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

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 2nd, 2009

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:

Posted in Blog
By CJ Ciaramella