FIRE friends are reminded that FIRE's speech code widgets are a great way to inform your readers about the speech policies at your favorite university—and a great way to get a free FIRE t-shirt. The speech code widget features FIRE's iconic traffic light graphic indicating a Spotlightrating of red, yellow, or green. The colored lights represent the extent to which the school's policies protect freedom of speech.
To add the widget for your school to your website, here's all you need to do:
Visit thefire.org/spotlight and select your school by state, region, or just by typing it into the search box.
When your school's page comes up, look on the right sidebar to see the widget for that particular school. Below it is a box with some text in it—select it all and copy it to the clipboard.
Go to your blog or website, and paste in the text wherever you want the widget to appear (it's made for a sidebar, but should work anywhere).
Send us a link to your site with the widget posted on it and your mailing address.
Then we'll send you a free FIRE t-shirt!
Posted by Luke Sheahan on May 14, 2008, at 11:40 a.m.
Conference attendees will have an unprecedented opportunity to hear from some of the top free speech experts in the country. Speakers include Stanford Law professor Derek Shaffer, Alliance Defense Fund senior legal counsel Steven H. Aden, FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate, FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Samantha Harris, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff, Indoctrinate U producer Evan Maloney, and documentarian Andrew Marcus among others.
The University of Delaware Faculty Senate has passed along to the Board of Trustees a proposal for educational programming in the residence halls. The proposal, revised numerous times, now states explicitly that almost all programming (save the first building and floor meetings) will be optional, and Vice President Michael Gilbert promised the Faculty Senate that there would be strict oversight of the program by faculty and senior administrators. Gilbert also promised that all educational elements of the program, particularly "personal development" and "content" activities, would be neither designed nor administered by resident assistants (RAs); such activities would be run only by full-time professional staff and faculty.
The Faculty Senate also insisted that the program's efforts to teach "sustainability" be limited to "environmental sustainability," which is strangely inconsistent with the proposal's "learning outcomes" and many of the proposed activities. Moreover, language was added to suggest that only "issues of environmental sustainability that are relevant to residence hall living" will be the environmental sustainability topics, but again the proposed activities go far beyond that suggestion. Given these inconsistencies, it seems that the Faculty Senate was primarily sending a message to Residence Life that it is ok to discuss topics such as justice in the residence halls (which is true from a rights standpoint), but not ok to do so with a preconceived agenda regarding what students are supposed to believe after the discussion (which smacks of indoctrination). As others have stated and as I have stated before, it seems crazy to trust ResLife to get the message afterwhathappenedlastyear, but apparently the faculty is amazingly forgiving.
A number of faculty explicitly noted that the director of the Office of Residence Life, Kathleen Kerr, does not actually believe in the mission of the program because to her, it is a "myth" that sustainability education is mostly about the environment. Time will tell if she will be able to bracket her personal beliefs in order to carry out the mission of the program as amended by the Faculty Senate. Last year's program showed a rather miserable failure in the area of respect for student conscience, and the wording of the proposal leaves ambiguous what the Office of Residence Life might be allowed to do.
Kerr, remarkably, was absent from the meeting. She has not given a single public word on campus regarding the program she was forced to abandon last fall.
The upshot of the attention to Kerr's view of sustainability and the feeling that it was a "code word" for her political agenda was that the faculty debated an amendment to change the words "environmental sustainability" to "conservation." The intention was to send an even stronger message about how the program should avoid ideological indoctrination. The amendment failed after one professor suggested that there are some aspects of environmental sustainability that are not captured by the term "conservation," but my sense of the debate was that in principle, this was a message the faculty wanted to send.
The so-called debate itself was disappointing, though it was much more orderly than the students were at FIRE President Greg Lukianoff's lecture last fall. Most speakers in favor of the proposal simply said that the university should be teaching about diversity and that therefore the proposal-whatever the details, apparently-should be approved. Very few speakers provided any evidence, or even assertions, that they had actually read the proposal (it runs about 50 pages).
