How Free Speech Died On Campus

Yeah! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-18 05:27 · Score: 5, Funny

This guy is advocating racism and sexual harassment! Shall we defeat him, PC gang?

Re:Yeah! by kenj0418 · 2012-11-18 12:48 · Score: 4, Funny

In fact, the greatest damage moderates and left-wing could do to the right wing extremists is to invite them to freely speak their minds. The resulting spew of homophobic, sexist, and racist non-sequiturs would likely shift most people just a bit to the left.
And somewhere in suburban Missouri, Todd Akin gets as the strange feeling that someone on slashdot is talking about him.
Re:Yeah! by Toonol · 2012-11-18 13:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have many views that you would probably label as right-wing and extreme, and yet I'm not the slightest bit sexist, racist, or homophobic. Will that truth affect your gross caricaturizations in the future? Probably not.
Re:Yeah! by sg_oneill · 2012-11-18 14:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

In fact, the greatest damage moderates and left-wing could do to the right wing extremists is to invite them to freely speak their minds. The resulting spew of homophobic, sexist, and racist non-sequiturs would likely shift most people just a bit to the left.
The problem with this view is that its logical, but it also doesn't really work like that. Humans have awful psychology when it comes to political views and crowds. If you have a large group of people chanting racists slogans, very quickly people around them , onlookers, can find themselves chanting along, and believing those slogans and not asking themselves why. The cronulla riot in australia left many people who had joined in the racist violent asking themselves "What the hell did I just do? I dont understand it? I was just in cronulla for shopping and next thing I'm in a crowd of people bashing lebanese shopkeepers". The inverse of this is the "spiral of silence" effect where once a view becomes popular, everyone starts changing their view to the popular one because its popular, and the less popular view becomes more and more rare and dangerous to express.
Finally there is a large part of the population that research shows find themselves attracted to angry conservative type opinions and actually become MORE attracted to the opinion when evidence of its incorrectness is presented. Witness the absolute insanity of the anti gay-marriage league, or the "teach creationism in schools" league. It seems the more evidence as to why these guys are loons is presented to them, the more it convinces them that evolution/climate-change/drug-reform/gay-marriage/etc is some sort of evil communist plot.
There are so many sociological factors involved with why people adopt political positions that are not at all related to rationality or free/open speech.

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Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.

Wow, don't have opinions online.. by slashkitty · 2012-11-18 05:27 · Score: 5, Informative

Norfolk State: "The policy broadly prohibits using any university internet technology resources "to further personal views" or "religious or political causes." It also prohibits downloading or transmitting "inappropriate messages or images," without defining "inappropriate."

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-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.

Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-18 05:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

That was a major issue at my University, StFX.
The entire "community code" was so vague, you were in violation of something at any given time. They put fines on student accounts for violations, and don't release transcripts unless they're paid.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by DavidClarkeHR · 2012-11-18 05:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Norfolk State: "The policy broadly prohibits using any university internet technology resources "to further personal views" or "religious or political causes." It also prohibits downloading or transmitting "inappropriate messages or images," without defining "inappropriate."
Unfortunately, most universities don't have an explicit policy in place. If you're an undergraduate, rather than tell you they don't want opposing viewpoints, they'll just graduate you quickly with average marks. But if you're a graduate student? Your advisory commity will they'll revoke your funding (after the first year), your review committee will slow-walk your research, your lab-coordinator will have difficulty finding you space to work and - if you're lucky - you'll be forced to write massive changes into your thesis before you graduate. If you're not lucky? That's 3-5 years of study with no degree.

Graduate studies costs 4-5x more than undergrad studies, and carry a stigma of "Well, you couldn't cut it there, why would we accept you here?".

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- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by RobertLTux · 2012-11-18 06:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

so if you are using your personal computing device you need to go off campus to post your opinions??
also btw you are using the normal WRONG reading of the first amendment.
this should not be used to force me to be atheist.

