Literature Review #5

Conn, Joseph L. "PARTISAN POWER PLAY: AU Complains To IRS After Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Excommunicates College Democrats." Church & State (2009): n. pag. ProQuest. July 2009. Web.

Review: The piece titled "Partisan Power Play: AU Complains to IRS After Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Excommunicates College Democrats" highlights the legal issues with censorship by universities. Although Liberty University is not a public institution, it is a tax-exempt institution and therefore they are required to no be partisan. The argument Americans United have is that the university is violating these laws by banning the College Democrats from being part of campus unlike the College Republicans. This pieces offers an interesting perspective because it provides a unique legal perspective in regard to the misconduct of universities regarding speech. Also, it shoes the odd political nature of censorship on campus.

Research Blog #9: Argument and Counter-Argument

My Argument: Today students at colleges and universities across the nation have very little individual rights, and this is especially true to their First Amendment rights. This reality is true to both private and public universities. It is of concern to both private and public institutions because it is contrary to the ideal of academia to censor students and professors. It is of concern to public universities in that they are essentially a form of our government and are directly involved in censoring the American people, that just happen to be young adults who are pursuing their undergraduate degrees. Higher education institutions across the country have vague speech codes that limit the free speech rights of their students, essentially encompassing any speech that offends someone and then that someone reports it. Additionally, universities are involved in enabling group think, indoctrinating their students through pushing a political agenda and in doing so violate the right of due process. All of this is at the expense of a truly free and academic environment. This kind of behavior by universities does not promote any legitimate educational environment and therefore fails to actually educate its students but succeeds in its political indoctrination. It is also a mechanism for universities to repel criticism of themselves and to manipulate their image, although this sometimes backfires once public criticism becomes strong enough.
The Counter-Argument: At this point, I am still searching for a blatant argument for the censorship of speech on campus -- or at least one that is comparable to the information I have against this kind of practice. But this is how the argument goes:
There are opinions in the world, especially true to college campuses, that are blatantly unethical and/or immoral. They are racist, sexist, bigoted, ignorant, nonfactual -- you name it. The idea is that these opinions simply promote hate and therefore violence, and that they are intimidating and offensive to certain minority groups in history. Therefore, this type of speech should be restricted on university grounds. This encompasses speech that criticizes the universities. Such speech should not be permitted on the grounds of equality and sensibility for others and should especially be realized by those who are white. It is the job of colleges and universities to eradicate this speech from society (eventually) by regulating this kind of speech for generations on college campuses, instead of actually allowing free speech and free expression to occur. Which, is the environment academia has historically striven to foster. The argument that speech must be regulated and that it is fair for universities to act in the unconstitutional way that they have been, is found all throughout my sources against it. Since the obvious unconstitutional nature of their argument is perfect for a counter-argument.

Research Blog #6: Visual

Just some cartoons to illustrate how college students may feel these days...

Research Blog #7: Case

The speech rights of citizens are vital to the existence of a free world, and this includes students. A democratic system, and more importantly the ideals of democracy in a new generation of students, will fail to exist if higher education continues to push a political agenda through administrative policy regarding free speech. Today colleges and universities across the nation are using tactics such as "free speech zones." The ability that federal courts have indirectly provided administrations with in regard to their punishment of student speech has been detrimental to the practice of free speech in educational environments.The policies which foster this behavior and the lack of retaliation from staff and the academic community only enable this kind of "academic" environment to occur. Meanwhile, this ability to manipulate speech and therefore debate by administrators on a college campus greatly impacts the potential perspectives, creating bias viewpoints among students.