Stanley Fish points out that "First Amendment opportunism" is running rampant on campus, where people are too often too quick to cry censorship when nothing of the sort is going on. He's right.

He also suggests that pretty much all the noise we have been hearing about First Amendment violations on American campuses is overwrought nonsense. "Are there then no free-speech issues on campuses?" he asks. "Sure there are; there just aren't very many." He's wrong.

Fish's essay, which appears in the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, makes no mention at all of the various First Amendment lawsuits that have been filed recently against schools with unconstitutional speech codes. It also fails to acknowledge the existence of FIRE, a non-profit organization whose entire reason for being is to defend First Amendment rights on campus. This isn't because Fish doesn't know about FIRE--he knows FIRE all too well.

So, one is moved to wonder why his essay ignores both the group and the very real First Amendment violations that keep the group in business. The result is an essay skewed beyond credibility--particularly to readers of the Chronicle of Higher Ed, who are well used to reading its coverage of FIRE's frequent defenses of campus free speech. Perhaps Fish is exhibiting a little First Amendment opportunism of his own, exercising his right to express his opinion, no matter how erroneous, ill-conceived, and self-serving it may be.

Thanks to reader Becky J. for the link.