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Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by DoofusOfDeath · 2012-11-18 06:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

I suspect that runs afoul of contract law.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by phantomfive · 2012-11-18 06:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

Your advisory commity will they'll revoke your funding (after the first year), your review committee will slow-walk your research, your lab-coordinator will have difficulty finding you space to work and - if you're lucky - you'll be forced to write massive changes into your thesis before you graduate. If you're not lucky? That's 3-5 years of study with no degree.
This is true, I've seen this. But usually it's not because you are in the wrong party. In the cases I've seen, it's been some kind of weird personal vendetta.

In one case I knew a physics student failed his oral exams because he was too confident. In another case, for a music degree, a professor didn't like the student because he didn't take enough notes in his class. The student complained to other professors, and the answer he got was, "Yeah, it's not fair, but we have to live and work with him, we don't have to deal with you, so we're not going to do anything about it."

It's a lousy system, and it's as if professors feel they need to fail somebody, and if there isn't anyone bad enough to fail, they'll find some other reason to fail them.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by kenorland · 2012-11-18 06:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Slashdot is private; if the people who pay for it don't like what I post, they can ban me and I have no problem with that.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by Teancum · 2012-11-18 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Note that the 1st amendment also says that the government can't prohibit the free exercise of religion either, including its expression through speech and the press. There is a world of difference between a student or ordinary citizen expressing themselves in a voluntary manner (aka offering a prayer right before a test on their own or holding a prayer vigil on Christmas Eve in a public area... even on public property) as opposed to having the government mandate that you must pray to a certain god or have tithing extracted from your paycheck as a tax.
I don't have a problem with a student setting up a web page expressing their religious opinions using government funds... as long as you offer that same opportunity to all of the students on a reasonable basis to express whatever their opinion is including having no opinion or even being against organized religions in general. The problem is the censorship, and this attitude that religious expression is something that should be feared.
I think it would even be healthy to have a "debate corner" on a college campus where any student could express any political opinion they may have... including "hate speech" full of bigotry, sexism, and racism. If you think some sort of speech should be censored, you definitely don't understand the purpose or the philosophy behind the 1st amendment and why it was ratified in the first place. Suggesting that university websites, dorm doors, or even bulletin boards should be off limits to religious expression completely misses the mark... especially at a public school. Private schools have a little more latitude to ban some forms of speech as there is a contractual relationship to even attend. It definitely shouldn't be the other way around.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by Sir_Sri · 2012-11-18 06:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's a lousy system, and it's as if professors feel they need to fail somebody, and if there isn't anyone bad enough to fail, they'll find some other reason to fail them.

I had a prof who said 'I know what it takes to be a real physicist, and none of you have it' and failed the entire class.
We were all asked to leave after appealing.
Professors are high level employees, even though they seem relatively low in the university hierarchy they have a lot of independent authority and judgment, and the entire system is setup around professors being both professionally and ethically responsible to their discipline as a whole. If they don't think you've demonstrated the right behaviour they can be rid of you as a drain on that community, and as someone who would tarnish the universities reputation. The upshot of this is that professors can break all sorts of soft rules to get whomever they want as grad student, pay them past funding periods, run labs the way they want, run their own IT etc. But it also means the occasional asshole has quite a lot of authority to make your life miserable, and well, every department has at least one prof you just don't want to go near.
I'm in Comp sci, and we have a prof who repeatedly insists (via e-mail) that we should cut off internet access to the department. The last place I was had a professor who's entire workload was teaching 2 courses (no committees, no research), and he liked to teach courses on whatever was 'cool' (as defined by his teenage daughter I guess), even if this had nothing to do with the broader programme goals. Getting rid of a tenured professor is really really hard, it's expensive, and usually they don't go completely crazy until they're towards the end of their careers, so you don't want to fire someone with health problems etc. There's a huge legal expense, and bad press. And students sometimes love the crazy ones because they are certainly interesting.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by gtall · 2012-11-18 07:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