The debate also was disappointing because of the unprofessional behavior of the presiding chair and Senate President, Professor Alan Fox. He debated from the floor, nodded in approval of the speakers he agreed with, and interrupted or challenged many of the speakers with whom he disagreed, students and professors alike. Fox interrupted so loudly that in many cases, the speaker simply stopped talking. He challenged one student to provide evidence and suggested that another was being uncivil. At one point, he cut off a professor who was speaking, on the ground that the issue had already been discussed, even though that issue had not previously been discussed. The professor was asking how to distinguish the one-third educational programming from the two-thirds traditional programming when they were so closely integrated in the plan—how could students tell the difference in order to figure out how to opt out from the education part without missing the traditional part? She was halfway through the question when Fox cut her off.
If this is also the way ResLife treats students—with approval when they agree with ResLife's agenda and with disdain and challenges when they do not—ResLife will continue to pressure students into conforming. Although Fox protested numerous times that he was not cutting off student debate, he did the students a disservice by teaching them that those in power get to manipulate the debate by interrupting and debating from the podium. I think it is a sign of the state of affairs at UD that one professor who voted against the proposal actually apologized to Gilbert afterward.
Fox also opened the meeting with a lecture and his own problematic idea of the ground rules of the debate. He stated that discussion about people's motives would be ruled out of order, as though the proposal would merely get a strict interpretation by ResLife and that the intentions of those who put together the proposal were irrelevant. That was not a decision that Fox should have made for the whole body. In addition, he argued that "hostility has no place in a rational debate," as though those who were strongly against the plan would have to keep their comments in check or else be ruled out of order.
Fox also declared that each speaker would have only two minutes per speech each time they exercised their right to speak (twice only, following Robert's Rules; he limited student speakers to once each). I understand the feeling that, as he said, "we can't do this all night," and after 88 minutes of debate most of the faculty apparently felt the same way—but I find it a bit strange that the faculty apparently had so little patience for such an important debate. Fox himself said that "we can't go through all the changes," as though the faculty need not trouble themselves with the details. (Again, the speakers rarely mentioned the details.)
One professor argued that the faculty was handing over to ResLife the faculty's traditional powers of education. ResLife was going to be entrusted to run the largest educational program on campus without anything like the mandated educational review by faculty bodies that all academic units must follow. ResLife should be facilitating an educational program determined by the faculty, not vice versa—but here, ResLife will just "bring in faculty for consultation." Most of the faculty shrugged off the concern.
Of the few dozen students who showed up on both sides of the issue, about ten spoke. Both sides distributed literature and had signs.
The chair of the Student Life Committee, Matt Robinson, took responsibility for the short amount of time that the Senate had to consider the proposal before debating it. One can only wonder how much time the Trustees will have to consider it next and what they will be told about what the program is really about.
Some other highlights:
One professor argued that social justice and diversity are already present in the faculty handbook and the strategic plan for the university, so why not include them in ResLife programming? He noted that the problem was not the content of the programming but, as RAs and other students told him, how the issues were dealt with. He argued that with proper training of staff, the program could be all right. Another professor argued that the school has a duty to produce graduates who "embrace and celebrate diversity" because doing so would prepare students for a diverse workplace; he invoked the metaphor of a shrinking world. A couple others said that the faculty should teach environmental sustainability because the president says so (he recently signed up the university for two sustainability commitments).
Incoming Faculty Senate chair Amy Johnson used her two speaking opportunities to yield her time to two students who were strongly in favor of the proposal. There was no reason to do so in that the students would have their own chance to speak. I saw this and a few choices by others as evidence that senior administrators had politicked strongly to ensure that as many faculty as possible would fall in line.
Several professors noted that there is still no real definition of environmental sustainability in the document, which should not be taken to mean that the word can be filled in with whatever agenda ResLife chooses. We shall see.
Another faculty member stated that the faculty should be the ones to teach formal concepts. Another wondered why the university needs administrative staff to facilitate educational programs. Many students emphasized the role of student organizations in facilitating discussions of the proposed topics, with some saying that ResLife's proposal was an unnecessary duplication of efforts and others saying that it would be a supplement to students' efforts.
A former RA complained that he was not brought back as an RA the following year because he had failed to meet requirements such as minimum attendance of students. He emphasized that RA performance should not be measured by student participation, in order to reduce pressure on residents to participate. Gilbert replied that no such review of RA performance would be permitted.
