Last Thursday, the Departments of Justice and Education mandated a broad definition for sexual harassment on college campuses: “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” including "verbal conduct” (also known as speech or expression). DoE and DoJ regulate virtually every campus in America, public and private. So requiring universities to adopt this definition — issued in a letter to the University of Montana that DoE and DoJ are calling a “blueprint” for colleges and universities across the country — is a big deal.
1:33 PM 04/25/2013
Dartmouth College students got an unexpected surprise Wednesday — a day off of classes! For that, they can thank a series of events that started with a group of fellow students calling themselves Real Talk Dartmouth. The group marched into a performance of songs and skits for admitted students last Friday and screamed “Dartmouth has a problem!” at the top of their lungs while chanting about the problems of a campus they see as rife with homophobia, sexism, and sexual assault. This impressed the high school seniors in attendance about as much as you might expect. The Dartmouth reported that “Lainie Caswell, a prospective student from Palo Alto, Calif., said the protest was a ‘low point of the weekend.’” One can only imagine.
4:31 PM 02/21/2013
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ill-informed ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez called into question the right of student organizations at public universities to make decisions about membership and leadership by taking into account a student’s beliefs. The Court undermined America’s long tradition of ideological and religious pluralism by finding that so-called “all-comers” policies forbidding student groups from making belief-based decisions do not violate the First Amendment. The Virginia legislature has just sent a bill to Governor Bob McDonnell’s desk that would restore this right in the Old Dominion, thereby protecting students from the absurd results that the Martinez holding has made possible.
4:50 PM 12/26/2012
There’s no place in the world where speech is freer than the United States of America. It’s a vital part of the attraction our land has always had for those around the world who find themselves marginalized, persecuted, or worse because of what they say or what they believe. Unfortunately, our college campuses are an exception to our exceptional freedom — and for those of us who care about freedom in academia, 2012 was another tough year.
2:02 PM 11/28/2012
I’m not a big believer in the “war on Christmas” rhetoric that we often hear around this time of year. In a religiously diverse and pluralistic society like ours, politicians, corporations, and other institutions are naturally going to adjust the way they express themselves in order to avoid offending their constituents or customers.
2:02 PM 10/01/2012
Because of the uproar over the YouTube video that was said to have led to uprisings against American interests in the Muslim world — including the death of our ambassador to Libya and three others — Americans are being confronted with a couple of unfortunate facts.
1:27 PM 09/26/2012
University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner created an Internet sensation yesterday with an article for Slate in which he argued that the United States overvalues free speech. Posner argued that the reaction to the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video that has been indirectly blamed for causing the deaths of four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, shows that other nations “might have a point” when they decide that free speech must “yield to other values and the need for order.”
3:29 PM 09/12/2012
In the wake of the January 2011 shooting in Arizona that killed 6 and injured 14 (including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords), “civility” became a focus of national conversation. A political food fight over which side of the ideological aisle was indirectly at fault for the shooting erupted, and President Obama called for greater political civility in a speech in Tucson. The University of Arizona even opened a National Institute for Civil Discourse, headlined by Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton as honorary chairs.
3:05 PM 09/07/2012
The past weeks’ political conventions have once again brought home how deeply divided our country is when it comes to the issues of gay marriage and gay parenting. Feelings are so strong that their intensity can blind people to important issues of principle. That’s why it’s important to know that last week, the University of Texas at Austin announced that it had found no evidence that Professor Mark Regnerus had engaged in scientific misconduct when he published a paper that has been used to bolster the arguments of those opposed to same-sex parenting.
4:59 PM 08/23/2012
As a native of Toledo, Ohio (Go Mud Hens!), I guess I should be happy that my home state is so flush with cash that it had $200,000 in taxpayer funds to waste in the latest doomed attempt by a public university to violate the constitutional rights of its students. Since 2007, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE, where I work) has been warning the University of Cincinnati (UC) that confining student speech to a tiny “Free Speech Area” that covered a mere 0.1% of the school’s 137-acre campus is unconstitutional. UC was dead serious about enforcing this policy — the school actually threatened that any UC students who dared to express themselves outside of that spot would face trespassing charges and criminal prosecution.
2:06 PM 08/20/2012
“You may hear the argument that Vanderbilt is discriminating against religious groups. I want to assure you that in my opinion, we are not.”
5:30 PM 08/16/2012
There’s a classic joke that the definition of chutzpah is killing your parents and then begging the court for mercy because you’re an orphan. The University of Central Florida (UCF) has now updated that joke for the Internet age: after punishing a student for inventing a better way to search for available classes, it copied his ideas and rolled out its own solution.
6:11 PM 07/20/2012
College administrators seem to be natural enemies of student newspapers. Time after time, they have waged war against student publications: refusing to take action against widespread newspaper theft; trying to withhold student-fee funding from papers due to controversial content; and even threatening academic sanctions against individual student journalists who dare to criticize the school. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), where I work, has chronicled many of these battles in FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus.
7:53 PM 04/30/2012
Forget about fraternity rush, spring break, and cramming for exams. The students and faculty of Northern Kentucky University (NKU) have brought a disturbing new tradition to campus: justifying the destruction of pro-life displays as “freedom of speech.”
4:30 PM 03/28/2012
Who doesn’t love a good awards show? The gowns, the acceptance speeches, the brutal infringements of civil liberties … the excitement just never ends.
2:59 PM 02/24/2012
Zero point one percent. Out of the 8,506,833 square feet (approximately 137 acres) of its West Campus, the University of Cincinnati (UC), a public university, has decided that students may exercise their rights to “demonstrate, picket, or rally” on a small scrap of land that constitutes 0.1 percent of the campus. If they dare to exercise these basic rights outside of that “Free Speech Area,” they will be reported to the campus police and charged with trespassing.
6:23 PM 02/17/2012
College administrators may be witnessing the end of an era. The blissful days when they could expel a student and force him to undergo ongoing mental health evaluations for posting a collage about a parking garage on Facebook are rapidly slipping into the past. While the heady rush of spending taxpayer dollars on new departments with armies of underlings may soften the blow, can this really outweigh the bitter realization that one can no longer freely violate a student’s constitutional rights?
2:14 PM 01/31/2012
On January 20, Vanderbilt University announced that it will prohibit religious and political student groups from making leadership decisions based on their religious or political beliefs. University policy now holds that “membership in registered student organizations is open to everyone and that everyone, if desired, has the opportunity to seek leadership positions.”
3:58 PM 01/23/2012
By now, we should all know that the things we say or do on the Internet can come back to haunt us. Your online guide to cannabis cultivation can be a tricky conversation topic during a job interview. That scandalous photo from college can make its way to the horrified eyes of your parents. But would you ever imagine that complaining on Facebook about a comment you thought was racist could get you expelled from graduate school?
1:33 PM 12/13/2011
At universities across America, thousands of students are routinely subjected to unconstitutional and illiberal speech regulations that require burdensome notice or wait time requirements to assemble on campus. Thursday's shooting of a police officer (and the later suicide of the shooter) at Virginia Tech provides another example of how these unconstitutional policies are morally wrong and, if applied, can be downright cruel.
