CAMPUS

April 23rd, 2009

Free Speech! (When its convenient)

Professors at Boston College continue to come out of the woodwork to support “free speech” concerning the canceled Bill Ayers event. Despite the fact that 1968 occurred over 40 years ago, some of the more liberal professors at Boston College never got the memo. Asserting that students and professors are somehow being “suppressed” by not being allowed to have an unrepentant terrorist on campus, some tenured professors are indignantly demanding that the university “answer” for its unacceptable actions. While some professors are making their complaints known in a highly professional, logical manner, others are way too extreme in their views and are exposing themselves as utter hypocrites.

Posted in Blog
By Michael Reer

April 22nd, 2009

The Problem of the Community College

Community colleges are often looked at as the redheaded stepchild of higher education, and for good reason. Their retention rate is fairly low, among those who do stay academic achievement is lukewarm, and the graduation rate is nothing to write home about, according to this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In the article, author Kay McClenney argues that the primary failing of community colleges lies with the institutions themselves and that if the powers that are would just rise to the occasion and expect more of the students, the students would follow.

Posted in Blog
By Christina Miller

April 21st, 2009

Clough Center Comes Under Fire at BC

The Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy was recently created at Boston College for the purposes of developing constitutional thought through undergraduate events, internships, and conferences. For the purposes of full disclosure, I will tell you that I was recently received as one of the first junior fellows by the center, but will strive to remain as objective as possible in relating the following controversial events to you. The center, which has come under fire for attempting to cosponsor an event featuring Bill Ayers, recently cosponsored an event on the Establishment Clause at Princeton, which was most definitely on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

Posted in Blog
By Michael Reer

April 21st, 2009

Hear No Offense, See No Offense, Speak No Offense

At San Jose State University, you can’t “publicly [tell] offensive jokes.” That’s according to their speech code, which just garnered them FIRE’s Speech Code of the Month award.

But that’s not all. What qualifies as an “offensive joke”? By the speech code’s words, whatever the aggrieved party wants.

I am not making this up. Though if I were trying to come up with a better picture of absurdity, I’m not sure I could.

For this, SJSU deserves not only FIRE’s Speech Code of the Month, but a lawsuit. One in which the university must remain silent while the judge tries its case from the viewpoint of whoever they have offended.

Posted in Blog
By Christina Miller

April 17th, 2009

More Newspaper Dumping Across the Country

Last week the Chronicle of Higher Education dug up a few more cases of newspaper dumping on college campuses. For example, at Ohio Wesleyan University, an admissions official trashed hundreds of copies of the The Transcript, which contained a front-page article on the university’s drinking traditions, because he felt it cast the campus in a negative light. Sorry, but that’s not how freedom of the press works.

All of these incidents I’ve been blogging about are all the more shameful, considering that universities are supposed to be vanguards of free thought and expression.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

April 16th, 2009

No Freedom of Speech at UMass Amherst

I previously wrote about a terrible case of newspaper theft at UMass Amherst, where copies of the conservative paper, the Minuteman, were stolen right in front of police. The police and administration did nothing to stop or punish the theft, apparently seeing nothing wrong with suppressing free speech.

Well, the story keeps getting worse. FIRE reports that the Student Government Association (SGA) at UMass Amherst, acting with blatant disregard for the First Amendment, has threatened to shut down the paper unless it apologizes to the woman who stole its issues. (She was mocked in the issue in question – apparently the impetus for her juvenile actions.) On top of that, the SGA refused to hear a resolution put forward by a student senator that would rescind the illegal action. The senator was then removed by police after he protested the SGA’s violation of its own bylaws (not to mention the Constitution).

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

April 14th, 2009

Revisionist History Revisited

One of the growing fads in academia, particularly in American history, is the idea of revisionist history. Revisionist history is an attempt to take an objective view of widely accepted historical norms, review the evidence upon which they are based, and draw a different conclusion. Almost every presidency of modern times has seen some sort of revisionist movement in the historical community as new documents become declassified and as new information becomes available. The problem with revisionist history is that it creates a tendency to advocate change in historical norms for the mere sake of challenging the status quo.

Posted in Blog
By Michael Reer

April 11th, 2009

Bills to Allow Concealed Carry on Campus Moving Forward

Legislation is moving forward in Texas and Missouri that would allow concealed carry of handguns by properly registered students on university campuses. Inside Higher Ed reports that the Texas bill appears to have majority support in the House of Representatives, while the Missouri House has already passed its version of the bill.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

April 10th, 2009

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.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella

April 10th, 2009

XXXtra, XXXtra, Read All About It: UMD cancels porn screening

If you follow higher education news regularly (which I’ll assume you do, as you’re a savvy CAMPUS reader), you know that the collegiate intelligentsia often imposes unconventional education methods on us poor unsuspecting students who really just trying to make it until our next break. The University of Maryland at College Park, UMD’s flagship campus, recently tried such a move by sponsoring a screening of a new X-rated movie, coupled with a Planned Parenthood presentation. Many taxpayers made such a racket that the Maryland state senate put considerable pressure on UMD-CP to cancel the showing, threatening funding withdrawals if the university did not comply. The school folded.

FIRE’s Adam Kissel has already blogged about the First Amendment issue behind this, so I won’t steal his thunder. Instead, I’ll quote the Orwellian witticism that “some ideas are so profoundly stupid only an intellectual would believe them.” The idea that screening a pornographic film is as important—in fact, maybe more important—to education than Aristotle, Plato, or America’s Founding Fathers is one such idea.

Posted in Blog
By Christina Miller