My concluding two cents: it is a shame that ResLife erred so badly that the only way to handle the program is now to keep the office on a short leash. ResLife has provided no evidence that it can be trusted, and with so much programming that looks like last year's programming, I can understand why many students and faculty remain unconvinced. We should not forget that when pressed last year, ResLife said all the programming was optional even after it told students the programming was mandatory.
Stay tuned for results of the Board of Trustees meeting.
Former Valdosta State University (VSU) student Hayden Barnes's federal lawsuit against VSU President Ronald M. Zaccari and other university officials continues apace. Zaccari expelled Barnes from VSU for engaging in peaceful political protest in May of 2007. In the lawsuit, Barnes alleges that his expulsion violated his First Amendment right to free expression, among other grievances.
Last week, Barnes's legal team, which includes eminent First Amendment attorney and FIRE Legal Network member Robert Corn-Revere, filed a memorandum in support of a motion for partial summary judgment in Barnes's favor. It's an excellent read for anyone following Barnes's shocking case, as it dissects at length the spurious arguments proffered by Zaccari and VSU as they attempt to justify their unconstitutional actions. If the court grants Barnes's motion, the court will be denying VSU's motion to dismiss the charges and sending the case to trial on the grounds that "no genuine issues of material fact" remain.
Of course, FIRE will keep you updated on the status of Barnes's motion. Relatedly, FIRE spoke with Barnes in last week's episode of FIREside Chats, and heard firsthand the effect the case has had on him, along with his advice for other students who have dealt with such issues on campus. Also, be sure to check out FIRE's short film about Barnes's case, featuring on-location video from VSU's unconstitutional free speech zone.
We at FIRE pride ourselves on our attention to detail and our steadfast commitment to getting the facts right. So when we make a mistake—which is very rare, happily—we think it's important to address our error as quickly and transparently as possible.
That's why I must slightly correct the record regarding the University of Louisville's speech codes, highlighted last week as our Speech Code of the Month for May 2008. Our selection was based largely on Louisville's Procedures on Speech and Distribution of Literature in Public Areas, which we believed regulated student speech. In fact, the policy applies to non-community members (i.e., not students and faculty) wishing to engage in expressive activity on campus. While the restrictions are extraordinarily broad and arguably still highly inappropriate on a college campus (requiring "that public speech and discourse on campus shall be civil," for example, is likely still unconstitutional, even when applied solely to non-community members), they do not apply to students and faculty, as assumed.
That clarification aside, however, Louisville remains our Speech Code of the Month for May 2008. That's because Louisville's policies that do regulate student speech are equally worthy of condemnation, and for much the same reason. For example, Louisville's Code of Student Conduct prohibits "[e]ngaging in intentional conduct directed at a specific person(s) which seriously alarms or intimidates such person(s) and which serves no legitimate purpose." This doesn't pass constitutional muster because it's wildly overbroad: the First Amendment protects speech that "seriously alarms" listeners, and speech doesn't need to serve a "legitimate purpose" to warrant protection. (Besides, who would possibly be the arbiter of such "legitimacy"?) For example, in Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949), the Supreme Court held that speech is protected even when its purpose is to "induce a condition of unrest, create dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stir people to anger," a ruling that certainly covers speech that "seriously alarms" listeners.
Next, Louisville defines "hostile environment harassment" as "unwelcome comments or conduct that have the purpose of... creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working or learning environment that a reasonable person would find threatening or intimidating." Like we explained in our initial post on Louisville, this definition just doesn't come close to meeting the best definition of peer-on-peer harassment supplied by the Supreme Court in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629, 650 (1999), which only prohibits expressive conduct that is "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit."
Further, the Court didn't include anything about "intimidating" or "hostile" behavior in the Davis definition of harassment. If harassment in an educational setting were judged by Louisville's definition, students would have to guess at whether their speech was "intimidating" or "hostile" enough to result in punishment. (Schools may ban intimidating expression that rises to the level of a "true threat"—i.e., "where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death," as defined by the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003). But that's a very specific legal standard, and one that Louisville's definition simply does not meet.) This kind of vagueness chills speech, and thus is constitutionally impermissible. Not to mention the fact that Louisville's definition does not require the speech in question to be "severe" or "pervasive," which means that a single isolated incident could be deemed "harassment" by university administrators.
