SLOWLY THEY LEARN.

University administrations have for too long been stifling political discourse in the name of comity.  "Did anybody object to free speech zones or restrictions on distributing leaflets when those restrictions were used to stifle Normals?"

Recently, the Normal Who Must Be Silenced is Kentucky All-American swimmer Riley Gaines, who has put dental school on pause to perform root canal surgery on the alphabet people ruining women's sports.  Last fall, she made her pitch at Penn State, and members of the Professional Protest Communities mouthed off to a state senator.  I was more interested in Penn State's excuses for not letting her speak.

The imbroglio might involve Penn State using one of two old dodges, the "recognized student organization" limitation on the use of campus space for meetings, or the "security deposit" to cover the added expenses of protecting a controversial speaker.  In 2016, Donald Trump was going to give a speech at the University of Chicago's basketball arena, until the professional protest communities raised the threat level.

That post also raised a price-theoretic point, namely that while speech ought be free on campus, campus resources such as conference rooms and lecture halls are not.  That's why student organizations have faculty advisors and seek recognition from student government.

First, national organizations such as Leadership, or perhaps Turning Point, ought have recognized chapters or working relationships with campus affiliated organizations to do the legwork in order that schedule requests are submitted in the proper forms in the timely fashion.  Second, those campus affiliated organizations must cultivate faculty advisors who know how to work within the rules and apply the proper moral suasion when the deanlets go into their stall or start calling for those security deposits.

Part of that proper moral suasion is reminding the deanlets that requesting security deposits because the professional protest communities threaten temper tantrums is contrary to good practice.  It might take a few lawsuits to concentrate minds.  New Mexico is as good a place to start as any.

A law firm touted victory on Friday when the University of New Mexico (UNM) was issued a preliminary injunction by a federal court judge due to the "hefty" security fee it imposed on an event held by conservative students.

"This is a major win in the battle to protect the First Amendment rights of college students, regardless of the viewpoint they express," Southern Legal Foundation (SLF) Executive Director Kimberly Hermann announced on Friday in a press release.

SLF filed a complaint against UNM officials in February arguing that they "engaged in viewpoint and content discrimination" when they required conservative groups to pay security fees "based on the officials’ subjective assessment of the crowd’s potential reaction" to a speaking event by Riley Gaines.

Good.

After SLF won in the legal proceeding, Hermann added that assuming the judge continues to agree with their argument and rules the same way when the case is over, it will have huge effects on the university.

"Now, TPUSA is the only conservative student organization left at UNM. They basically run every other conservative or libertarian student organization out of campus," she said.

"But it will mean that TPUSA can now have Riley come speak, and they can't assess them any higher security fees than they would assess for any other event," she added.

"Sadly, we see this all the time," said Gaines via a press release.

Security fees for Militant Normals but not for the Jihadi Fan Club only make more people sympathetic with the Militant Normals.