Category Archives: Free speech

Inside Higher Ed: Furor Over Anti-Islam Speaker

The president of Iran isn’t the only Holocaust denier to win a platform on an American college campus.

At Michigan State University Friday, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party who was convicted in 1998 for incitement of racial hatred over material denying the Holocaust, was brought to campus for a speech denouncing Islam. Griffin acknowledges having been a Holocaust denier, but says he no longer is one. His party is on record opposing black-white marriages, believing that black people are less intelligent than white people, and saying that ethnic minorities should be limited to 2-3 percent of the population of any given area in Britain.

Griffin was invited to Michigan State by the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. He was supposed to give a one-hour talk about Islam and then answer questions for an hour, but audience members started shouting at him shortly after he started his talk and he shifted to Q&A format so he could answer what was being shouted at him.

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Inside Higher Ed: St. Thomas Agrees to Invite Tutu

Facing widespread condemnation for its decision to block a speaking invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the University of St. Thomas announced Wednesday that he would be welcome on the campus after all. While many on the campus said that they were pleased with the reversal, some also questioned whether the university was doing enough to undo damage from the incident.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Supreme Court Passes Up Case of Preacher’s Restricted Access to Campus

Brother Jim will not have his day in court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear the case of the evangelical preacher, James G. Gilles, who calls himself Brother Jim and whose speech Vincennes University restricted to a small part of its campus in 2002.

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Inside Higher Ed: Watch Out Whom You Invite to Speak …

It’s fair to say that Columbia University has heard more than an earful over its decision to offer a speaking platform this week to Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Reaction ranged widely, with many condemning the university for inviting the controversial leader, others praising Columbia’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, for sternly rebuking the Iranian president while he looked on, and some doing both. Opinions flowed freely.

On Wednesday, one vehement critic, with a prominent platform of his own, went a large step further. U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Californian who is also a longshot candidate (to be generous) for the Republican nomination for president, introduced legislation that would “prohibit federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University.” The text of the legislation — which college officials called “unprecedented” — was not yet available on any government Web sites.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Columbia U. Is Unmoved by Criticism of Iranian President’s Visit

Despite scathing condemnation from national and city politicians, Columbia University has resisted pressure to cancel an appearance by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on the New York City campus on Monday, ABC News reported. “Iran is an important country. And like it or not, we are going to have to deal with it,” John Coatsworth, dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, said on the network program Good Morning America Weekend Edition. “We are not giving him a platform. He has plenty of platforms.”

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The Chronicle News Blog:

AAUP Urges Presidents to Withstand Criticism Over Unpopular Campus Speakers

To prepare for the 2008 elections and anticipated outcries over political speakers on campuses, Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Presidents, has sent an open letter to 3,000 university presidents urging them not to bow to public pressure to cancel invitations to controversial speakers.

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The Davis Enterprise: UC yanks speaker’s invitation: Controversial ex-Harvard president was scheduled to address regents Wednesday

After a group of UC Davis women faculty began circulating a petition, UC regents rescinded an invitation to Larry Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner Wednesday night in Sacramento. The dinner comes during the regents’ meeting at UCD next week.

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The Chronicle: Court Rules Against Campus Preacher in Free-Speech Lawsuit

A preacher who contended a university in Kentucky had violated his right to free speech lost the latest round of a series of legal battles with colleges last week.

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Inside Higher Ed: Limits on Free Speech

Public universities have the right to set limits on spending in student government elections, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has barred such limits in federal and state elections as infringements on free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued the unanimous ruling in a case involving a challenge to a $100 spending limit set by the University of Montana. The court found that the university’s educational mission — and the relationship between the rules on election spending and that spending — gave the university the right to limit the speech encompassed by campaign spending.

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Inside Higher Ed: A Costly Thanksgiving Message

Is a professor about to lose his job for sharing George Washington’s words with his colleagues?

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The Chronicle: Federal Appeals Court Finds No Free-Speech Protection for College Administrator’s Complaint

A federal appeals court in Atlanta has ruled that a former vice president at Miami Dade College who was dismissed after complaining about potentially illegal and unethical behaviors cannot sue the college’s president on free-speech grounds. Some higher-education experts warned that the decision could have a chilling effect on free speech and make it harder for university lawyers and officials to do their jobs.

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