But Louisville's speech code doesn't stop there, unfortunately. Indeed, I would be remiss not to point out a couple more highlights, like the fact that Louisville's "Cardinal Creed" requires students to pledge to "commit to a code of civilized behavior," with all the attendant constitutional problems thereby presented. Or that Louisville's residence hall policies require students to report flyers they deem to be "of an offensive or derogatory nature" to the "proper authorities." So much for the marketplace of ideas.
For all these reasons, the University of Louisville is still the Speech Code of the Month for May 2008. If you believe that your college or university should be a Speech Code of the Month, please email speechcodes@thefire.org with a link to the policy and a brief description of why you think attention should be drawn to this code.
Today at 4 p.m. the Faculty Senate of the University of Delaware will vote on whether or not to allow the proposed Residence Life plan to proceed. FIRE has been monitoring this situation diligently and has devoted an episode of our podcasting series, FIREside Chats, to discussing the proposed plan. Listen as Adam Kissel, director of FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program, and Robert Shibley, FIRE's vice president, talk about ResLife's agenda and point out the parts of the plan that aim to change students' "thoughts, values, beliefs, and actions." If you're a student or faculty member at the University of Delaware, FIRE urges you to attend the Faculty Senate meeting in 104 Gore Hall and make your opinion on the proposal heard.
"The Office of Residence Life, within its offices and its residence halls, will become a place where diversity among people is recognized, valued and demonstrated. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism and other behaviors and systems that empower some while oppressing others will not be tolerated. Programs, policies, and procedures will reflect the importance and acceptance of diversity. Actions that encourage and promote diversity will be valued and rewarded."
(From "The Creation of a Housing and Residence Life Program Which Recognizes, Values, and Demonstrates Diversity", University of Delaware Office of Housing and Residence Life, June 1991)
Google recorded a copy of this page as recently as April 6, 2008.
It's hard to keep up with ResLife's revisions. FIRE doesn't have its own copy of the original page—who would have thought that ResLife would disavow a statement that has been in effect for 17 years?
A lot of additional changes to the ResLife website can only be expected, even under the re-revised proposal. For instance, in the new proposal, ResLife is now disavowing the language of citizenship responsibilities at a "global level," but the Resident Assistant Job Description under which RAs are being hired still demands that RAs "Be willing to encourage residents to act as positive community members and global citizens."
Once again, the changes reflected in the latest ResLife proposal are far, far from enough.
FIRE loves when students beautifully express the principles of individual rights. We recently saw a copy of a great letter that University of Delaware student Alyssa Koser, a self-described "progressive democrat and environmentalist," sent to the officers of Students for the Environment (S4E). She eloquently expresses the difference between supporting an agenda and foisting it on others. As a student in the dorms for a number of years, Alyssa knows very well what ResLife has been doing to indoctrinate students, and she wants it to stop—even though she believes largely in ResLife's social and political agenda. Here's her letter, reprinted with permission:
Hello S4E Officers,
My name is Alyssa and I'm the Events Coordinator for the College Democrats [REDACTED]. I was told that administrators have contacted S4E and told them "conservative students were protesting sustainability" and that you should come counter this protest at Monday's Faculty Senate Meeting.
As someone who is a HUGE believer in sustainability and environmentalism, I would like to let you know that administrators are lying if they have told you this is what students are protesting. The Residence Life plan is highly focused around "sustainability"- but not just environmental sustainability. Their definition of sustainability has included social justice and economic equality which are very politicized concepts.
As a progressive democrat and environmentalist, I personally am very in favor of reducing the gap between the rich and poor and advocating for gay rights which are two of many examples of economic equality and social justice. However, those are my personal choices and beliefs that I have decided for myself and those types of decisions should be made by individuals and not taught by a residence hall education plan.
One big misconception of the new ResLife plan is that sustainaility means teaching students to turn off the lights or use less plastic. [REDACTED] I can tell you that is not the case. In ResLife, they use ‘sustainability' to justify education relating to a specific political ideology which is very left-leaning.
