Uncle Joe Stalin and Free Speech

"It’s not how people vote that counts, but who counts the votes."

That's one of many versions of a quote that's attributed to Joseph Stalin.  Let's extend that thought a little bit:  "What matters is not the free speech you have, it’s the free speech those in charge say you have."

What's the point here?  This:

Officials behind the University of Arkansas’ proposed tenure policy understood that the new revisions would be “controversial” and greatly limit free speech of faculty, new documents show.

The policy, which has been criticized for weakening tenure by making it possible to fire professors for “unwillingness to work productively with colleagues,” also includes a provision that drastically limits the scope of faculty free expression...

Although seemingly subtle, the changes to the provision have an enormous effect on free expression of tenured professors by limiting the protected speech to two specific categories, Silverstein maintained.

“The statement also shows that the attorneys recognize precisely why their changes are controversial,” the professor argued, “because the proposal in fact critically limits the scope of academic freedom, one of the core tenets that define universities as places of higher education.”

Somehow I don't believe that free speech limitations would apply to left-leaning professors as much as to right-leaning professors.  Just sayin'.

Wouldn't matter if it were the other way around.  Free speech is too important to give up, especially to petty bureaucrats and school administrators.