Police encroaches on student’s 1st amendment rights in Dayton, Ohio

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In June of last year, students at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, experienced conflict with the police during a “Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally”. The rally was intended to raise awareness regarding the mandates of Obamacare that requires coverage to attain any birth control substances. Participants in the rally claimed police officials required them to place any signs or banners they we’re holding, face down on the ground because they appeared as “disruptive” on the college campus. The police’s reaction to the rally sparked uproar from the students, resulting in a lawsuit. Ultimately, Sinclair Community College accepted the 10,000 in attorney fees, and sided with the students, conveying they deserve freedom of speech rights without being censored or controlled.

For more on this article, click here.

The rise of the administrative university

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By Glen Martin, for the RU AAUP, Oct. 2012

Books are beginning to appear about the nation-wide conversion of universities away from institutions dedicated to truth and knowledge and into a business model of education.  One such book is by Benjamin Ginsberg called The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters (2011). Ginsberg chronicles the demise of academic freedom, tenure, and the traditional faculty-driven conception of a quality curriculum and the independent pursuit of truth.

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12 Colleges labeled unsatisfactory regarding Freedom of Speech

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In there second year of investigating, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) believes they have narrowed down a list of 12 colleges that do not compose themselves with appropriate ethical standards regarding the freedom of speech for 2012. FIRE stays active around the country in hopes of regaining student’s rights of censorship that they deserve. They note that they do not include schools that make their policies and values public, allowing students to know what they are about to endure.

Check it out, the results may surprise you.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/12-worst-schools-for-free-speech_n_1381063.html#s816133&title=St_Augustines_College 

 

what exactly is a “free speech zone”?

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The basic definition of a free speech zone is said to be an area where “policital activists” have the right for free speech in the United States. The use of free speech zones came from U.S. court decisions allowing the government to regulate the “time, place, manner” of expression but no the content. The purpose of the zones are to protect the protesters themselves and the gathering. Universities started to create the zones between 1960-1970’s in order to not disrupt any classes. In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled that non-disruptive speech is allowed in school (Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent Community School District) but this does not apply to PRIVATE universities.

Click Here for the full story: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

WVU’s opinion on “free speech zones” around campus

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Michael Bomford and Matthew Pow (students at WVU) founded the West Virginia Free Speech Consotorium and set a policy allowing only two free speech zones on campus. Police said that this violated the University’s free speech rights and abandoned the policy. West Virginia University’s Board of Governers replaced it and now uses the new policy of no censorship zones.

Click here for the full story: http://thefire.org/case/30.html

Plaid avenger strikes again!

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Plaid.photoMonday, Feb. 18, 2013.

  • 07:30 — Sharp eyed university censors notice half a dozen unauthorized communications chalked into sidewalks. “#PlaidSwag” looks suspicious.  Superiors notified.
  • 09:30 — University censorship action group (UCAG) concludes that a non-cyber information attack is underway.
  • 9:45 — Vehicles parked over information attack sites to deter spread of dangerous ideas.
  • 10:00 — Criminal incident information recorded.
  • 10:15 — University powerwashing crews swiftly deployed.
  • 10:45 — Non-cyber information attack threat diluted.
  • 4:45 — Report on effective use of human resources forwarded to Superiors.
  • Unfortunately, this is all true, except the part about the UCAG — we actually don’t know what they call themselves or what they call unauthorized chalkings.

Freedom of Association bills pass Virginia assembly

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Both houses of the Virginia General Assembly have passed “Freedom of Association”  bills that allow religious and political groups at state colleges to restrict membership to individuals who are “committed” to the organization’s mission. Opponents of the legislation said the bills are thinly veiled attempts to let subsidized campus groups discriminate against gay students.

“It’s pretty simple: A Democratic club shouldn’t have to accept a Republican as a member and members of a religious group should be able to expect that their leadership will share the group’s core commitments,” Mark Obenshain, a state senator from Harrisonburg, told the Roanoke Times.

The idea of freedom of association was supported in a US Supreme Court case in 1995, Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston. But the case did not involve state funding of the groups in question, and the Supreme Court also said that Boston gays had a right to stage their own separate parade.