When the Free Speech Movement Started in Berkeley, the Student Said ...

Yo, Hode Up

Jun 12, 2023

[Photo of Prof. Lucas J. Mather’s Philosophy Classroom by Lucas J. Mather, Fall 2013 at Moorpark College, Ventura County, California, originally published to Facebook on Saturday 8 Feb 2014 at 8:03pm]

So when the free speech movement started in Berkeley, she said.

Hode up there, darlin, the Professor said.

[He typed onto the computer, shining it for all to see on the screen, the text of the First Amendment. He scrolled onto the Second Amendment and lingered there a bit longer than a normal person would, then back to the First Amendment].

Would you mind reading that?

Ooh, ooh, a male student said . "Congress shall make no law..."

[And he read the whole thing].

Sweet, the professor said. When was that?

The students squinted, and the "ooh ooh" one said Seventeen eighty ... nine? Seventeen ninety one ratified.

And where was that?

Um, Philadelphia?

Not Berkeley.

Connecticut isn't Berkeley, either. This is Cantwell v. Connecticut, the Professor said as he clicked another tab. What year?

Um .... [same student].

A girl said, Nineteen Forty.

1940 is damn right. And it ain't Berkeley. And we could go back further, and in more detail.

That was about Jehovah's Witnesses? They had those back then? a student axed.

Yeah. They did. Unanimous at the Supreme Court.

What … why is that important ?

Because of this, the professor said as he scrolled to the Fourteenth Amendment. All Republicans, he murmured barely loud enough to hear in the ice-cold classroom in Southern California, All Republicans, he kept repeating, at *great cost*, he said, and shook the table as he said it. *Great cost*, against Democrats who deplatformed, decapitated, shamed, or tried to, and shot Republicans, and blacks and any one who would speak out against the tyrannical regime of thought and speech control they had on their campuses that were sometimes called "Plantations"--no Second Amendment rights there, or Fourth, or Fifth, either. The Fourteenth Amendment, and the Thirteenth, and the Fifteenth, at *great cost*, were ratified.

[It was utterly silent, and warmer, in the ice cold classroom. The sun broke through a cloud, and pierced a tree line outside the window. Dust particles hung in the ray.]

[Student eyes were reading the Amendments with puzzled, fresh looks. Squinting, reading.]

I always thought it was the Civil Rights Movement. You know, in the 60s.

Sheeit.

The professor continued: Look for yourself. This is the civil rights movement. It's called America.

But the Civil Rights Act. It was in 1964.

"It" was. How many Civil Rights Acts were there?

Um.

Was there one in 1957?

I ... she shrugged.

How about ...[the Professor typed "1866 Civil Rights Act". Hit the enter button like a bowling ball hitting a strike. BAM]. All Republicans behind this one. The Democrats hated them -- they still do.

But ... [mouths agape].

If anything, Berkeley spawned a Communist, Socialist, Fascist movement to remove Free Speech, Free Exercise, Bearing Arms, Due Process, etc, which is EXACTLY what you see happening since the 1960s. It's exactly the opposite. The Free Speech movement—this—was halted in Berkeley. It has *ended* in places like Berkeley. It didn't *begin* there, it *ended* there. Stopped cold. Because they, Democrats, hated these, still do , the professor said, pointing to the Amendments, to the the other tabs with the Declaration, the Bible quotes in Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural.

We’re out of time. I'll see you next week, or in office hours, the Professor said, but nobody moved for a solid 2 minutes in the dim, brightly lit classroom.

The Republican Professor

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