Yep, but it is worse than that. Universities these days want to hire young stars that will essentially bring in enough money to pay their own salary and keep a phalanx of students. This makes the department look like they are on the cusp of whatever passes for research in their area.
The emphasis is on "young" too. Age discrimination starts early in academia. If you aren't a star by 35, good luck. And if you get rejected for tenure at one place, expect the same at the next. Many professors only get to their really good research until their 50s when they've acquired a lot of experience and depth of thought.
I wish I had a fix for this system, but I don't. Every time I think of something, I can argue why it wouldn't work or even make things worse. There does need to be some sort of oversight. But professors won't agree to any oversight unless it is by their peers...who probably find nothing wrong with any professors behavior.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-18 08:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

Professors are hired on their ability to do research. Most professors spend 39 hours a week doing teaching, administrative duties at the university, applying for grants and service to the field (peer review, organizing conferences, etc.). So when do they do their research? Well, they find time for research by working more than 39 hours a week. If you think about that for a moment, you will realize that most professors do research exclusively in their free time, yet their research ability is what they were hired for. There are only two positions that sometimes actually are research positions at universities: PhD student and postdoc. Also, there are far more postdoc positions than there are professor positions. So you end up with a rarefied group of people who were selected for research ability, luck and ruthlessness in pursuing their goals, and then you task them to a job's capacity with administration and teaching without much oversight. I don't know how anyone can think that the result of that should be good for research, for students or for professors.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by shentino · 2012-11-18 08:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

Nice thing about laws that make everyone guilty is that you get to selectively prosecute those you don't like.
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by timeOday · 2012-11-18 08:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

Well, it is certainly easier to find a career in computer science than physics. CS is great because there is such a wide and forgiving spectrum of success - you could earn tenure at a prestigious university and then perhaps get hired into a top corporate research group for big bucks; you could end up at the other end of the scale doing boring business programming, but still make a decent living; or (most likely) somewhere in between, doing technical development on reasonably interesting projects at a big company, or carrying a heavy teaching load.
In physics, it seems to me there is very little in the way of consolation prizes, at least within the field. (But in the end they always seem to do well enough outside their own field).
Re:Wow, don't have opinions online.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-18 10:13 · Score: 5, Informative

In any decent university there is an academic appeals committee where, if the professor isn't abiding by the terms laid out in the course syllabus, the professor's evaluation can be overruled. Furthermore, consideration of such cases often involves independent evaluation of student work. In my experience, if a student really is being treated unfairly, the situation usually gets corrected. I've sat on such a committee. It usually went 40:60 student versus prof's stories. I've evaluated plenty of examples where students thought they were being treated unfairly, but actually they were not.
The key in both situations is not to base it on "They don't like me", but "They said I'd be evaluated this way, and, here, take a look at this work for yourself and compare it to the rest of the class to see for yourself." The worst when sitting on that committee was hearing the student's story, then asking to see the work, and they've lost it or some other lame reason that may as well be equivalent to "the dog ate it". Well, I sympathize, but if it was that important and you were being shafted, you better keep that stuff or we can't help you.
I've also helped a student at graduate level who really was being treated unfairly. As it started to turn sour I told them to meticiously document the time they spent on their work, perform outstandingly in all their course work, keep copies of their work, records of e-mail exchanges, everything. The idea was that if it did come to the point where they had to make a case to others, they could show to any impartial person what went wrong (and that it wasn't them). When the time came they found plenty of support from other faculty, because the evidence was kind of obvious.
Profs can be unfair assholes, just like anyone else can, but on the whole most of them aren't. It's unpleasant and risky to deal with a situation like that as a student, because the prof is in a position of power. However, 9 times out of 10 the problem *is* with the student, and blaming the prof is just a convenient excuse. I know this, because I *strive* to be fair, yet I've heard all sorts of unjustified complaints. I don't mean the "prof is a hardass kind", but "prof said it would be X, but actually it was Y", even though I can go back to the syllabus and point at the part that does indeed say I'm expecting "X". Statistically, these aren't many cases anyway (most students are satisfied), but the ones that aren't, well, a lot of them are a bunch of whiners who want to blame everyone *else* for their problems. I've had people show up at my door at the end of term with a 49% saying "Oh, gee, Dr. X, can you please (arbitrarily) increase my mark by 1% so I can pass?" [Checks records. Student didn't do easy bonus point assignment X, Y, or Z, and lost 10% right there]. "Uh, no" == "Professor X is an unfair hardass" on Rate My Professor. Naturally, the the prof figures prominently when people get an F, not them, even if 90% of the class passed just fine. Go figure.
For the other tenth, the legitimate complaints, students need to look out for themselves and realize that the other profs will support them if the evidence is clear enough. For graduate work, one of the reasons there's a committee rather than a single supervisor is to ensure that a student has someone knowledgeable to turn to if someone is being unreasonable. It can still go horribly wrong, and profs do have a lot of power, but there are checks-and-balances for a reason, and students need to avail themselves of those if they discover that their supervisor is an ass. It is going to be messy and it doesn't always turn out well, but I've seen enough examples to know that it often does turn out ok.

Coporate Influence by qw(name) · 2012-11-18 05:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's all because of greed. Universities have adopted corporate tactics to become and stay "more competitive in the marketplace" and that means shielding themselves from lawsuits and making themselves more appealing to donors.

Re:Coporate Influence by AthanasiusKircher · 2012-11-18 06:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Speaking of corporations, what the heck is up with the summary: "how universities have become the most authoritarian institutions in America"??
Hmm... the MOST authoritarian institutions in America. A little hyperbole? I suppose it depends on how you define "institution." If you mean "institution" as in "institute" which often implies a research organization, the claim is probably trivially true, since universities are probably the most common independent research organizations in America.
But that's a dumb reading. So if we interpret "institution" in the broader sense of an organization created for a particular purpose, how about... I don't know... the TSA, the military? They aren't "authoritarian" at all... [\sarcasm]
Or, for that matter, most corporations that have at-will employees. How many places could you keep your job if you acted in your workplace like many college students act on college campuses?
The article identifies a real issue, but colleges are now the MOST authoritarian organizations in the U.S.? Hardly.
Re:Coporate Influence by CodeBuster · 2012-11-18 06:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

If they're public universities, strong restrictions on free speech on campus are a consequence of restrictions on the use of public funds and resources to promote personal political and religious views.
Is muzzling free speech, simply because some find it offensive, not also promoting a personal political view? How can people speak of "tolerance" when they're unwilling to tolerate free speech on campus? Does it strike anyone else as ironic that those who hold "tolerance" in such high regard are amongst the most intolerant of speech that doesn't comport with their world view and ideological sensibilities?

Typical.. by drewsup · 2012-11-18 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

So in order to not offend ANYONE, NO ONE is allowed to say ANYTHING.
This goes right along with sports where there is no winner\ everyone gets a trophy to PC playgrounds with no jungle gyms.
I weep at what has happened to my country in the past 30 years. I think it's time to start again from scratch.

Re:Typical.. by reboot246 · 2012-11-18 05:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

It starts with assaults on free speech, but it ends with destroying the most basic of freedoms - the freedom to fail.

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by MyLongNickName · 2012-11-18 05:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nice ad hominem. Instead of reading the source and arguing with the points made, you drool on yourself and blabber on about Murdoch.

The fact is that free speech in America has been getting more and more curtailed. Some in a very overt manner (free speech zones). Some in a softer manner (How DARE you suggest that affirmative action is racist, you racist). But the US is not as free as it used to be. No, we are nowhere near a totalitarian state. But freedoms do not go away overnight. If we continue to let the slide continue, we'll be closer to the totalitarian state. Freedoms are hard to get back once they've been ceded.