Please consider whether you want the definition of sustainability to be twisted by Residence Life into meaning that everyone should adopt a specific set of political beliefs in order to be a ‘good citizen.' If you are like me, you will probably believe that each person should be able to form their own set of beliefs without feeling bad for not agreeing with ResLife beliefs.
I am very liberal and I would love if all students valued the political issues I do. However, it is no one's responsibility to ‘educate' students on a specific ideology and make them feel bad for having different opinions. The university should be a place which fosters the discussion of a broad range of ideologies, and the residence halls should not intimidate or educate students on any specifc political ideology.
I hope you see why members of College Democrats, College Republicans and many other student groups are joining together to advocate a limited definition of sustainability which only includes an environmental aspect and not a political aspect. We all believe, whether we are liberal or conservative, that your personal ideology should be your own choice and that students rights and freedoms should be protected from political indoctrination.
The Faculty Senate meeting is Monday, May 12 at 4 PM in Gore 104. I hope to see you there supporting our right to make up our own minds about our personal beliefs rather than allowing ResLife to educate us on the things they feel that we should believe.
Thank you, and if you have any questions, please e-mail me.
The proposal still tries to change students' "thoughts, values, beliefs, and actions." It still is an educational program with "learning outcomes." It maintains the RA "conversations." It maintains highly politicized and highly suspect activities.
"Citizenship responsibilities" are still the responsibilities defined by ResLife, now in even more narrow terms of environmental sustainability. It is not enough to simply put the word "environmental" before the word "sustainability" and then trust ResLife to re-envision all of its activities through an environmental lens-or through the even narrower lens of "issues of environmental sustainability that are relevant to residence hall living."
Changing a few words here and there cannot save the program from the indoctrination program that it has been intended to be from the start. The document is now a logical mess. The other two "circles" of sustainability—the social and political agenda—are still there in the activities. The proposal should go back to committee and start over again.
Or consider "learning outcome" 3: "Understand their own and others' concepts of justice." Why, again, is this a proper learning outcome for ResLife to teach rather than the faculty—are they failing to teach about justice? Is this topic going to be only about environmental sustainability now? Is "social justice" really gone from the proposal now?
Or consider the fact that the parties are still envisioned partly as guilt trips:
A welcome back party will be held in each complex for returning first-year students. At each social event, information will be posted on walls and event supplies to inform students of the economic and environmental impact of the event and items.
Oops, forgot to take out the word "economic," right? "This fork cost 7 cents, which could have been donated to a wind farm."
Now that the program is even more strongly hidden by doublespeak, students will have even less of an opportunity to understand what they are going to be allowed to opt out of.
The Faculty Senate again has just three days (including the weekend) to read, consider, and debate this proposal. To expect that an educational program of such magnitude should be considered within such a short time is unfair and unworthy of the University of Delaware. To revise the resolution supporting the plan by changing the words "educational plan" to "residential program"—while it still is clearly an educational plan—is more doublespeak and another attempt to pull the wool over the faculty's eyes. ResLife is still advertising its mission as its "educational priority," using language almost identical to its goal statement in the oft-revised proposal.
The Faculty Senate should take the time to get it right. The students of the University of Delaware deserve no less.
A friend reacted to the finding with, "That's impossible!" He's right. You can't commit racial harassment by reading an anti-Klan history.
For months, I felt isolated and dejected. Yet I knew that most of the faculty, staff and students at Indiana University were good people. The campus is a growing, thriving part of Indy, where people of all colors and religions come to study.
But the $106,000-a-year affirmative-action officer who declared me guilty of "racial harassment" never spoke to me or examined the book. My own union - the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - sent an obtuse shop steward to stifle my freedom to read. He told me, "You could be fired," that reading the book was "like bringing pornography to work."
It truly is a shame that the people Sampson refers to hold the amount of authority and influence that they do on a university campus (not to mention that generous salary!). As Sampson writes:
Abolitionist Charles Sumner said, "Prejudice is the child of ignorance. It is sure to prevail where people do not know each other." The people at the Affirmative Action Office were so myopically intent on finding a Klansman, they failed to see a natural ally standing before them.
The unchecked power of such campus bureaucrats needs to be restrained. And if a union like AFSCME won't protect its workers' constitutional rights, it should go out of business.
