On Saturday, March 2, President Donald Trump will be signing an executive order requiring American universities and colleges to maintain 'free speech' on campuses. If universities and colleges fail to implement this order, Trump threatened that schools could lose federal research funds. Universities must support this decision, in order to gain federal research funds from the government.
This past weekend, Trump spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, MD. President Trump spoke about Hayden Williams, a conservative activist who was punched at the University of California, Berkeley, last month while recruiting other students to join a conservative group.
This issue is huge as it relates to the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution. One of the very first clauses of the First Amendment is Freedom of Speech, which protects the freedom of any individual who may want to articulate their ideas or opinions without fear of retaliation or censorship.
The U.S Justice Department filed a statement of interest in 2018 in a free speech lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley. The accused the university of discriminating against speakers and students with different, but specifically conservative views.
If universities "want our dollars and we give to them by the billions, they have to allow people like Williams and many other great, young or old, people to speak- free speech," Trump said. He said that if universities don't follow this new rule, it will cost them in the long run.
The U.S government awards universities more than $30 billion annually in federal research funds.
President Trump has yet to further disclose any other details of this executive order.
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