CAMPUS

More Newspaper Suppression on Campuses

Two more pieces of bad news for college newspapers have popped up recently. First, the Catholic University of America’s independent paper, The Tower, had thousands of copies of its latest issue stolen and dumped into campus recycling bins. Unfortunately, The Tower has received little more than apathetic shrugs from both the police department, who trotted out the old “it’s not theft if it’s free” trope, and the college administration.

Video of Newspaper Theft at UMass Amherst

A YouTube video has been posted of the newspaper theft at UMass Amherst that I wrote about yesterday. Check it out after the jump:

Conservative Paper Stolen at UMass Amherst

FIRE reports that the conservative paper at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Minuteman, had its latest issue stolen off the racks. Worse, campus security and the the university administration did nothing to stop the theft. Just another case of tolerance and understanding at a fine institution of higher education.

On the Importance of Newspapers

At a time when the relevancy of newspapers is increasingly being called into question, it’s important to remember what a strong press actually accomplishes, especially at the college level. Believe it or not, all of these “obsolete” newspapers still act as a powerful check on government, and student governments and college administrations would like nothing more than to be free of them.

Court Upholds Forced Association on Campus

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a California law school is not required to recognize religious groups that have closed or discriminatory membership requirements. In essence, this means that the college can defund any campus religious group that requires its members to follow a particular faith.

High Stakes and Low Expectations in Student Government

It’s interesting to hear about student government over at William and Mary, mainly because it’s so different from my school, the University of Oregon.

William and Mary is one of the oldest universities in the country – a small school filled with traditions and famous alumni. The UO has 20,000 students, and it’s greatest claim to history is that Animal House was filmed on campus. (We used to have annual Halloween riots, which was a tradition of sorts, but then the police started using beanbag guns.)

Pomona Apologizes For Trampling Student Rights

Pomona college has apologized for and reversed its embarrassing decision to ban two students from campus for allegedly “disrupting” a public discussion on abortion. In truth, the students merely videotaped the meeting and asked questions, but two Pomona deans summarily decided that their actions constituted intimidation and harassment. In addition to being banned from campus, the students were also warned that they might be charged with invasion of privacy and were ordered to hand over their videotape.

Of course, this is all absurd, and it didn’t take long for Pomona to realize it was facing a PR disaster. As FIRE notes (see link above), this victory is in large part due to the writing of Charles Johnson, a member of the Collegiate Network:

Re: An Imperfect Solution

Matt, I agree with you (and Winston Churchill) that representative democracy is easily the most preferable form of government. However, as you note, there are problems with the system, and I would say student government is more susceptible to these problems than regular government.

In fact, student government often appears to me as a microcosm of what a bad democracy looks like – incredibly low voter turnout, lack of institutional memory, lack of transparency, rampant cronyism, etc. The root of these problems mainly lies in what you identify as one of the two main objectives of student government: distributing student fees.

Student Harassed for Advocating Concealed Carry

Since I recently wrote about the case of concealed carry over at Western Oregon University, I find this story to be quite relevant:

At Central Connecticut University, a professor recently filed a complaint against a student, saying the student made the class feel “scared and uncomfortable” after he gave a presentation advocating concealed carry on campus. That night, the student was called into the campus police station, where police grilled him about the firearms registered in his name and where he kept them.

Reason On Offensive Speech

Today over at Reason, writer David Harsanyi has an article defending “offensive” speech titled “The Right Not to be Offended?” It’s a good read that touches on, among other things, the controversial New York Post editorial cartoon, the FCC, Al Sharpton and the fairness doctrine.