Students in the First Amendment and Higher Education class are bearing flyers, a hard-hitting message and symbolically wearing red duct tape over their mouths, and have been rallying with faculty and other involved and driven students with the campaign they call “RU Speechless.”
RU Free Speech protest May 1
To protest Radford University policies restricting freedom of speech on campus, students and faculty rallied outside the Hurlburt student on May 1, 2013.
With the Faculty Senate, the Council of Deans and the Student Government Association all demanding reform of RU’s archaic prior restraint policies, and legal analysis showing clear faults in the policies, the RU administration has consistently shown bad faith in refusing to discuss issues.
The highlight of the protest was the signing of a large poster by dozens of students (right in the first photo) and an attempt by Prof. Kovarik to hand a flyer to an administrator who is in charge of enforcing speech policies at RU. Not only did the administrator refuse to accept the flyer, but he fled rapidly into the building while shouting something about errors in the flyer that he refused to discuss.
Suggestion: more bulletin boards
Here’s one suggestion: If the bulletin board space is so crowded at RU that it has to be censored, then why not expand the opportunities to post bulletins without censorship?
Details on the RUspeechless Facebook page.
They would only cost a few hundred dollars each. And here’s what an outdoor bulletin board would look like.
Frat signs? No problem for Lexington
On a spring day in Lexington, Va., fraternity row openly sports Greek letters without any apparent unease from town officials. In fact, two of these houses are across the street from the police station. The “animal house” fraternity is around the corner. Just how similar signs might — in some imaginary universe — represent a threat to the peace and dignity of the City of Radford is one of life’s mysteries. Yet the city persists not only in maintaing its unconstitutional fraternity sign ban, but also in refusing to discuss the issues.
AAUP flyer on the May 1 protest
This is the American Association of University Professors flyer which The First Amendment / Higher Education class did not create. However, who would argue that the AAUP does not have every right to create and distribute this flyer on campus? Is it overstated? Obviously. But sometimes that’s the point of the “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials” protected in the New York Times v Sullivan decision. — Prof. Kovarik.
RU: PRISON CAMP ON THE NEW
(1) “Free speech zones” that limit speech to tiny designated areas.
(2) Censorship of all postings on bulletin boards for faculty and students, requiring pre-stamping.
(3) Censorship of everything posted in the dorms.
(4) Offering only about 12 “public” bulletin boards (limited to pre-stamped postings) on the entire campus located in out of the way places where students rarely go like the basement of Heth Hall.
(5) Tight control of all email lists (but open to commercial interests).
(6) Prohibition of anyone handing out flyers or other materials anywhere on campus except from pre-approved tables in and around the Bonnie.
(7) Collaboration with the city to limit the signs students can place on student housing.
[Co-sponsored by RU Chapter of the AAUP]
PROTEST FOR YOUR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH IN A FREE SOCIETY
Mayday: Wed. May 1st
Bonnie Plaza 10 AM to 1
Campus Interviews about Free Speech
This is a video our media group composed. We interviewed many students at RU and asked 3 simple questions:
1. What is the 1st amendment?
2. What does it mean to you?
3. Do you feel restricted at RU?
Please feel free to share your opinions on our debates and comments pages! Coms 460 Interviews
Andrew Kloster Gives Good Advice: First Amendment Rights
Kentucky On the Fence for Free Speech
Virginia Passes Law Protecting Religious Pluralism on Campus
March 27, 2013
Good news from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Governor Bob McDonnell has signed a new law that champions the American tradition of pluralism by safeguarding the freedom of association of Virginia’s public college and university students. Virginia has only become the 2nd state to pass such a law since the Supreme Court of the United States’ disappointing ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.
The new law states:
§ 23-9.2:12. Student organizations; rights and recognition.
To the extent allowed by state and federal law:
1. A religious or political student organization may determine that ordering the organization’s internal affairs, selecting the organization’s leaders and members, defining the organization’s doctrines, and resolving the organization’s disputes are in furtherance of the organization’s religious or political mission and that only persons committed to that mission should conduct such activities; and
2. No public institution of higher education that has granted recognition of and access to any student organization or group shall discriminate against any such student organization or group that exercises its rights pursuant to subdivision 1.
For more on this article, click here.
New QR Code
Use your phone scanner to go to the RU Speechless pages !