas, convictions, morals, and visions. It determines your every action and attitude, by which you govern yourself, and by which you are judged every day. It is what gives you the willpower to change the world, overcome adversity, seek truth, and take action on behalf of your beliefs. It is, in short, what gives you character. To determine that you will succeed and stand up for the principles of a free society in a place where the prospects of engaging in a battle of ideas is too anxiety-provoking for the neatly packaged liberal mindset in the student body – to keep your head held high and hold fast to your deepest principles while maintaining humility as a student who doesn’t yet have all the answers – is not something that any person can prescribe, quantify in a measuring cup, or even teach.

Character is the silent ingredient that makes the world go round: it is manifested by brave, principled, intelligent people making decisions, being honest, taking actions, and moving mountains. Leaders work from the first spark, the first idea; they align their hearts with their minds on behalf of their purpose. Their mind fuels their ideals and simultaneously keeps them in check by showing them their surrounding reality. Leaders have integrity enough to stop when they fail, own their mistakes as they own every choice they make, and correct them. They are brave enough not to evade responsibility for their actions. To lead truthfully, one must first be true to oneself. And if a leader fails his organization, perhaps the real explanation for it is that he first failed himself.

Without passion and willful, principled action, the leader of a student organization can easily shirk his duties, diffuse responsibility among members, stoop to making excuses for mistakes, let the mission be forgotten, and lose the foundation under his feet. When no one owns the decisions that guide an organization, no one is responsible to their vision. And ultimately, no one owns their failure. If one cannot do even that, one cannot move forward, for sheer dumb lack of character. That is the end of a club. Endeavors without a mind or integrity dissolve into mean infighting, finger pointing, and petty squabbles. A mission statement without a will behind it is like a car without an engine. And no one, not even the government, will be providing a bailout.

Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education once said that when a person “attempts to reform the world without reforming himself first, he subtracts from his character.” Imagine yourself the leader of the perfect student organization for liberty (perhaps you already are one). After those hours of staircases, flyers, huge speakers, impassioned discussions, and late nights catching up on work, you’re facing your worst nightmare: members leave or graduate, everyone gets distracted with school, volunteers don’t show up, you lose funding, meetings are canceled, and you’ve reached a dead end. If you lose a club, you should not to lament and point fingers. Think instead of the moment you first conceived or the reason you first joined the organization. Rewind, and remember the spark that started everything. Moving mountains and changing the world for liberty requires an impassioned mind. It starts with you, the entrepreneur. To be true to your organization, you must be true to yourself as an individual. Hold yourself fast to your principles when you decide to lead, and your work will reflect who you are. Think about this when you elect your fellow executive board. With strong character guiding the club semester after semester, it will take much more than 10 minutes, days, months, or even years to extinguish the torch of liberty on your campus.

For more information on the importance of character and its greater implications in society, take some time to hear the inspirational Lawrence Reed discuss the topic here. http://fee.org/media/video/character-and-the-free-society/

A print version of the speech can be found here. http://www.mackinac.org/8162

The video showcases young people pledging to lead lives inspired by freedom and choice, and it’s a great way to show how these ideas can improve society. You can see how the membership of YAL and SFL overlap – featured in the video are Jared Fuller (SFL’s Southern Director) and Alexander McCobin (SFL’s Executive Director), as well as a host of other students dedicated to liberty involved with both YAL and SFL projects.

YAL is doing excellent work, and we’re excited to have them at the Liberty Fair and speaking at the International Students For Liberty Conference!  If you would like to join these leaders of liberty, it’s not too late to register for the ISFLC.  Check out information at www.PoliticalConferences.org and register by January 31st!  The ISFLC is the largest gathering of pro-liberty students in the world with over 200 students already registered.  We are almost at our maximum number, so make sure to register ASAP while there is still space.

Students who witnessed the activism said that it was good “knowledge to take with them.”

Remember, this is what makes a great event: Something that is “out of the norm” (e.g., a car in the middle of campus!) and makes students want to come over to see what is going on. Great job URI YAL!

You might be thinking to yourself, “what in the heck is that label for?” This might explain things a bit:

Here at Wake Forest University, the Freshmen Student Activities Fair is tomorrow and we decided to use a little idea for inexpensive recruiting, and a great way to get new members. This is North Carolina, it is hot, and who doesn’t drink water? Especially free water?

We decided to buy cases of water, remove the labels, and put on our very own YAL recruitment labels! The idea is simple enough and the cost is great for an easy activism idea.

We will be passing these very custom YAL water bottles out all over campus tomorrow, directing people to our table, and ultimately signing them up for membership. Additionally, we will be distributing FIRE’s Free Speech Guide, and other items from Students For Liberty.

Total activism cost:

• Water: $29.50
• Paper: $2.50

Now, go get those freshman!

Check out the Facebook event here.

Did we mention free appetizers? Let’s get excited for this year!

Gerry Nichols writes:

But what really makes the Liberty Summer Seminar so special isn’t either the location or the topics, it’s who organizes it. This conference isn’t organized by a political party or by some big think tank or by a corporation — it’s organized by university students.

Now maybe you don’t think that’s so special, but when I was a university student I was more interested in getting a top score on Space Invaders than I was about discussing the finer points of political philosophy.

Yet unlike my younger self, the young people behind the seminar are deeply interested in ideas.

That’s why every year they put together this outdoor conference, which is a lot of work: It means fundraising, inviting speakers, marketing the event and most importantly, making sure there’s lots of mosquito repellent on hand.

What a great article and a great event run by students!  Students For Liberty will be at the Liberty Summer Seminar this weekend, so make sure to say hello to Clark Ruper if you’re going as well!