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The Torch
November 20, 2008
It was only a matter of time before some university decided to ban the gossip website JuicyCampus.com from its network, and now one has: Tennessee State University in Nashville. According to a November 12 letter to the student body from Vice President for Student Affairs Michael A. Freeman, Tennessee State blocked the website from access through campus networks because it "does not fit with the legacy, spirit, and reputation of Tennessee State University." This instance of Internet censorship at one of our nation's public institutions of higher learning is an affront to both the free marketplace of ideas and the First Amendment itself.
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November 17, 2008
Binghamton University (formerly SUNY–Binghamton) has abandoned its attempt to suspend or expel a student who put up posters challenging the Department of Social Work. The department had ordered that social work master's student Andre Massena leave the program for one year with no guarantee of return, required him to apologize, and demanded that he publicly disavow his own views after his pseudonymous posters challenged the department for having hired the executive director of the Binghamton Housing Authority (BHA)—an agency Massena thought was responsible for social injustice. When Massena appealed, the department's chair added entirely new allegations and recommended his expulsion. The department dropped the charges late Friday, one day after FIRE took the case public.
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Read More About Binghamton University: Student Suspended for Posters Criticizing Department of Social Work and Government Agency » Press Release
November 13, 2008
Binghamton University's Department of Social Work ordered the suspension of a master's student for one year with no guarantee of return, required him to apologize, and demanded that he publicly disavow his own views after he put up posters challenging the department for having hired the executive director of the Binghamton Housing Authority—an agency the student thought was responsible for social injustice. Student Andre Massena, who remains in school pending an appeal, has turned to FIRE for help.
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Update: November 17, 2008, Read More About Binghamton University: Student Suspended for Posters Criticizing Department of Social Work and Government Agency » The Torch
November 10, 2008
In response to New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram's memo urging colleges to include prohibitions on "cyber-harassment" and "bullying" in their codes of student conduct, FIRE, the Student Press Law Center, and the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists have co-signed a letter today urging Attorney General Milgram to ensure that any such prohibitions are compatible with the robust constitutional rights enjoyed by students on campus. Milgram's office has sent letters to colleges and universities across New Jersey arguing that school administrators "have a role to play in reducing inappropriate content, conduct, and contact on the Internet." FIRE and the other organizations involved are concerned that directives against "bullying" passed in response to Milgram's campaign are likely to be stated so vaguely and with such overbreadth that they will chill or prohibit wide swaths of constitutionally protected speech. The letter reminds the Attorney General that any instance of "cyber-bullying" that constitutes true harassment is, of course, already prohibited by existing law.
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November 6, 2008
In a victory for freedom of expression, Temple College President Glenda O. Barron has quickly reversed the censorship of a religiously themed cartoon and the Nietzsche quotation "God is dead." After Mark Smith, Interim Vice President of Educational Services and Chief Academic Officer, forced English Professor Kerry Laird's postings to be removed from his office door, Laird turned to FIRE for help.
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Update: November 10, 2008, Read More About Temple College: Censorship of Cartoon and Nietzsche Quotation on Professor's Office Door » The Torch
November 5, 2008
FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for November 2008: University of the Pacific. The university's policy on Harassment, Coercion, and Discrimination prohibits any conduct "that undermines the emotional, physical, or ethical integrity of any community member." This includes any expression, "intentional or unintentional," that "has the effect of demeaning, ridiculing, defaming, stigmatizing, intimidating, slandering or impeding the work or movement of a person or persons or conduct that supports or parodies the oppression of others." Examples of explicitly prohibited expression include "insults," "jokes," "teasing," and "derogatory comments." The policy is so fraught with attacks on free speech that it is difficult to understand how anyone even remotely aware of the First Amendment allowed it to be implemented. (The University of the Pacific, as a private, secular university in California, is bound by the Leonard Law, which prohibits private institutions from maintaining regulations that at their public counterparts would violate the First Amendment.) In fact, this policy, which openly threatens core political speech, explicitly bans protected speech, and leaves students at the mercy of the most sensitive members of their community, is one of the worst speech codes FIRE has ever seen.
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November 4, 2008
On this Election Day, FIRE is announcing that it will be sending a letter to the next President of the United States asking him to defend and uphold freedom of speech at America's institutions of higher education. FIRE's Inauguration Day letter to the President will ask for his attention to and action on three main issues: the continued prevalence of campus speech codes, the misuse and abuse of harassment law, and routine violations of students' and faculty members' speech rights. By taking a clear stand against colleges and universities that maintain speech codes, trivialize real harassment, and violate student and faculty speech rights, the new President can do a great service to the Constitution, to higher education, and to our nation as a whole.
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October 31, 2008
FIRE is proud to announce the forthcoming debut of The Lantern: The Journal of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE's newest publication. The initial issue of The Lantern will feature a comprehensive article by Adam Kissel on the thought reform program implemented in 2007 by the University of Delaware's Office of Residence Life, which used mandatory activities to coerce students to change their thoughts, values, attitudes, beliefs, and habits to conform to a highly specified social, environmental, and political agenda. The article explains the program's invasive thought-reform activities, the horrified reactions of students and the press, and FIRE's response one year ago this week. The online edition is available now.
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Update: November 19, 2008, Read More About University of Delaware: Students Required to Undergo Ideological Reeducation » Press Release
October 29, 2008
Quinnipiac University (QU) has threatened a student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists with expulsion from campus if the group associates with The Quad News, an independent student newspaper formed in response to QU's attacks on students' press freedom. FIRE is calling on the university, known for its political polling operation, to either permit freedom of association on campus or publicly declare that it no longer guarantees basic student rights.
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Update: October 31, 2008, Read More About Quinnipiac University: Freedoms of Press and Association in Jeopardy » The Torch
October 28, 2008
In a resounding victory for free speech, the University of Oklahoma has rescinded a September statement that banned the use of university e-mail accounts to engage in protected political expression. On September 12, Nicholas S. Hathaway, Executive Vice President and Vice President of Administration and Finance, sent an e-mail to all University of Oklahoma students, faculty, and staff, informing them that university e-mail accounts "may not be used to endorse or oppose a candidate, including the forwarding of political humor/commentary." Hathaway stated that even personal use of university e-mail accounts "may not include political issues outside of the educational context as it places the University at risk of losing its tax exempt status." On September 26, FIRE wrote OU a letter informing the school that the ban violated the First Amendment rights of OU students, faculty, and staff. Yesterday evening, OU President David L. Boren sent a statement to the university community clarifying and withdrawing Hathaway's statement. Stating that "a university should always be a free marketplace of ideas," Boren declared in his statement yesterday that "the email of September 12th is hereby rescinded and withdrawn."
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Update: November 5, 2008, Read More About University of Oklahoma: Ban on E-mailing Political Humor or Commentary » |
