******** From: "Gabe" <stryferat_private> To: <declanat_private> References: <20011024162932.C22187at_private> Subject: Re: FIRE on post-Sep. 11 attacks on liberty on America's campuses Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 18:38:43 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > * At Central Michigan University, an administrator told several students to > remove various patriotic posters (an American flag, an eagle, and so on) > from their dormitory. On October 8, a Residential Advisor told them that > their display was "offensive," and that they had until the end of the day to > remove the items. As one student said, "American flags or pictures that were > pro-American had to be taken down because they were offensive to people." > FIRE has contacted President Michael Rao, along with the Board of Trustees > and officials in the Office of Residential Life, to insist that this public > institution not violate its students' free speech rights. FIRE awaits his > response. I attend Central Michigan University, live in the same dormitory complex, and have been following this issue closely. At first glance it seems as if this is a reasonable issue for FIRE to pick up, but in actuality, it has been blown out of proportion by rumor and word of mouth. Flags are *not* forbidden, in fact there are many outside my door. Displaying Anti-Arabian propaganda, such as many of those e-mail forwards we consider to be in bad taste, are discouraged. As always...what is an e-mail without a link: http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2001/10/24/3bd64f07b5998 --Gabriel Friedmann ******** From: John Firebaugh <jfireat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: FIRE on post-Sep. 11 attacks on liberty on America's campuses Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 13:58:18 -0700 In-Reply-To: <20011024162932.C22187at_private> Cc: thorat_private On Wednesday 24 October 2001 01:29 pm, you wrote: > PHILADELPHIA, PA---Across the nation, in response to the atrocities of > September 11, 2001, and to the debates and discussions that have occurred > in their wake, many college and university administrators are acting to > inhibit the free expression of the citizens of a free society. Here at the bastion of liberalism, the University of California, Berkeley, we're so "PC" that we don't even need university administrators to act as censors -- the students do the job handily. A faction of the student body has decided to label any condemnation of any group's culture "racist hate speech" (excepting condemnations of western culture, of course), and taken it upon themselves to censor the expression of any argument they disagree with. This group disrupts scholarly talks and debates by shouting down the speakers, snips microphone wires at rallies, steals copies of the independent school newspaper, The Daily Californian, and in general makes an embarrasment of my school. later, John ******** From: "Richard Day" <radayat_private> To: <declanat_private>, <politechat_private> References: <20011024162932.C22187at_private> Subject: Re: FIRE on post-Sep. 11 attacks on liberty on America's campuses Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 21:12:16 -0400 Why is it some people just don't seem to understand the right to speak ones mind? I wonder sometimes if it isn't better to just ignore someone that persists in making ridiculous statements. Sometimes all it does is to make the matter worse to make a federal case out of it. How many people must have said they would like to bomb the pentagon? I know I sat in a lot of meetings and thought these people are nuts. The speech by the Post Master General saying they were going to irradiate all mail except the junk mail and magazines was an example of saying too much. Now the terrorists know they have to go after the junk mailers and magazines. Why didn't he simply say we are going to irradiate the mail and let it go at that. I know he didn't call it junk mail rather he refered to mass mailers or something like that. When they want to know where is the money to come from fro irradiating the mail I say raise the cost of the junk mail and that will more than pay the freight. My next door neighbor is putting a trash barel out at the community mail boxes so we can just throw the junk mail in the trash barrel and not bring it into the house. I am sure that will make the junk mailers very happy. Regards Dick *********** Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 00:16:24 -0400 To: declanat_private From: Rich Cowan <richat_private> Subject: Re: FC: FIRE on post-Sep. 11 attacks on liberty on America's campuses In-Reply-To: <20011024162932.C22187at_private> Declan, I want to challenged some of the assumptions behind the FIRE material that you posted today. * At Central Michigan University, an administrator told several students to >remove various patriotic posters (an American flag, an eagle, and so on) >from their dormitory. On October 8, a Residential Advisor told them that >their display was "offensive," and that they had until the end of the day to >remove the items. As one student said, "American flags or pictures that were >pro-American had to be taken down because they were offensive to people." >FIRE has contacted President Michael Rao, along with the Board of Trustees >and officials in the Office of Residential Life, to insist that this public >institution not violate its students' free speech rights. FIRE awaits his >response. Regarding the Cent. Mich U incident, it