Free Expression Area

New this year at Valdosta State: the Religious Freedom Room, located in the basement of Maintenance. And on alternate Tuesday afternoons, campus police now observe “Freedom from Unreasonable Search & Seizure” laws. Please be advised that No Unlawful Detainment Wednesdays have been suspended until further notice.

Habbie Offman, at 10:01 am EST on January 18, 2008

what to take away from this

Well, this ended predictably. I think everyone on here pretty much agreed on what was going on and why it was bad. I had a few additional thoughts.

1. Constitutional issues aside, when schools seek to restrict ideas in this way it hurts their alumni. From this point on, when most of us meet an alum of that school we will simply assume that they have been protected from ideas that don’t jive with some strange ideology (or maybe a personality cult), and can’t really deal with all the cacophony of ideas out there. I would say that it is akin from graduating form a school that didn’t teach math courses.

2. Mid-level administrators do this stuff all the time without contacting their lawyers first. Generally it results in embarrassment, but we can chalk it up to someone not knowing what they are doing. Here, we have a senior-level administrator (with an academic appointment) acting in a very childish manner. This is somewhat rarer because presidents, like most executives, are used to consulting with lawyers and usually have a good feel for when legal advice is needed. I would hanker a guess that he didn’t have a serious conversation with his lawyers before going after this kid.

3. The “counselors” interactions with the administrators (and their complete disregard for confidentiality) shows why it is a very bad idea for any student to EVER visit a campus counselor for anything! While some counselors claim to respect confidentiality, these semi-frequent incidents of deliberate breaches pretty much void any protection that a student might have. If this kid had asked me what to do about his agoraphobia, I would have told him to stay the heck away from anyone associated with the university.

4. On a more general note, this probably shows one of the strange differences between academe and the “outside” world. In the outside world, chains of command are generally respected. People work for bosses, judges get appealed, and for the most part it makes sense. In academe, however, students are PAYING to attend and can’t really expect to be “told” what to do, or to view a college president as anything more than the president of an institution that they pay money to. However, some senior-level administrators don’t really understand this concept, and believe that the students are the lowest level of plebe in some great army that they command. While I don’t subscribe to the “customer-service” model of academe, the attitude that a president (usually with an impressive pedigree and many years of experience) is inherently “above” a student will simply make enemies. Instead, this respect needs to be “earned.” And, if a president really doesn’t like what someone is saying, he can always ignore it, because they people that DO work for him will generally listen to him, anyway.

5. Finally, I need to say it again: FIRE represented someone without a religious or conservative bent. So, I think it is safe to say that they turned the corner.

Larry, at 2:05 pm EST on January 18, 2008

Richard is mistaken

Richard, You are wrong. Read the complaint. Count TWO alleges a violation of 14th amendment due process.

Larry, at 3:55 pm EST on January 18, 2008

Nicely done, Habbie.

JBM, at 8:30 am EST on January 19, 2008

FIRE “turning the corner”

As a regular reader of IHE, I often appreciate commenter Larry’s thoughtful comments. However, I have to take exception to his assertion that FIRE has “turned a corner” by taking Hayden Barnes’ case. FIRE has always taken cases from every ideological perspective (and those that have nothing to do with ideology at all) and we will continue to do so. Our board, our president, and I all insist on it. However, you don’t have to take my word for it; I can back up this assertion with FIRE’s public deeds. We have answered assertions that we take political sides or have some kind of bias before; here are a couple of places where we quite comprehensively address this, for those who are interested:

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2005Q3/saf.html#comment-499

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/7975.html

We even very publicly defended the student editor at Colorado State who printed the “Taser this: F—K BUSH” editorial—and were nearly alone in doing so:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gre...su-and-conventions-of-d_b_66673.html

Whether it’s defending Ward Churchill’s comments or taking down a coercive diversity program at the University of Delaware, one thing ties FIRE’s cases together: FIRE takes the side of liberty over repression. Hayden Barnes’ case doesn’t represent FIRE’s “turning a corner"—it’s our bread and butter. I encourage everyone to visit FIRE’s website at www.thefire.org and decide for themselves.

Robert Shibley, Vice President at FIRE, at 5:45 pm EST on January 20, 2008

In terms of pecking-order, students rate below janitors at most colleges and universities (students come and go, but a good janitor is hard to find). If VSU really thought he might be a threat expelling him was a stupid way to deal with it: Nothing would prevent him from returning to campus with a brace of pistols and shooting up the place in retaliation. It really looks though like the “threat” was just an excuse to get rid of an administration critic.

Orion, at 7:05 pm EST on January 20, 2008

response on turning corners

Mr. Shibley, I appreciate your comments. My original comment in this thread was directed at people that have accused people of only taking on “conservative” causes. (I use that term as a shorthand, not as an actual description of a coherent ideology.) This “turning,” in my view probably happened a few years back, and any “liberal” should have no qualms about giving money to your group.

When FIRE first came on the scene, and became popular (i.e. 2002-3), most of the cases it was taking were along the lines of: 1) religious groups; 2) “conservatives” being shut down by “liberals” administrators. Even so, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there was an ideological bias in FIRE. It may have been that early-on, not as many oppressed students knew about FIRE so the best cases were snapped up by the ACLU or other more well-known groups. My personal belief (not supported by any actual data as I don’t have it, I admit) was that the first donors and affiliates to FIRE were of a conservative bent, and FIRE needed to impress them to raise the money.

However, it might be, as Mr. Lukianoff suggests, that things were really just a matter of coincidence.

(I have no position on the actual staff of FIRE, and their effectiveness in court or in non-judicial advocacy speaks for itself.)

Larry, at 10:40 am EST on January 22, 2008