One example of many: it would have been a punishable offense to refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns. This is what's called "compelled speech", and it's when someone says to you, "Say $THING or else". It's very reasonable for governments to prohibit saying certain things (like national security secrets, for instance, or other people's bank account login info), but thus far forcing people to say things they don't believe has been a bridge too far.
And, happily, compelled speech is a bright line the Americans have, so far, managed not to cross. Everyone should be trying as hard as we can to not cross that line.
You may not see the harm in this particular instance, but establishing "we'll just force them to say it and punish them if they don't" as a tool in any government's toolbox is a very, very bad idea.
Ah, and I should mention Biden's new Title IX rules became law on August 1, 2024 so they weren't "would". Thankfully, we only had a few months under this particular imposition on our basic rights and push never came to shove.
Why are these supposedly serious violations funny to you?
Most of what you cited is about what a policy might imply or what someone’s rhetoric might lead to. Also, I don’t know if you knew this, but Walz was never part of the Biden administration.
Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?
The administration targeted pro-Palestinian students and faculty with visa revocations, detention, and deportation efforts because of their political advocacy. A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-backed-targeting-pro-...
Many of these Trump cases involve the government actually imposing penalties on people or institutions because of protected speech or association, not just an argument about what a rule might eventually imply.
This is not something you get to pretend is equivalent across “both sides”.
> Walz was never part of the Biden administration.
I made a claim about the scarequotes(left), not about the Biden administration specifically. You asked about Biden. They were going for succession, you know!
> Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?
Yes
> AP reporters not allowed
The executive has leeway here, it's not clear exactly how much. Biden wasn't inviting Breitbart in, for example. That a judge found something doesn't mean much, supremes finding something would be meaningful.
> Targeted pro-Pal students
Specifically, pro-Pal foreign students. The Americans are right now in the process of figuring out when their rights apply to foreigners and when they don't. Often, the fed's tack is: we ask you at the border if you support terrorist organizations. If you say "yes", we don't let you in. Turns out you support HAMAS. That's a terrorist org, it's on our list. You lied. Goodbye!
So in many cases it's not about speech per se, but rather whether you lied to the feds. And if the "unconstitutionality" thing here holds up, well then...I guess USA decided free speech applies to foreigners in the country. But until very recently that was a murky issue. Maybe still is, idk.
> Perkins Cole
"Liberals" do the same thing. Look at Biden pressuring for debanking of crypto people [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonyaevans/2025/12/06/feds-bowm...]. Or jawboning Meta. I think it's less salient when left does it because they have captured the majority of institutions. So it looks like business as usual. It looks "legit". Except...it's just Blue enacting its will through e.g. the Fed, or whoever it is that regulates banks.
>Canceled grants
Here, I'm an expert! I'm an academic who has been negatively affected by all this. What some district court judge found is irrelevant, so I'll ignore that (just in case: district court judges are small potatoes and their rulings do not have precedential value). What I will say is: the situation had gotten WAY out of hand. The feds were funding a bunch of batshit crazy stuff that was CLEARLY just fraud and woke virtue-signaling. A lot of good stuff got canceled too, which is sad. That good stuff probably had batshit crazy woke signaling in their grant write-ups because that's the only way you could get funded! Which is sad. Should the admin have used a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer? Yes. Should the humanities be getting much less funding and producing far fewer graduate students? Yes. Even graduating from a top (~Harvard) program, humanities graduate students have something like a 10-25% chance of a "real" (professorship) job. And that might be Northwest Arkansas State Community Daycare College.
> Harvard
Harvard was made an example of. Fair? No. Did they break the law A LOT, just like everyone else? You betcha! Did they definitely discriminate in favor of Pal against Israel? Yes, certainly did. Did the admin handle it in the smartest way possible? Definitely not.
> Trump actually did bad things, not "might"
You have to understand: the "speech" climate in academia has been so, so bad for ten years - and that's because of the "liberals", not Trump and co. It's been insane. The speech restrictions were REAL. People got FIRED. Many more people KEPT QUIET ABOUT REAL SCIENCE THINGS FOR FEAR OF PUNISHMENT. Things are better now, crazier but better. You can talk kinda. The institutions are still >80% captured by Team Blue, but there is a breath of fresh air. A waft. One needn't be fearful all the time.
And I should say as well: the "thou shalt speak the wokeness" thing is, for most disciplines, merely an academic exercise. Lip service. You're a physicist: so what? "Trans women are women". Okay, fine, whatever - I believe it, I don't, I support it, I don't, it has nothing to do with fermions.
But imagine you study humans, and human behavior: suddenly, everything has real stakes. "Black people and white people are different!" --> fired. "Evolution is real and it affects behavior systematically" --> fired. Carole Hooven, for instance (driven out, not fired - cheaper that way).
One final word:
There is an extremely important difference between the tantrums of the present administration and the tack that Biden and Friends were taking. The present administration shows no signs of trying to make its infringements permanent and systematic. The previous group was trying to do precisely and exactly that. Which is much, much scarier to me.
Lololol ok:
Biden: The Biden Administration's promulgation of a Title IX interpretation that, among other things, would have compelled certain kinds of speech:
https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/
One example of many: it would have been a punishable offense to refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns. This is what's called "compelled speech", and it's when someone says to you, "Say $THING or else". It's very reasonable for governments to prohibit saying certain things (like national security secrets, for instance, or other people's bank account login info), but thus far forcing people to say things they don't believe has been a bridge too far.
