Tonight’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game will bring an end to this year’s March Madness. If you are like me and 80% of America, your basketball bracket busted a long time ago so there isn’t much at stake now. This year my superior sports knowledge was put to shame by my four year old son’s picks, which on one hand had Middle Tennessee State going to the Elite Eight and on the other hand correctly placed Oregon and North Carolina in the Final Four. It’s time for me to pay up now, look forward to the Masters, and not care about college basketball until next March. By then, I hope, the shame of 2017 will have worn off.
But in as much as my bracket this year was shameful and the madness of some of this year’s games very real, our friends at the Alliance Defending Freedom put together the true “Bracket of Shame” which highlights the increasing madness of how colleges across the country are suppressing the freedom of speech on their campuses. ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox took the schools that made the actual NCAA Tournament and made his picks based on what schools had the worst free speech records. The Alliance Defending Freedom Center for Academic Freedom has secured nearly 400 victories for student free speech rights, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Recent victories include Grand Valley State University, Kentucky state’s public colleges, and California University. I’d encourage you all to read Mattox’s humorous, bracket analysis and stop sending your kids or money to the worst offenders until these schools get right by the First Amendment. Unfortunately, that means my kids may not be able to follow those in my family that have gone to the University of Wisconsin, the worst offender of them all, until the Badgers get their act together. Thankfully, UW still has ten years until I will have to pay any college bills.