FIRE prez discusses DePaul free speech violations on Hannity & Colmes
More craziness at DePaul. Crossposted on Marathon Pundit. A lot of people here shouted me down when I first posted news on this issue last month, but DePaul caved in.
The segment on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes Showa took place about two hours ago, as interim FIRE President Greg Lukianoff's made an appearance on the popular debate show, but I was working late and missed it. Thankfully, I have TIVO. Also, the show will be re-broadcast at 2am Eastern time, (1am Chicago time).
FIRE is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a campus free speech watchdog group.
From the Fox News web site:
Also, DePaul University prevents its on-campus group College Republicans from posting fliers protesting a visit by controversial professor Ward Churchill. Can they really do that? We’ll debate it.
Related to that story, is a press release from FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
From that release:
Under pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), DePaul University has lifted a vague ban on “propaganda” that it used last fall to silence student protest of a campus appearance by controversial University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill.
“The revocation of the ‘propaganda’ ban is a step in the right direction for DePaul,” said FIRE Interim President Greg Lukianoff. “Yet DePaul’s disregard for freedom of expression reaches far beyond this one policy. The true test will be how DePaul reacts the next time students attempt to express dissenting opinions.”
DePaul’s College Republicans (CRs) suffered censorship last October after they opposed the university’s invitation to Churchill to lecture and lead a student workshop. To protest the events, the CRs produced flyers recounting some of Churchill’s controversial remarks. When the CRs submitted the flyers for approval, administrators responded first by misleading the CRs into thinking that the event was cancelled, then by invoking a policy that stated, “We do not approve propaganda.” The students, who did not believe that quoting a person’s own remarks was “propaganda,” posted the flyers anyway, leading to a formal warning from DePaul and a surreptitious addition to the policy saying that posters could be used only to promote events, not to protest them.
The CRs contacted FIRE, and on November 23, 2005, FIRE wrote a letter to DePaul President Dennis Holtschneider, pointing out that the vague and constantly shifting ban on "propaganda" gave administrators the unfettered power to censor student speech at will. Holtschneider replied on December 12, incorrectly asserting that no DePaul policies mentioned the word “propaganda” and stating that the policy prohibits the denunciation of any speaker appearing at DePaul. Yet FIRE’s research shows that not only did the “propaganda” ban exist, but the stipulation that flyers may only “promote events” appeared in the policy after the College Republicans’ flyers were denied approval.
FIRE views the above move as an encouraging sign, but this does not leave Chicago's DePaul University with a clean bill of health. It is deeply troubled by DePaul's conduct in the suspension of Thomas Klocek.
For more information on the Klocek case, click here.
9 comments:
Thanks John,
I appreciate these posts.
I'm DePaul alum with three kids who I've talked the school up with.
Considering what it costs to send a kid to a place like this, I like to pay attention to nonsense going on there.
Dear Bill,
Let them trustees know of your concerns; they are the stewards of the school's mission and any of your concerns must be theirs.
I am not sure; is DePaul a Phi Beta Kappa Chartered university? The hair-ball issue of 'academic freedom' gets all chokey under that particular rubric and mid-level academics can often loot the candy counter under the noses of the Board due to this.
Loyola has been refused Phi Beta Kappan status due to the nature of Jesuit mission statement & etc. 'Too Catholic = anti-intellectual.' Or some such cow-pasture product.
Hannity and Colmes was not the show to watch last night. You should have watched Andy Rooney on Larry King, if for nothing else than the fact that I think that was the oldest pair of people on TV at any one given time, with a combined age of around 435 years.
Thanks Bill. I think, somewhere on my hard drive, I've got the chairman of the DPU trustees, he's a big shot atty at Jenner & Block.
Anon: Did Larry King ask Andy 'bout is eyebrows and why he doesn't trim them?
anon 8:57
You want old, look at the Democrats in the Senate,
The Democratic management of legislation in the House is handled by John Dingell, 79, Energy and Commerce Committee (25 terms); Tom Lantos, 77, International Relations (13 terms); John Conyers, 76, Judiciary (21 terms); David Obey, 67, Appropriations (18 terms); and John Spratt, 63, Budget (12 terms). These are men who generally talk about moving the previous question more than moving the nation.
Ward Churchill not a spring chicken himself.
Holy Heaven! I came here looking for Illinoize and found the John-Ruberry-has-a-problem-with-DePaul-and-will-now-devote-a-dozen-unique-posts-on-essentially-the-same-issue-and-Bill-Baar-and-Pat-Hickey-will-offer-the-same-sympathetic-responses blog.
It's like reading the rain man blog.
Yeah. Definitely DePaul. Definitely DePaul. Crazy liberals at DePaul. Yeah. Definitely crazy liberals at DePaul.
I must be getting to you, anonymous. Good. See you at Democrats Underground.
Just saw the segment on "Hannity & Colmes." Even liberal Alan Colmes, remarked about the College Republican squelching, that "DePaul didn't handle it well."
The FIRE president called DePaul "a basketcase" and said that DePaul "had a nasty history" regarding free speech.
You won't see me there (at DU). Those people are no better than the right-wing nuts. Everything's a conspiracy. Pragmatism is a concept that doesn't exist there - they should call it Permanent Minority Underground.
And Alan Colmes is exactly the mealy-mouthed milquetoast wimp that Fox News revels in portraying Democrats as next to All American Fray Boy Sean.
Let me add - I strongly dislike the likes of Ward Churchill and other screaming lefties. For one thing, I think they are usually off base (and really, the political spectrum is more of a circle - anti-government conspiracy nut lefties and anti-government conspiracy nut righties aren't so different), and they make moderate Dems look bad.
That said, I still have to chuckle at right-wingers who get themselves all in a froth over minor things like this (and the same holds true when it goes the other way - ie military recruiters on campus...who cares?) College students are -mostly- adults, even if immature ones.
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