Center to Protect Free Speech at Young Americans for Liberty National Convention

The Center to Protect Free Speech had a great time interacting with freedom-minded students last week at the 2017 Young Americans for Liberty National Convention. The goal was to instruct and equip the students to speak with their state legislators about free speech on their campuses.

Research Analyst, Daniel Turner and ALEC interns manned the ALEC booth, quenching students’ thirst for free speech with ALEC bottles of water, copies of the Forming Open and Robust University Minds (FORUM) Act and conversations encouraging students to speak to their legislators about free speech on their campuses. Many students had never heard of ALEC and were very interested in learning more about the organization and its mission of preserving limited government, free markets and federalism.

Center Director Shelby Emmett gave a presentation during a breakout session titled, “Campus Speech and Legislative Advocacy: Making Your Voice Heard on Campus and in the Legislature.” Shelby laid out the finite details of how to offer legislative testimony, encouraging them to extend their activism from campus to the legislature. In an effort to encourage the liberty-minded college students to reach across ideological lines, Shelby urged the notion by stating, “We’ve got to learn to engage those not necessarily as passionate about free speech as we are”. The bottom line motivation of the presentation was to show how one person can make a difference, by talking about their experiences with free speech on campus with their state and local representatives.

Following the breakout session, ALEC videographer, Sarah Wood, conducted video interviews with more than 30 students, asking them what they would like to tell their state legislators about free speech on campus. Be on the look out for a new video with their answers soon!