CAMPUS

May 28th, 2009

Student Censored For Pamphleteering at Penn. Community College

FIRE reports on yet another case of a student being harassed by school administrators for advocating for concealed carry of handguns on campus. The Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania has threatened disciplinary action against one of its students, Christine Brashier, for handing out pamphlets and trying to start a campus chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

The school deans said Brashier was prohibited from “soliciting” her materials or even discussing concealed carry on campus. They even went so far as to order her to destroy all of her pamphlets.

Posted in Blog, Uncategorized
By CJ Ciaramella

May 24th, 2009

Liberty U. Not Quite Living Up To Name

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Liberty University, a private Christian school, has revoked recognition of its student Democrat club. The university administration sent the club a nice letter, which reads in part:

“The Democratic Party platform is contrary to the mission of Liberty University and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the ‘LGBT’ agenda, hate crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc.),” according to the newspaper. The Democratic group at Liberty has expressed opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.”

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

May 19th, 2009

Shocker: J-Schools Not Ideologically Diverse

University of Oregon grad student Dan Lawton has a good article on his personal blog about the lack of ideological diversity in journalism schools and the potential problems that causes. The article is part of an ongoing project by Lawton on diversity in higher education. I’ve been interviewed for it a couple of times, and there will be a short documentary forthcoming. All in all, it promises to be very interesting.

Using his public records kung fu, Lawton discovers that, of the thirty two full-time faculty in the UO journalism school, none are registered Republicans. Even adding in adjunct faculty, there are only two Republicans.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

May 9th, 2009

Rep. Sanchez Responds to Criticism

Representative Linda Sanchez has an article over at the Huffington Post responding to criticism of her proposed bill, the Megan Meiers Cyberbullying Prevention Act. She starts off with this nice piece of obfuscation:

“If you were walking down the street and saw someone harassing a child, would you just walk by and look the other way? If that person was telling the child the world would be better off if they just killed themselves, would you ignore it?”

Well … no, but my response probably wouldn’t be to craft an overbroad, facially unconstitutional bill that targets far more than just “cyberbullying.” But then again, I’m not Rep. Sanchez. (For you critical thinkers out there, Sanchez’s rhetorical question is called a false dichotomy.)

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

May 6th, 2009

Spreading the Grade Point Average

The Young America’s Foundation recently sponsored an amusing video contest, in which conservative college students try to get their peers to sign a fake petition for equal distribution of grade point averages.

Most of the students are, of course, mortified by the idea (”but I worked hard for my grades!”), but when asked if they support wealth redistribution, they invariably say yes. It’s telling of the cognitive dissonance that students must have to keep up to pass the average sociology class.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

May 5th, 2009

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find Out What it Means to Me: Military history and the academy

I admit: I’m kind of a military history nerd. And by “kind of” I mean I actually know how many Japanese surrendered after the Battle of Iwo Jima. If I could, I’d go get a PhD in the study of airpower and spend the rest of my life imparting that knowledge to fellow geeks.

A few weeks ago I decided to explore this option a bit. I was dismayed to discover that what a professor told me last year was quite true: “Military history is a dying art.” My options seemed limited to either one of the service academies or the Royal Military College of Canada—none of which are likely decisions.

Posted in Blog
By Christina Miller

May 3rd, 2009

Unconstitutional “Cyberbullying” Bill Proposed in House

A bill sponsored by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-California) has been proposed in the House of Representatives that would make “cyberbullying,” as it’s been coined, illegal.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, named after a 13 year-old girl who committed suicide after falling victim to a cruel Myspace prank, would make it a felony to transmit “in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior.”

As is wont to happen when lawmakers grandstand on a current issue, the proposed bill is a legal train wreck – a half-baked piece of legislation that, if it weren’t almost guaranteed to be stricken down as unconstitutional, would be seriously dangerous to free speech.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

April 30th, 2009

God’s Sick Joke

Do you ever notice how the weather always just begins to get nice during exam week? Up here in the northeast, winter has suddenly thawed with 75 degree weather and cloudless skies. This presents an enormous temptation to students looking to go to class, study for finals, and finish the semester strong. Plenty of students begin their track towards class with perfectly good intentions only to get sidetracked by a game of ultimate frisbee or football. Despite the promises of fly fishing that a late May in upstate New York (my home) ultimately holds for me, the need for sunny relaxation rears its ugly head every time I cross the academic quad.

Posted in Blog
By Michael Reer

April 29th, 2009

Update on UMass Amherst

The UMass Amherst administration has wisely rejected the student government’s decision to censor the conservative paper on campus, The Minuteman.

“As the enactment does not reflect an appreciation of the Silent Majority’s [the student organization that publishes the paper] constitutional right to the exercise of free speech, I reject it altogether and recommend that it be rescinded in its entirety,” wrote Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life Esther Terry.

The administration might also punish one of the people who flagrantly stole copies of the paper.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

April 28th, 2009

Mary Ann Glendon Turns Down ND

Father Jenkins, C.S.C. was given a rude surprise yesterday when Mary Ann Glendon turned down the prestigous Laetare Medal, which was to be given during the commencement exercises. The Laetare Medal, which commemorates outstanding service to the Roman Catholic Church and society is widely considered the oldest and most prestigous award for a Catholic layperson to receive. In doing so, Glendon has significantly upped the pressure on Jenkins and Notre Dame.

Posted in Blog
By Michael Reer