Congress' Bad Idea and Other Issues: FIRE Media This Week

While this is a short week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, FIRE has nevertheless hit the media with our opposition to the "Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act." The magnificently mustachioed Thomas Mitchell of the Las Vegas Review-Journal cites yesterday's FIRE press release in identifying the bill as "another threat to free speech on campus," which it manifestly is. Inside Higher Ed also noted FIRE's alarm. Walter Olson of the Cato Institute and the blog Overlawyered suggests that university speech codes are being reborn as anti-bullying rules, which is FIRE's concern as well, although such speech codes would be even worse if required by federal law. Bloggers Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds and Joanne Jacobs also both joined the fray, while Chuck and Firefly actor Adam Baldwin tweeted FIRE's press release to his more than 45,000 followers.

Yours truly also hit the virtual pages of Inside Higher Ed in today's top article, which covers the movement to quash hazing on campus. If you think the fact that, according to hazing "experts," nine out of ten people who have been "hazed" have no idea it happened to them sends up red flags with a liberty advocate like me, then you think correctly. Maybe I was a victim myself—I guess I'll never know ...