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Tennessee lawmakers will not vote on a bill designed to ensure robust free speech on taxpayer-funded college campuses in the state because they fear ISIS terrorists could possibly show up and start recruiting new members.
The bill, the Tennessee Student Free Speech Protection Act, would require Tennessee’s public colleges and universities to adopt a broad set of policies protecting free expression. It would prevent school officials and professors from “punishing, disciplining, or censuring students” for their speech. It would also ban so-called “bias-reporting systems” and “trigger warnings.” It would make free speech zones verboten as well. Instead, with a few limitations, entire campuses would become free speech zones.
The free-speech bill ran met its end in the Tennessee General Assembly when Memphis Democrat John DeBerry Jr. expressed his concerns that the proposed law would allow members and supporters of ISIS to appear on various university quads and “recruit for ISIS.”