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Colleges Being Remade Into "Repress U"?

Posted by kdawson on from the don't-speak-out dept.

The Nation has up a sobering article from its upcoming issue about how colleges and universities are being turned into homeland security campuses, in the name of preventing homegrown radicalization. Quoting: "From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism prevention' — as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name — have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university."

17 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. Free Speech Areas by ShakaUVM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think I'm more troubled by the "designated free speech areas" that are springing up on campuses everywhere.

    Not because people can (sort of) speak freely there, but colleges are banning free speech everywhere else.

    1. Re:Free Speech Areas by Aeron65432 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Agreed. This is one area where it's an advantage to attend a state-university than a private one.....public universities have to afford you the Bill of Rights. If you're on a private campus, they can do whatever the hell they want. (not exactly, but more than a public university)

      Moreso, it'd be better if we had this article from a newsworthy source...not an article as blatantly partisan as the Nation. (For the record Reason magazine or National Review would be wrong, too)

    2. Re:Free Speech Areas by Original+Replica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Bong hits for Jesus" is the perfect example of just how over-controlling schools are becoming. Frederick, then a senior, was off school property when he hoisted the banner but was suspended for violating the school's policy of promoting illegal substances at a school-sanctioned event. So in the eternal bloating of government, students are now subject to the law of the school board even when they are not on school property. The fact that it was a "school sanctioned event" is irrelevant. The kid wasn't being disruptive to the schools activities he was being harmlessly disruptive to the Olympic torch passing. If you think that qualifies as a reasonable restriction you need to snap out of your sheep's mentality. Rights, like free speech, are not something that the government "allows". They are inherent to all humans, in places they are repressed by governments, in places they are repressed by cultures, but they always there. The difference is not trivial. In fact it is central to a free society.

      --
      We are all just people.
    3. Re:Free Speech Areas by StarvingSE · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The kid was being silly, but he was also making a political point. The political point wasn't "Bong Hits for Jesus," it was that he should have the right to say something as silly as that.

      This is a country whose government allows skinheads/KKK to parade in downtown Toledo and lets the westboro baptist church protest soldiers funerals. Yet, saying "Bong Hits for Jesus" gets you yanked out of school and into court.

      --
      I got nothin'
    4. Re:Free Speech Areas by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He might not have been standing on school ground, but he was out of his normal class with school permission under school control at a school sponsored event. The kids are in school to learn, they had no "right" to see the torch go through, but they were still let out and the kid abused the privilege. He also expressly refused to put the sign away when the teachers who were there (because it was a school event) told him to. The sign was factually shown to be disruptive... he did it to grab attention and it worked. If you want to see how an actual political protest IS allowed in schools see the Tinker decision in which case there was an actual political protest that did not disrupt the educational process and was allowed. The Court has never said students don't have free speech, but free speech does not mean you can act like a jackass on the school's time and not have to worry about getting a (pretty normal) punishment for it.

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    5. Re:Free Speech Areas by Valdrax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is hate speech free speech?

      Unequivocally, yes. Odious though it may be, the alternative of defining standards over what is and isn't a politically acceptable view to have is even worse. The solution to hate speech is to speak back and to be more persuasive, and not to simply censor it. Truly obnoxious speech will generally lose out in a society committed to freedom, though it may take some time.

      --
      If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
  2. I can't take anything seriously anymore by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Funny

    "From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism prevention' -- as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name -- have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university."

    Tonight... on 24! Jack Bauer delivers the glorious CTU smackdown to some girly man professors with their sights set on terrorizing the Heartland! Watch the Godless professors soil their undies as Bauer delivers a peer reviewed parcel of whoopass!

    Presented in high definition Tyranovision!

  3. Free Speech Zones by ProteusQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was teaching at Wichita State before the Free Speech Zones. They had to implement them because Women's Studies majors were interrupting class by blowing an air horn to announce "Take Back the Night"-type events. So, the left-wing administrators had to find a way to kept the far-left-wing advocates from interrupting class and came up with the zoning scheme as the solution.

    If the right is truly repressing speech on campus via federal reg's, it's double-plus bad ungood; however, I contend there's far more internal repression of speech, and hence of thought, from the left on campus and has been for decades. (Why? Because they believe that true diversity will be achieved once everyone agrees with them.) So, if we want free speech on campus, let's make sure all of the sources of repression are dealt with.

  4. Sad but necessary by Moryath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work on a University campus, so I know what's really going on. It's simple: too many people abused their "right" to free speech by making it impossible to hold classes, being rowdy and loud in the halls, preventing people from passing into buildings, etc. In essence, depriving the students of the very thing they paid for. End result? The university isn't about having "free speech all the time", it's where people pay for an education. So the Universities had to strike a balance, and they had to do something so that those who wanted to protest can do so, but WITHOUT DISRUPTING CLASSES.