And, happily, compelled speech is a bright line the Americans have, so far, managed not to cross. Everyone should be trying as hard as we can to not cross that line.
You may not see the harm in this particular instance, but establishing "we'll just force them to say it and punish them if they don't" as a tool in any government's toolbox is a very, very bad idea.
Ah, and I should mention Biden's new Title IX rules became law on August 1, 2024 so they weren't "would". Thankfully, we only had a few months under this particular imposition on our basic rights and push never came to shove.
Harris: https://nclalegal.org/opinion/kamala-harris-free-speech-task... Clearly wanted to criminalize speech she didn't like
Walz: https://www.cato.org/commentary/actually-tim-walz-first-amen... Same
Why are these supposedly serious violations funny to you?
Most of what you cited is about what a policy might imply or what someone’s rhetoric might lead to. Also, I don’t know if you knew this, but Walz was never part of the Biden administration.
Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?
The White House excluded AP reporters because the AP wouldn’t adopt its preferred “Gulf of America” wording. A federal judge found that unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination: https://www.ap.org/media-center/ap-in-the-news/2025/ap-wins-...
The administration targeted pro-Palestinian students and faculty with visa revocations, detention, and deportation efforts because of their political advocacy. A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-backed-targeting-pro-...
It targeted Perkins Coie with loss of federal access, contracts, and security clearances over the firm’s clients and political associations: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-temporarily-blocks-tr...
It canceled more than 1,400 humanities grants based on viewpoint. A federal judge found that violated the First Amendment: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judge-rules-huma...
It canceled billions in Harvard research funding in an effort a federal judge found violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-unlawfully-canceled-h...
Many of these Trump cases involve the government actually imposing penalties on people or institutions because of protected speech or association, not just an argument about what a rule might eventually imply.
This is not something you get to pretend is equivalent across “both sides”.
I appreciate you engaging.
Several things:
> Walz was never part of the Biden administration.
I made a claim about the scarequotes(left), not about the Biden administration specifically. You asked about Biden. They were going for succession, you know!
> Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?
Yes
> AP reporters not allowed
The executive has leeway here, it's not clear exactly how much. Biden wasn't inviting Breitbart in, for example. That a judge found something doesn't mean much, supremes finding something would be meaningful.
> Targeted pro-Pal students
Specifically, pro-Pal foreign students. The Americans are right now in the process of figuring out when their rights apply to foreigners and when they don't. Often, the fed's tack is: we ask you at the border if you support terrorist organizations. If you say "yes", we don't let you in. Turns out you support HAMAS. That's a terrorist org, it's on our list. You lied. Goodbye! So in many cases it's not about speech per se, but rather whether you lied to the feds. And if the "unconstitutionality" thing here holds up, well then...I guess USA decided free speech applies to foreigners in the country. But until very recently that was a murky issue. Maybe still is, idk.
> Perkins Cole
"Liberals" do the same thing. Look at Biden pressuring for debanking of crypto people [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonyaevans/2025/12/06/feds-bowm...]. Or jawboning Meta. I think it's less salient when left does it because they have captured the majority of institutions. So it looks like business as usual. It looks "legit". Except...it's just Blue enacting its will through e.g. the Fed, or whoever it is that regulates banks.
>Canceled grants
Here, I'm an expert! I'm an academic who has been negatively affected by all this. What some district court judge found is irrelevant, so I'll ignore that (just in case: district court judges are small potatoes and their rulings do not have precedential value). What I will say is: the situation had gotten WAY out of hand. The feds were funding a bunch of batshit crazy stuff that was CLEARLY just fraud and woke virtue-signaling. A lot of good stuff got canceled too, which is sad. That good stuff probably had batshit crazy woke signaling in their grant write-ups because that's the only way you could get funded! Which is sad. Should the admin have used a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer? Yes. Should the humanities be getting much less funding and producing far fewer graduate students? Yes. Even graduating from a top (~Harvard) program, humanities graduate students have something like a 10-25% chance of a "real" (professorship) job. And that might be Northwest Arkansas State Community Daycare College.
> Harvard
Harvard was made an example of. Fair? No. Did they break the law A LOT, just like everyone else? You betcha! Did they definitely discriminate in favor of Pal against Israel? Yes, certainly did. Did the admin handle it in the smartest way possible? Definitely not.
> Trump actually did bad things, not "might"
You have to understand: the "speech" climate in academia has been so, so bad for ten years - and that's because of the "liberals", not Trump and co. It's been insane. The speech restrictions were REAL. People got FIRED. Many more people KEPT QUIET ABOUT REAL SCIENCE THINGS FOR FEAR OF PUNISHMENT. Things are better now, crazier but better. You can talk kinda. The institutions are still >80% captured by Team Blue, but there is a breath of fresh air. A waft. One needn't be fearful all the time.
And I should say as well: the "thou shalt speak the wokeness" thing is, for most disciplines, merely an academic exercise. Lip service. You're a physicist: so what? "Trans women are women". Okay, fine, whatever - I believe it, I don't, I support it, I don't, it has nothing to do with fermions.
But imagine you study humans, and human behavior: suddenly, everything has real stakes. "Black people and white people are different!" --> fired. "Evolution is real and it affects behavior systematically" --> fired. Carole Hooven, for instance (driven out, not fired - cheaper that way).
One final word:
There is an extremely important difference between the tantrums of the present administration and the tack that Biden and Friends were taking. The present administration shows no signs of trying to make its infringements permanent and systematic. The previous group was trying to do precisely and exactly that. Which is much, much scarier to me.
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