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 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 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 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 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 1st, 2009

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.

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella