Free speech in America is under attack! There is either free speech or there is not. The 1st Amendment to the Constitution gives the citizens of this country the right to free speech. It does not state that the people have the right to free speech as long as they do not offend anyone. Gradually across this country especially on college and university campuses the freedom of speech is being infringed upon. These locations that used to be the catalyst for freedom of thought, speech, and movement for change are now becoming the basecamp for conformity training. They preach critical thinking as long as the student criticizes within the ridged guidelines of the majority way of thinking. Many college campuses have enacted speech codes as a knee jerk reaction to incidents that have occurred here and there across the country since the 1980’s involving racial and sexual orientation cases. The boards of these schools made speech codes but only affected the stem of the problem and not the root. They put a limit on freedom of speech, which is unconstitutional and will affect our whole system of Democracy. College and university students need to understand that for this country to claim to have free speech there must be free speech whether it offends or not. Before students can even determine if their rights are being infringed upon they must know what a right is. A right such as free speech is something we are entitled to under the Constitution. The first Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The Constitution grants every citizen the right to free speech no matter how offensive. The true test of free speech is when someone says something the main stream disagrees with. The fact that colleges, some government funded, are putting limits on speech is heading down a slippery slope. If free speech is limited it is limited for all people and can be used against the same people the codes were made to protect in the first place. Many will ask, where the line is drawn between free speech and speech not covered under the Constitution. The official website of the American Civil Liberties Union states “The U.S. Supreme Court did rule in 1942, in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, that intimidating speech directed at a specific individual in a face-to-face confrontation amounts to "fighting words," and that the person engaging in such speech can be punished if "by their very utterance [the words] inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” (ACLU) Therefore the line is drawn when it goes from an individual expressing their opinion, to those opinions being directed at a single individual. The citizens of this country including college students have the freedom of speech protected by the Constitution regardless of whether their opinions are deemed socially unacceptable as long as they are not directed at a single individual. It is their right! Furthermore College students must understand that political correctness is not freedom of speech. By trying to be PC this country is starting to divide itself instead of being drawn closer together. American is a Republican (not the party) De