Thankfully, there have been some positive developments, as IUPUI Chancellor Charles R. Bantz has pledged that the school "will be reexamining the campuswide affirmative action processes and procedures relating to internal complaints." Hopefully, this will prevent the occurrence of a similar episode in the future. While this of course does not erase the harm done to Sampson, my hope is that one embarrassing situation is enough for IUPUI to have learned its lesson.
When the 2007-2008 University of Delaware Residence Life indoctrination program became the subject of withering public attention before it was quickly "suspended" by its president, FIRE received dozens of emails from students and RAs about ResLife's coercive administration of the program. I am amazed that senior administrators still seem willing to trust ResLife to administer a new indoctrination program, watered down but chock-full of a social and political "sustainability" agenda that goes far beyond UD's environmental initiatives.
Today we publish for the first time an email from an RA who apparently feared retribution from ResLife and chose to remain anonymous. The RA warns us that "Residence Life will most likely re-name their current practices and continue to force RAs to push their agenda in the residence halls. They dedicated their department to forming the minds and opinions of students who live in the Residence Halls and will not give up on their rhetoric so easily."
Here's the whole email:
Subject: comments from RA at UD Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 20:51:58 -0400 From: UD RA To:
As an RA at UD, I would like to say thank you exposing the Residence Life department and revealing the ideological re-education that they force us to deliver. President Harker called for this program to be stopped and reviewed, but please do not think this alone is "victory". The department of Residence Life will most likely re-name their current practices and continue to force RAs to push their agenda in the residence halls. They dedicated their department to forming the minds and opinions of students who live in the Residence Halls and will not give up on their rhetoric so easily. They will challenge us, as is their way, to come up with new and innovative approaches to programming and curriculum which deliver their messages in thinly veiled form. Even though they claim to assess and collect feedback from students and staff, this information never alters their ideology or impacts their ideological agenda. Any RA who criticizes or opposes a viewpoint presented by the department is usually required to adopt their viewpoint or resign from the position because they can't "connect" to the department's curriculum. Please follow up with the school's residence hall department to ensure that the methods and practices and ideological stand are truly reworked so students are given options and choices instead of answers and values.
-Anonymous
UD RA, you nailed it.
I encourage those who applied to be RAs and hall directors next year to let us know, in your own words, what ResLife has asked of you regarding next year's program.
I also encourage members of the Faculty Senate to read the accounts above and read last year's curriculum— the "confrontation training," the "delivery strategies," the "strong male RAs" hired to break the "resistance" of males by "combat[ing] male residents' concepts of traditional male identity," the personal questions about students' sexual awakening, the questionnaires about which genders, races, and ethnicities each student would date or befriend, the "treatment" metaphor for students' incorrect values, attitudes, and beliefs, the immediate notification of the police (day or night) for "Any instance that is perceived by those involved as being ... oppressive," the activities in which students were instructed to act out the worst stereotypes they could think of—then ask themselves why they think ResLife can be trusted with anything like the current proposal.
A misunderstanding that FIRE occasionally runs into is the idea that if someone is exercising their freedom of expression in a non-spoken way, such as a posted display, it is a legitimate expressive response to deface or destroy that display as a countervailing exercise of freedom of expression. This idea is simply wrong. What brought this to my attention was this YouTube video from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, which shows a textbook example of something that is NOT a legitimate expression of opinion:
Simply put, tearing down someone else's display is not expression—it's vandalism. The same goes for tearing down posters with which you don't agree—another illegitimate form of "expression" that FIRE often hears about. Students who engage in such activities can and should be punished, as the marketplace of ideas cannot survive when those opposed to an idea or expressive act are allowed to destroy all traces of it.
One other aspect of this video bears mentioning: at the very beginning of the video, the main person tearing up the crosses, identified in the video as Roderick King, says, "In 1973 it was made a constitutional right for a woman to have an abortion...Since it's a right, you don't have the right to challenge it." Nothing could be further from the truth—Americans have the right to speak out for or against any and all public policies in the United States. Hence the irony that the First Amendment protects even the speech of those who would try to abolish it. In a truly free society, it could be no other way.
