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Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
by Newsletter
May 28
Greg Lukianoff: 'Campus Speech Codes: Absurd, Tenacious, and Everywhere'
The National Association of Scholars has posted on its website a comprehensive article on speech codes written by FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. The article, entitled "Campus Speech Codes: Absurd, Tenacious, and Everywhere," discusses the origins of speech codes as well as their legal history in the courts, including FIRE's Speech Codes Litigation Project. It also cites the findings of our latest annual speech code report, Spotlight on Speech Codes 2007, to demonstrate that speech codes are still prevalent at colleges and universities nationwide. In the article, Greg discusses several factors that explain the persistence of speech codes and offers some solutions for defeating them.
More FIRE in The Wall Street Journal
Tuesday's Wall Street Journal features an article by FIRE co-founder Alan Charles Kors, entitled "On the sadness of higher education." Previously published in The New Criterion, Alan chronicles the decline of freedom of expression on college campuses over the last several decades. Another article in The Wall Street Journal by Naomi Schaefer Riley discusses the faddish popularity of 'sustainability' initiatives on college campuses, paying particular attention to the University of Delaware, where indoctrinating students about the "triple bottom line" of sustainability—which the university then defined as "the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social equity"—was a key element of its disgraced ResLife education program. As the article notes, and as we have discussed extensively on The Torch, on Monday, May 19, Delaware's Board of Trustees approved a new version of the ResLife education program in which almost all activities are putatively optional and in which sustainability is featured only in terms of environmentalism. FIRE supporters will also recall that FIRE's case at Valdosta State University was heavily featured in a Wall Street Journal article last week.
Tarrant County College Bans Symbolic 'Empty Holster' Protest; Banishes Students with Dissenting Opinions to Small Free Speech Zone
In a dramatic blow to freedom of expression, Tarrant County College (TCC) has prohibited its students from wearing empty gun holsters to protest policies that forbid students with concealed carry licenses from carrying concealed handguns on campus. A TCC administrator told interested students that they could not wear the holsters and could only conduct a protest in the school's tiny and restrictive free speech zone. TCC student and protest organizer Brett Poulos has turned to FIRE for help.
Recent Media Coverage
The Wall Street Journal, May 27, "On the sadness of higher education," by Alan Charles Kors
The Bulletin, May 27, "Controversy continues to surround guns on campus," by Joe Murray
The Wall Street Journal, May 23, "Heaven sustain us: Environmentalists have taken over the dorms," by Naomi Schaefer Riley
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 23, "Student criticizes TCC for banning empty gun holster," by John Austin
Houston Chronicle, May 23, "Student says college violated rights by banning protest," by Angela K. Brown
More media coverage at thefire.org »
May 28, "Greg Lukianoff: 'Campus Speech Codes: Absurd, Tenacious, and Everywhere'," Kelly Sarabyn
May 28, "More Commentary on Academic Freedom Case," Kelly Sarabyn
May 27, "Tarrant County College Responds to FIRE," Emily Guidry
May 27, "Marjorie Heins on 'The Insidious Persistence of Loyalty Oaths'," Samantha Harris
May 27, "Media Covers FIRE's Case at Tarrant County College," Samantha Harris
May 23, "Freedom is a Light for Which Many Men Have Died in Darkness," Adam Kissel
Read The Torch at thefire.org »
Recent Multimedia Content
Video, Chainsaw Etiquette at Colorado College
FIREside Chats, Episode 114: A Thanks to All Our Donors
FIREside Chats, Episode 113: Residence Life Program Proposal at the University of Delaware
More multimedia at thefire.org »
2008
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities.
Speech Code of the Month
FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for May 2008: the University of Louisville. The University of Louisville's Code of Student Conduct prohibits "[e]ngaging in intentional conduct directed at a specific person(s) which seriously alarms or intimidates such person(s) and which serves no legitimate purpose," but this hopelessly vague and overbroad restriction on speech has no place at a public university. Louisville also defines "hostile environment harassment" as "unwelcomed comments or conduct that have the purpose of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working or learning environment that a reasonable person would find threatening or intimidating." However, this definition fails to meet the exacting standards for peer-on-peer harassment supplied by the Supreme Court, resulting in an impermissibly vague restriction on expression that serves to chill speech on campus.
RSS Feed | Multimedia | Speech Code of the Month
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