does not state where the posters were displayed. If the posters were on a student's dormitory door, I find it highly unlikely that the administration would have complained. This needs to be stated, otherwise this example is weak, unless of course the statement that the display was "offensive" can be substantiated. There are many dormitories in this country where you can't get away with setting up a display in a public space, whether it is pro-war or whether it is antiwar. If this example refers to a public space, than for some reason FIRE is singling out an instance where only a prowar public space was criticized. It would be interesting if FIRE devoted the same kind of scrutiny it devotes to public colleges to private conservative institutions like Liberty U and Hillsdale College. >* At the College of the Holy Cross, in Massachusetts, the chair of the >department of sociology, Professor Royce Singleton, demanded that a >secretary remove an American flag that she had hung in the departmental >office. The flag was in memory of her friend Todd Beamer, who fought and >died on the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania. When she >refused, Singleton removed it himself. After unfavorable publicity, the >College apologized, but the flag in question was moved to the department of >psychology. Regarding the Holy Cross incident, it appears from the writeup that the flag was displayed not on the desk of a secretary, but in an office area shared with professors. It also seems that the professor in question was not proud of his country's actions, and therefore did not want to have the flag displayed. Now, this may be an unpopular position, but it is well-documented that the United States of America helped to finance (and possibly even subsidized the flight training) of the very terrorist networks that hijacked flight 93. So someone who is aware of this financing, or of US indirect support for the Taliban, etc. might not feel that the symbol of the U.S. government is the most appropriate symbol for honoring a victim of the appalling acts of September 11. If the professors don't want the flag displayed in the public space, why should they be forced by conservative activists and the media to have it displayed? On the other hand, the professors probably should have shown some sensitivity to their secretary, even though they outrank her and ordinarily would have the final say. The blurb here doesn't mention whether the secretary forwarned her superiors of her planned action to put up the flag, or whether the fact that the flag was placed there to commemorate one particular victim was made clear. My point is that it is fair game for those folks who are not especially proud of what the flag has represented to be critical when those folks who are proud of it make the assumption that everyone else shares that identical view. Where is it written in the Constitution that if your intention is to display Old Glory, normal channels you might go through before displaying any other symbol or ornament are automatically waived? The danger with the FIRE approach (note that FIRE did not provide an "action" number and email for their sole article defending the right to express antiwar views) is that it creates a climate where people feel they can usurp the normal procedures of any institution in order to take an act that expresses support for war, or for spending money on the military, etc. So you have the president creating an "executive order" to create a department that is anticipated to have a budget over $100 billion. And you have another "executive order" saying that the CIA gets another $1 billion in secret funding over which Congress exercises virtually no oversight. What ever happened to Article I, section 9 of the US constitution which states in Clause 7 that: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." Generally I might have little problem with challenging the established authority; the problem is the double standard, where the official engaged in social welfare activities who bends the rules to help "the cause" gets no support, whereas the official engaged in military-related activities is labeled a freedom fighter. I know that groups like FIRE get plenty of funding from conservative foundations that are themselves tied to the military. See, for example, http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.asp?1994 But this is no excuse for FIRE latching on to a campaign that only encourages folks with a particular political view to express those views in a manner that challenges authority. If you are really about free speech and you want to defend one side's right to challenge authority, then it only makes sense that you need to also defend the other side when it also challenges authority. Otherwise, you are advocating a slanted playing field under the guise of countering bias. Please feel free to post this. -rich [I understand that critics sometimes attack FIRE for being too "conservative," as if that accusation means their views should be automatically rejected. In reality, (this is from memory) Harvey is the former head of the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, currently serves on their board, and writes a column for the hardly-conservative Boston Phoenix. The truth is that defending freedom on college campuses is not, or at least should not be, a left-right issue. --Declan] *********** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. 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