    You don't have the "right" to stand up and have a bitch-fest in a class you're signed up for, either - if you disrupt class, the professor has the right to order you out and call security if you don't leave. You don't have the "right" to prevent people from reaching classes either, and we had fuckwits from Code Pinko blockading the classrooms of engineering profs who had military service records and have some military research grants.

    And that even includes the fuckwad professors who hold chemistry class bitching about Bush and why everyone should be antiwar, too. You want to protest them? Take it up w/ the Dean, in the student newspaper, in the courts, or on your own time - not in the class.

    students at Hampton and Pace universities faced expulsion for handing out antiwar fliers, aka "unauthorized materials."

    I don't care what you're doing - whether it's an anti-abortion flyer, a pro-abortion flyer, an antiwar flyer, a pro-war flyer, or an advertising for your frat/sorostitute group's drinking party. If you're trying to force it into people's hands, or putting it on their cars (which is what WE get all the time where I work)... no. If someone actively takes it from you? Fine. But you don't have the right to force crap into my hands and you don't have the right to fuck with my vehicle. And I'm 100% sure that's the bullcrap they are really referring to.

    I also love this little gem:
    1. Target dissidents. As the warfare state has triggered dissent, the campus has attracted increasing scrutiny--with student protesters in the cross hairs. The government's number-one target? Peace and justice organizations.
    I'd trust the guys writing this so-called "report" more if those so-called "peace and justice organizations" weren't fronts for communist groups (ANSWER, International Socialist Workers Party, etc), anarchist groups, blatant racial supremacist organizations (MEChA and La Raza, motto "For the race, everything, for other races, nothing"), or international terrorist/genocide groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

    I mean, really. We had a table of morons set up who were boldly collecting money that they admitted they'd be sending to Hezbollah. They should all have been deported for violating their visas - half of them had already dropped this semester's classes anyways, like they do every semester.

    1. Re:Sad but necessary by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you're in favor of suppressing the freedom of speech in some places so that we can have ORDER. I get it - you want the trains to run on time!

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    2. Re:Sad but necessary by TheGreatHegemon · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Looking at your posts and even some others comments in this thread (black dominated slums...) I can tell you're a tad on the conservative side, which really isn't too much of a problem. However, I sincerely doubt the situation is as severe as you claim it to be - are you honestly telling me that we're more disruptive that students during the Vietnam era?

      Believe it or not, Universities are traditionally considered bastions OF free thought and speech - these are the tools of learning. If I wanted to just learn from the professor in a classroom, then why don't we just simply call it "High School v.2"?

      I'm at a public University, and guess what? No designated "Free Speech Zones" or anything. Do the students riot? Scream in classes? Block the professors? Never. And we do have some issues.

      It's bad enough that the K-12 system starts students off on the idea of utter compliance (might even be part of the reason why your University has these issues now), but to even make Universities stifle speech - then what good is that pesky Bill of Rights?

      Here's the interesting part: We're considered on of the more conservative University of California schools - nestled in the heart of a Conservative part of California.

      I'd trust the guys writing this so-called "report" more if those so-called "peace and justice organizations" weren't fronts for communist groups (ANSWER, International Socialist Workers Party, etc), anarchist groups, blatant racial supremacist organizations (MEChA and La Raza, motto "For the race, everything, for other races, nothing"), or international terrorist/genocide groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Just because you don't agree with their agendas (I definitely don't), doesn't mean that they should be banned. It's the cost of free speech - and one that we SHOULD be willing to pay! ESPECIALLY at Universities, where people should be rational and educated enough to know what they should listen to!
    3. Re:Sad but necessary by clang_jangle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you have a better word than Anarchism for what this is, I'd be glad to hear it.


      Fantasy is the word which comes to mind... :)

      In real life it doesn't work to say to the officer who pulls you over for speeding, "Gee thanks, but I don't subscribe to your government". Realistically speaking, anarchy can exist only as an extremely fleeting state which is always followed by some form of government. Human nature dictates this, and the proof is the complete and utter lack of successful anarchist societies.

