Colleges have free speech on the run By _George F. Will_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/george-f-will/2011/02/24/ABVZKXN_page.html) , Dec 01, 2012 12:52 AM ESTThe Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-colleges-have-free-speech-on-the-run/2012/11/30/94570 72c-3a54-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html#license-9457072c-3a54-11e2-8a97-3 63b0f9a0ab3) Published: November 30, 2012 In 2007, _Keith John Sampson_ (http://thefire.org/case/760.html) , a middle-aged student working his way through Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis as a janitor, was declared guilty of racial harassment. Without granting Sampson a hearing, the university administration — acting as prosecutor, judge and jury — convicted him of “openly reading [a] book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject.” “Openly.” “Related to.” Good grief. < The book, “_Notre Dame vs. the Klan_ (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0829417710?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0829417710&linkCode=xm2&tag=slatmaga-20 ) ,” celebrated the 1924 defeat of the Ku Klux Klan in a fight with Notre Dame students. But some of Sampson’s co-workers disliked the book’s cover, which featured a black-and-white photograph of a Klan rally. Someone was offended, therefore someone else must be guilty of harassment. This non sequitur reflects the right never to be annoyed, a new campus entitlement. _Legions of administrators_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-subprime-college-educations/2012/06/08/gJQA4fGiOV_story.html) , who now outnumber full-time faculty, are kept busy making students mind their manners, with good manners understood as conformity to liberal politics. Liberals are most concentrated and untrammeled on campuses, so look there for evidence of what, given the opportunity, they would do to America. Ample evidence is in “_Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate_ (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594036357?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1594036357&linkCode=xm2&tag=slatmaga-20) ” by _Greg Lukianoff_ (http://thefire.org/people/2982.html) , 38, a graduate of Stanford Law School who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat who belongs to “the notoriously politically correct Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn” and has never voted for a Republican “nor do I plan to.” But as president of the _Foundation for Individual Rights in Education_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio ns/clear-campus-rules-needed-on-harassment/2012/01/01/gIQATjHfdP_story.html) (FIRE), he knows that the most common justifications for liberal censorship are “sensitivity” about “ diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as academic liberals understand those things. In recent years, a _University of Oklahoma vice president_ (http://thefire.org/case/770.html) has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “_the forwarding of political humor/commentary_ (http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/43841407618806767066ea1e97655cf8.pdf?direct) .” The _College at Brockport in New York_ (http://thefire.org/article/11344.html) banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. _Rhode Island College_ (http://thefire.org/spotlight/schools/rhode-island-college.html) prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.” _Texas Southern University_ (http://thefire.org/article/8783.html) ’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” _Texas A&M_ (http://thefire.org/article/7994.html) promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” _Davidson_ (http://thefire.org/article/6835.html) banned “patronizing remarks.” _Drexel University_ (http://thefire.org/article/7245.html) forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.” _Western Michigan University_ (http://thefire.org/article/7795.html) banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators. Many campuses congratulate themselves on their broad-mindedness when they establish _small “free-speech zones”_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19457-2004Jul27.html) where political advocacy can be scheduled. At one point Texas Tech’s 28,000 students had a “_free-speech gazebo_ (http://thefire.org/index.php/article/34.html) ” that was 20 feet wide. And you thought the First Amendment made America a free-speech zone. At _Tufts_ (http://thefire.org/case/742.html) , a conservative newspaper committed “harassment” by printing accurate quotations from the Koran and a verified fact about the status of women in Saudi Arabia. Lukianoff says that Tufts may have been the first American institution “to find someone guilty of harassment for stating verifiable facts directed at no one in particular.” He documents how “orientation” programs for freshmen become propaganda to (in the words of one orthodoxy enforcer) “leave a mental footprint on their consciousness.” Faculty, too, can face mandatory consciousness-raising. In 2007, _Donald Hindley_ (http://thefire.org/case/755.html) , a politics professor at Brandeis, was found guilty of harassment because when teaching Latin American politics he explained the origin of the word “wetbacks,” which refers to immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Without a hearing, the university provost sent Hindley a letter stating that the university “will not tolerate inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct.” The assistant provost was assigned to monitor Hindley’s classes “to ensure that you do not engage in further violations of the nondiscrimination and harassment policy.” Hindley was required to attend “anti-discrimination training.” Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the _University of Wisconsin-Madison_ (http://thefire.org/spotlight/schools/1837) , the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought. “What happens on campus,” Lukianoff says, “doesn’t stay on campus” because censorship has “downstream effects.” He quotes a sociologist whose data he says demonstrate that “those with the highest levels of education have the lowest exposure to people with conflicting points of view.” This encourages “the human tendency to live within our own echo chambers.” Parents’ tuition dollars and student indebtedness pay for this. Good grief. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
