Category Archives: Free speech

Calgary Herald: Students are becoming frightening speech stiflers

What a bunch of wimps a large number of university students are these days. They’re about as far removed from the heady era of Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement in the ’60s and ’70s as Jerry Rubin was from his firebrand days as a socialist Yippie, after he knotted his necktie, grabbed a briefcase and headed for Wall Street. The Free Speech Movement was launched when students –many of whom had gone south to sign up black voters during the Freedom Summer of 1964–set up booths on the Berkeley campus to raise money for various civil rights projects. The university objected because its rules forbade political fundraising unless it was done by the Republican and Democratic student clubs.

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Inside Higher Ed: Speech Restrictions Draw Fire

A proposed policy at Northeastern Illinois University would require protesters to submit copies of fliers and signs to administrators two weeks before bringing them on the campus, sparking criticism from free speech advocates.

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Globe and Mail: Conversation cops step in to school students

Your friend’s new fuchsia fedora might be hideous. But don’t call it gay, or you might get a language lesson from the conversation cops.

Students at Queen’s University who sprinkle their dialogue with an assortment of “homo” or “retarded” could find out the hard way that not everyone finds their remarks acceptable.

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The Tennessean: TSU bans racy, college-themed Web site

On JuicyCampus.com, students anonymously and often obscenely write anything they want about their colleges, professors and classmates.

One post claims a Middle Tennessee State University fraternity member is gay. Another reveals supposed details of a secret sex society at Vanderbilt. A third claims a Tennessee State University student doesn’t bathe, identifying her by name.

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Inside Higher Ed: College Ends Ban on Nietzsche Quote

Whether or not “God is dead,” as Nietzsche famously argued in The Gay Science, the philosopher’s famous quote can once again be displayed on the doors of faculty offices at Temple College, in Texas.

The president of Temple, Glenda Barron, and Mark Smith, who had earlier ordered a professor to remove the quotation from his door, sent out an e-mail message to faculty members reversing the earlier decision.

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Inside Higher Ed: College Bans Nietzsche Quote on Prof’s Door

“God is dead.” That phrase, from Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, is among the philosopher’s most well known — and most hotly debated.

At Temple College, a community college in Texas, the words in the original German — Gott ist tot — have been barred from a professor’s office door. While the college says that to leave the phrase up would offend others and constitute and endorsement of the phrase, the professor and others see a double standard in place, and a violation of academic freedom.

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The Sentinel: Lawsuit against Shippensburg University settled

Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund announced Thursday they have settled a lawsuit with Shippensburg University brought by three members of a Christian group.

ADF said in an e-mail that the settlement brings an “end to the school’s unconstitutional ‘speech codes.’” The lawsuit was brought on behalf of students who were members of Christian Fellowship — Matthew Long, Meredith Everett and Erika Zimmerman. Long was a senior at the time and was listed in the commencement program as a graduate.

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Omaha World-Herald: University cancels speech by Ayers

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln rescinded its speaking invitation tonight for 1960s radical-turned-educator William Ayers.

Just 11 days after next month’s election, the University of Illinois-Chicago professor, William Ayers, is scheduled to speak at a student research conference held by the UNL College of Education and Human Science.
University officials cited “safety reasons” for canceling Ayers’ Nov. 15 appearance.

Spokeswoman Kelly Bartling declined to elaborate on what safety concerns would keep Ayers from addressing a College of Education and Human Sciences event.

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The New York Times: Teachers Sue Over Right to Politic

The New York City teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit on Friday claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression.

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San Diego Union Tribune: Colleges’ gay clubs clash with officials over name

SAN DIEGO – Members of gay and lesbian clubs at two San Diego community colleges say campus administrators have violated their free speech rights by repeatedly blocking attempts to advertise their shared acronym: FAGS.

Jason Frye, president of the clubs on both campuses, said San Diego City College administrators took down the club’s posters and instructed members to stop passing out fliers with the acronym. At San Diego Mesa College, Frye said, the club was told during Rush Week to remove a poster from its booth.

Frye stands by the use of the acronym for the club, whose full name is The Fellowship of Associated Gay Students & Straight Allies.

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Inside Higher Ed: Button controversy continues

The dispute over political buttons is not over at the University of Illinois. A memo from the university’s ethics office last month suggested that professors were barred by state regulations from wearing political buttons, among other activities. Responding to furious faculty members, who said their rights had been trampled, President B. Joseph White said that they could wear buttons. But White’s clarification said that professors could wear buttons only “provided that employees at that time are neither on duty nor in the workplace of the university.” On Wednesday, a committee of the Urbana-Champaign chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote to White arguing that such limits were inappropriate and might be unconstitutional. The letter cited Supreme Court rulings on the free speech rights of public school employees and questioned what harm would come from a faculty member wearing a button to a departmental meeting or around campus.

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The Chronicle News Blog: State Law on Political Activities Doesn’t Trample Basic Freedoms, U. of Illinois Leader Says

Graduate students and professors at the University of Illinois no longer need worry that a bumper sticker supporting John McCain — or Barack Obama or Ralph Nader or anyone else, for that matter — puts them in violation of the state’s ethics law, the university system’s president, B. Joseph White, said in an e-mail message to faculty and staff members this afternoon. The university will “preserve, protect, and defend” the constitutional freedoms of speech and assembly of every employee, as well as academic freedom, he wrote.

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The Chronicle News Blog: AAUP Speaks Out Against No-Politicking Rules at U. of Illinois

The American Association of University Professors wants the University of Illinois to immediately withdraw guidelines that would put political activity — such as wearing campaign buttons or T-shirts or attending a political rally on university property — off limits for faculty members, staff members, and graduate employees.

Cary Nelson, the AAUP’s president and a professor at the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus, said in a written statement that “anecdotal responses suggest a chilling effect has already settled over” the university’s three campuses, in Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign. The statement, in support of graduate-employee and staff rights, follows one in support of faculty members.

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News-Gazette: Restrictions on politicking upset UI faculty

Got a new Obama or McCain button you want to wear around the University of Illinois campus?

Want to circulate Democratic or Republican fliers on the Quad?
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If you’re a university employee, both of those activities are a no-no.

A memo sent to UI employees last week has raised the ire of some faculty members. The message cautions faculty and staff against wearing political campaign buttons, attending a candidate or party-specific rally on campus or participating in other political activity.

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Inside Higher Ed: Beware the Button Police

Sporting an Obama or McCain button? Driving a car with one of the campaigns’ bumper stickers? You might need to be careful on University of Illinois campuses.

The university system’s ethics office sent a notice to all employees, including faculty members, telling them that they could not wear political buttons on campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots unless the messages on those buttons and stickers were strictly nonpartisan. In addition, professors were told that they could not attend political rallies on campuses if those rallies express support for a candidate or political party.

Faculty leaders were stunned by the directives. Some wrote to the ethics office to ask if the message was intended to apply to professors; they were told that it was. At Illinois campuses, as elsewhere, many professors do demonstrate their political convictions on buttons, bumper stickers and the like.

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News Journal: UD student wins lawsuit over free speech

Federal judge awards $10 in damages, upholds suspension on other grounds

A University of Delaware student has won his legal argument that his free speech rights were violated by the school when it suspended him for content on his Web page, but he essentially lost his lawsuit seeking damages.

A federal judge ruled that Maciej Murakowski’s Web page of sex jokes, among other topics, was sophomoric and offensive but was protected speech, not a threat to others and not a violation of the school’s policies.

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