Speech codes were the topic of today's nationally syndicated comic strip Mallard Fillmore. FIRE and some of our cases have been the subject of Mallard Fillmore's commentary many times in the past, and we're always very thankful for creator Bruce Tinsley's attention to our work.
Of course, speech codes are no laughing matter, as our report Spotlight on Speech Codes 2007 aptly demonstrates. Our report concluded that 75% of colleges and universities surveyed in FIRE's speech codes database, Spotlight, maintain policies that restrict protected speech on campus. Even more unfortunate is the fact that only 2% of colleges and universities surveyed were free of speech codes. To top it all off, as our recent press release concerning Shippensburg University's speech code reveals, even when students or faculty go to federal court to protect their free speech rights and win, universities are still more than willing to ignore injunctions and the law itself to enforce these unconstitutional speech codes.
So even though the comic gave me a chuckle as I was reading my morning paper The Bulletin, quickly thereafter I was reminded about the harsh, cold reality of the actual state of free speech on college campuses.
Posted by Sean Clark on May 8, 2008, at 10:50 a.m.
In a press release today, FIRE announces that a complaint has been filed in federal court today by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) against Shippensburg University. The complaint alleges that Shippensburg University has dishonestly reinstituted unconstitutional policies in violation of the terms of a 2004 legal settlement reached with members of FIRE’s Legal Network.
The settlement in 2004 came after the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued a preliminary injunction against the university, ordering Shippensburg’s then-president, Anthony F. Ceddia, not to enforce unconstitutional provisions of Shippensburg’s code. The settlement ended a lawsuit brought by Legal Network attorneys David A. French and William Adair Bonner, and it was the first of a string of victories for our Speech Codes Litigation Project.
As FIRE President Greg Lukianoffsaid, “Shippensburg’s inexplicable violation of the 2004 settlement demonstrates a blatant disregard for the First Amendment and its own promises. By brazenly reneging on the terms of an agreement that previously saved it from an embarrassing defeat in court, Shippensburg has further tainted its tarnished reputation.”
Shippensburg’s earlier speech code banned expression clearly protected by the United States Constitution. For example, the college’s harassment policy defined harassment as “unwanted conduct which annoys, threatens, or alarms a person or group,” and outlawed “emotional abuse.” The code also violated the right of private conscience by requiring that “every member of the community” mirror the official views of the university administration “in their attitudes and behaviors.” In his preliminary injunction against Shippensburg in September 2003, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III held that many of these provisions “could certainly be used to truncate debate and free expression by students.”
The complaint filed today indicates that Shippensburg has reinserted unconstitutional provisions into current university policy, in many cases restoring language copied seemingly verbatim from the old policies. For example, the 2007-2008 edition of the Swataney, Shippensburg’s student handbook, mandates that “every member of this community” ensure that the official views of the university administration “will be mirrored in their attitudes and behaviors,” and once again prohibits “emotional abuse.” The complaint alleges several other substantive constitutional infirmities, including a challenge to the school’s harassment code.
Over the winter we reported on a rash of press censorship at universities across the country. One of the most troubling incidents occurred at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. As we stated at the time:
Quinnipiac University, for its part, has defended its restrictive policy of preventing the Quinnipiac Chronicle from publishing any new stories or updates on its web site until a new print issue appears. Moreover, Quinnipiac has threatened the student editor with discipline or even termination for publicly challenging the policy-since, the university's spokesperson says, the editor is an employee of the school and therefore is expected to show support for the university's policies-and, it seems, is expected not to criticize such policies in public.
In the last few months, the Quinnipiac Chronicle has debated severing ties with the university and becoming an independent publication.
This week, however, the Student Press Law Center reports that Quinnipiac administrators have changed the process for selecting subsequent editors. The Quinnipiac Chronicle's faculty adviser and student affairs adviser used to choose the editor-in-chief and managing editors, who in turn would select the rest of the editors. Now, the dean of students will select the Chronicle's editorial board. The editor-in-chief will be selected from a pool of students nominated by Quinnipiac's deans, and the rest of the editors will be selected from a pool chosen by the outgoing editor in chief and managing editors.
