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| Tennessee Rep. Martin Daniel |
By Joel Ebert
The TennesseanA Knoxville-based Republican lawmaker on Thursday defended his comments that free speech rights on college campuses should offer protections, even to groups like ISIS.
Speaking on the House floor, Rep. Martin Daniel said he supports people’s constitutional rights to free speech, even if he disagrees with the message.
“I just wanted to confirm and clarify that I will always respect the right of persons and organizations to speak,” he said. “That however is different from agreeing with the content of that speech. I will never apologize for defending the First Amendment. I will always cloak myself in it and defend others’ right to speak.”
Daniel’s defense comes one day after he fielded a question about whether he believed people should be able to stand in the middle of university campuses and “recruit for ISIS.
“So long as it doesn’t disrupt the proceedings on that campus. Yes sir,” Daniel told the House Education Administration and Planning Subcommittee on Wednesday. “They can recruit people for any organization or any other cause. I think it’s just part of being exposed to differing viewpoints.”
On Thursday, Daniel elaborated, saying, “The remedy for disagreeable speech is not silence that speech — it is more speech.”
Some members of the House applauded Daniel after he offered the explanation.
In an email to The Tennessean, Daniel said he was simply trying to offer a legal opinion that “any organization has the simple right to recruit membership in any public space, including public higher education campuses.”
“If that speech should cross the line so that it becomes an imminent threat to someone, including our country, that would not be protected speech,” he wrote, citing Brandenburg v. Ohio, a 1969 Supreme Court decision that made inflammatory speech, which could incited “imminent lawless action” illegal.
While discussing the issue from his inside his legislative office, Daniel said he did not want his remarks to lead people to believe he supports the terrorist group.
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