      Before you fire back with that example, note I said "successful". As in "still working". I know there are legends, and of course there have been fleeting periods, but no real working examples of what you describe. Hence, the word for what you are calling anarchism is "fantasy". It never existed and it never will.
      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    4. Re:Sad but necessary by Artifakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Anarchy literally means NO Archy, as in No Hierarchy. No person set up over other persons, everybody equal, and so on. Technically, the phrase "A nation of laws and not men" fits this definition. A strict definition of the word equates to having "No rulers", but not necessarily or even likely having no laws.
            This is not just a matter of semantics. I wouldn't bother with this point if the vast majority of 'anarchists' were "Chaoticists" misusing the word to mean doing away with all law. The word is actually, very frequently used to mean no rulers. In the UK, there have been literally over 10,000 people put on lists of suspected anarchists because they oppose Monarchy (literally "One-archy"). They are people advocating getting rid of the British monarchy, including having no House of Lords, but many still support elections and laws, including having a House of Commons based parlimentary system. The U.S. gets these lists as part of establishing its own no-fly, and no-visit lists, and the US's intelligence services usually take the British anarchist designation as meaning "opposed to all government" so the U.S. is currently keeping "British anarchists" out of the country because they are people who don't support the current heir to the throne of George III. Funny, I thought the U.S. got started that way.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    5. Re:Sad but necessary by SteelAngel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There's a difference between the right to protest grievances, and the right to protest wherever you damn well want to and in whatever circumstances you want to. One of these is an actual right.

      Full disclosure: I am a 30 year old college professor at a small private school.

      Disrupting classes, invited lectures or other campus-wide gatherings is not only rude, but it is nothing less than thuggism. The whole point of the academy is the free and open flow of ideas. You may agree or disagree with those ideas, but to shout them down or disrupt the educational process is beyond the pale. Engagement with those you disagree with is far more constructive than acting like a jackbooted jerk.

      Before the late 1960s, hipsters were escorted off of campuses, student radicals were usually expelled. Professors who did not 'fit in' were routinely let go.

      Today, the politics on campus has all but reversed itself from the 1950s. "The man" today is the Boomer-aged Administration and Faculty: leftists who promote speech codes and shut down campus debate, harass conservatives, excuse 'favored groups' antisocial activity, etc. There hasn't been a truly progressive bone in the corpse of campus leftism since I was an undergrad in the late 90's. All that is 'left' is a proto-totalitarianist mantra of thoughtcrime and newspeak (oddly enough, that was the name of our campus newspaper whilst I was there!)

      To be a real 'campus radical' today is not to be a pot-smoking hippie; it is to be a member of the campus Republicans!

    6. Re:Sad but necessary by maccam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your comments imply that hippies took over the colleges, which is why universities are perceived to have a left wing bias (aah for the good old 1950's where the world was perfect and people knew their places).

      The reason "campus Republicans" are perceived to be the campus underdogs is that at this point in history the right tends to produce ideologues, who don't deserve and rarely qualify for university positions. This lack of open-mindedness is the biggest hinderance to right-leaning scholars playing a bigger role on campuses. The ideologues have all the answers and simply must find away to make data and evidence fit their ideology; whereas, a credible and open-minded conservative can soundly analyze data, let chips fall where they may. The manufactured threat that accompanied the run up to the Iraq war is a perfect example of the soft thuggery of the neocons (leave out contradictory evidence, use the most bizarre interpretation of data--the Al centrifuge tubes come to mind). The intellectual conservatives, the kind that fit in an academic environment, happen to be out numbered at the moment.

      Sincerely,
      Boomer-aged Faculty

      --
      Half Word - Will Double, Wire Palindrome, San Francisco
  5. Almost forgot: by Moryath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    3. Keep an eye (or hundreds of them) focused on campus. Surveillance has become a boom industry nationally--one that now reaches deep into the heart of campuses. In fact, universities have witnessed explosive growth since 2001 in the electronic surveillance of students, faculty and campus workers. On ever more campuses, closed-circuit security cameras can track people's every move, often from hidden or undisclosed locations, sometimes even into classrooms.

    I helped get this established on our campus. Why did we do it? It has nothing to do with "tracking everyone" and everything to do with crime. We have cameras on the parking lots because we kept having "neighbors" from the black-dominated slums nearby breaking into cars and carjacking people, and so they now have someone watching to dispatch a cop to a problem spot 24/7. We have cameras on buildings leading to classrooms, and even a few IN classrooms, because of people committing rapes and getting into fights.

    5. Track foreign-born students; keep the undocumented out.
    Yeah. Because enforcing the law is a problem... how?
    The American Immigration Law Foundation estimates that only one in twenty undocumented immigrants who graduate high school goes on to enroll in a college--many don't go because they cannot afford the tuition but also because they have good reason to be afraid: ICE has deported a number of those who did make it to college, some before they could graduate.
    When every one that gets in displaces a legal citizen, legal resident, legal visa-holder who had the RIGHT to apply... yeah. I applaud such efforts.

  6. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education by Kohath · · Score: 5, Informative

    The main watchdog for campus rights abuses is FIRE.

    Speech codes and anti-harassment "respect" policies are the most common culprits when it comes to violating individual rights at colleges.