The arrangement is ostensibly temporary, and the administration claims that in the future, the editor-in-chief will be allowed to select the other editors. But the intervention seems to demonstrate that the administration plans on keeping a tight leash on the paper to squelch inconvenient dissent. At any rate, the takeover was dire enough that current editor in chief Jason Braff and all the rest of the 20 applicants for editorial positions have withdrawn their applications for positions. They instead are planning to start a new Web publication independent of the Quinnipiac administration.
Remarking on her decision to leave the paper, Campus News Editor Jaclyn Hirsch said, "I wasn't willing to put myself in a situation where I felt open and free journalism wasn't the first priority." At a modern liberal arts college, she shouldn't have to.
Posted by Luke Sheahan on May 7, 2008, at 03:56 p.m.
The University of Delaware faculty member who ought to know the most about the new Residence Life proposal was fundamentally mistaken (if not outright prevaricating) in having said, as the Delaware News Journal reports, that the plan is simply a contribution to UD's environmental sustainability agenda. The truth, which Student Life Committee chairman Matt Robinson surely knows by now, is that the proposal goes far beyond environmental sustainability in order to push a highly developed social and political agenda.
As John Leo and Peter Wood have pointed out, this agenda is not unique to the University of Delaware but is central to a large "sustainability education" movement. In this movement, the three "circles" of sustainability include not just environmentalism but also education toward specific social, political, and economic goals. These goals include worldwide redistribution of wealth and a variety of deeply politicized agenda items such as those listed here.
Such social and political goals are central, literally, to the ResLife proposal. Only in the center of the three overlapping circles, in this diagram, can one find the proper set of thoughts, values, attitudes, beliefs, actions, and policies. UD faculty with a bit of extra time should read how ResLife defined sustainability in one of its rejected proposals, using the language of producing "ecologically sound, socially just and economically viable" institutions. ResLife already knows what counts as "socially just" and "economically viable," despite the protestations in the ResLife proposal that these topics are up for debate.
ResLife's goal is to change the thoughts, values, attitudes, beliefs, and actions of University of Delaware students to fit its ideological agenda. For the evidence, faculty with a lot of extra time can read last year's highly articulated indoctrination plan. A lot of it is pretty scary. As one ResLife administrator put it,
The environment is rich with opportunities to let students know what we consider important and leave a mental footprint on their consciousness. [emphasis added]
Whether or not one agrees with elements of this agenda, I again submit that it is inappropriate for any university worth its salt as a liberal arts institution to accept a very politicized agenda as institutional policy and then to press it upon students. Do the citizens of Delaware really believe that their state's flagship university should try to teach the future leading citizens of the state that only one set of thoughts, values, attitudes, beliefs, actions, and policies is the best? I can understand a religious school promoting a singular ideology, but not a public institution.
ResLife has not changed its ideology, its mission, or its promotion of its ideology in its latest proposal. Instead, ResLife has hidden all of this under the guise of "citizenship" values.
Today, I received a fundraising letter from the U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development. The organization is a large consortium that works to create "a healthier environment with social equality and economic well being" and is "the lead organization for U.S. participation in the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development."
The organization explicitly asserts that it is trying to establish new norms in the United States through education:
The vision of sustainable human society resides in the common ground of economic growth and equity, conservation of natural resources and the natural environment, and worldwide social development. We are dedicated to creating a new norm within the United States. This new norm is that the public will be "literate" about the sustainability challenges, and have both the skills and the attitudes to participate in solutions. This new norm is a necessity to produce a sustainable future. [emphasis added]
ResLife is a part of this movement to change attitudes and norms. It works closely, it seems, with the Sustainability Taskforce of the American College Personnel Association. ACPA's big upcoming event is an Institute on Sustainability at Harvard University. The institute "will seek to create education and awareness for sustainability's triple bottom line: healthy social systems, healthy environment and healthy economy."
In some contexts, all of this activism would be perfectly fine from the point of view of the marketplace of ideas. Private organizations can advocate for whatever they want. It is totally unacceptable, however, for this activism to be pressed as a re-education program for University of Delaware students or students at any school that values diverse views on controversial issues.
If these points are not yet clear to the University of Delaware faculty, I again urge them to investigate the matter and form their own conclusions.
Posted by Adam Kissel on May 7, 2008, at 02:35 p.m.
