School administrators have over the past several decades increasingly clamped down on the freedom of speech, thought, and association of students - and even faculty - at their universities in a clearly unconstitutional manner. It is ironic that those people who in the 60's protested and demonstrated nonstop during their academic years have turned around and done their best to squash those among their students who would do the same thing.
Here's a case of a man reading a book about Notre Dame students fending off the KKK,
and being branded with a racial harassment charge which will mar his academic record for the rest of his life. He sat down and read a book during his break time: A book about how brave students stood up to evil thugs for freedom and equality. But Mr. Sampson is branded a racist for reading it by the enlightened sovereigns of
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). This is not right, and it is certainly not legal.
Did you know that a university student doesn't even have the freedom of speech to post a picture of himself on myspace to share with his friends? It's true. One woman was denied her teaching certificate and the degree she earned for a
picture of her wearing a pirate hat and drinking out of a cup. To be sure, the picture's caption said "drunken pirate" but this hardly seems to be the sort of thing that would mark an individual as being unworthy of teaching middle school. Administrators have abused their power in similar ways in my
other cases, but fortunately seem to be getting the idea that people like to be goofy and have
fun in their lives sometimes - and maybe, just maybe, they like to share pictures of it with their friends. The situation is ridiculous; publicly funded institutions like the vast majority of colleges and universities cannot infringe on constitutionally protected speech, even if that speech happens to be on Myspace.
The worst cases though, are those administrators that believe that going to college isn't about learning and getting a diploma to represent that. No sir. These administrators believe that college is about forming the correct (i.e. their) opinions on things. You don't have free speech, or even freedom of conscience. You have only the freedom to conform. Amusingly, the administrators pushing this are so-called "Liberals" who preach freedom by day and do everything in their power to destroy it by night. See a recent
conference sponsored by University of Delaware's Residence Life directors for proof. Dictators that hold "liberal" positions are hardly liberal - and being liberal, believing in freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and all those other wonderful freedoms we take for granted in our society is generally a good thing - despite what they may claim. Totalitarians are still totalitarians, whatever guise they hide themselves in.
And that is my rant for Academia today.
Thank you
FIRE and other organizations for doing what you do.
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