But thanks for your idiotic response. If anything, it was a nice foil.

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High conservative bent by Beetle+B. · 2012-11-18 05:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

Most of the examples in the article have a pro-conservative leaning. So I went to their FIRE database and tried to find some cases where I knew universities tried blocking left-wing people from speaking. Not surprisingly, I didn't find at least the ones I was aware of.

I think it's good someone is defending conservatives' right to speech. I simply feel they should be open about their partisanship.

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Beetle B.

Re:High conservative bent by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-18 06:06 · Score: 5, Informative

No...the issue is that FIRE says it is concerned about freedom at campuses in general, but is largely silent whenever, for example, private religious institutions like Liberty University trounce all over their student's freedom of speech.

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-18 05:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

Posting anonymous so I don't lose my mod points.

> Instead of reading the source and arguing with the points made ...

Everyone here, please read this. This is part of the problem. "If my guy does it, you're just overreacting if you disagree," and "if their guy does it, it's automatically suspect, move along, nothing to see."

Forget political parties. Forget Democrat or Republican, or WSJ vs. NYT. If speech is being curtailed, that should concern you.

Example: friend of mine works with my wife at the Social Security Administration, where the rules are so byzantine, they can mean anything you want them to this week. This friend jokes that says things like, "my, you're looking remarkably neutral and androgynous today." It's fun to watch their puzzled expressions as they try to decide whether it's a compliment, an insult, or something that merits a formal EEOC complaint.

Freedom of speech means FREEDOM OF SPEECH. As the Supreme Court of the US has ruled many times, even OFFENSIVE speech must be protected. Even speech with which you might personally disagree.

This should concern every one of you, regardless of your ideological bent.

The full Fordham University statement by TubeSteak · 2012-11-18 05:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm not surprised the Wall Street Journal allowed Mr. Lukianoff to mischaracterize the contents of Fordham's statement.
Read it for yourself and see if it really matches the tone of WSJ's article : http://www.fordham.edu/Campus_Resources/eNewsroom/topstories_2601.asp

November 9, 2012

The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus.

To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative--more heat than light--and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.

"Disgust" was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham.

Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully.

The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter's (and the student organizers') opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy--and one another--stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community, and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

Compare and contrast with

Mr. Lukianoff says that the Fordham-Coulter affair took campus censorship to a new level:
"This was the longest, strongest condemnation of a speaker that I've ever seen in which a university president also tried to claim that he was defending freedom of speech."

I guess in the print edition, the WSJ and Lukianoff can assume most people won't actually read the statement being attacked.

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o0t!

Re:The full Fordham University statement by Bill_the_Engineer · 2012-11-18 06:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

I guess in the print edition, the WSJ and Lukianoff can assume most people won't actually read the statement being attacked.
The conservative media doesn't report the news anymore. They take statements out of context and generate their own version of news. Weren't you here during the last election season? ;-)

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Re:The full Fordham University statement by westlake · 2012-11-18 06:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

The conservative media doesn't report the news anymore. They take statements out of context and generate their own version of news.
Not so very different from Slashdot.

Freedom is not granted by the administration by roc97007 · 2012-11-18 05:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

...it is exercised by the students. In the sixties, freedom of expression on campus sometimes had a high cost. University administrations may have bowed to expediency in the seventies and eighties, but it does appear that the old shackles are back in place, although some of them have different names.

Today's students can take back their freedom of expression, but will they have the guts to do so? Or will they continue to lament that "the man" doesn't allow them to say unpopular things?

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by rtfa-troll · 2012-11-18 06:12 · Score: 5, Informative

"If my guy does it, you're just overreacting if you disagree," and "if their guy does it, it's automatically suspect, move along, nothing to see."

Except, you and the guy you are supporting are completely wrong about what's going on here. This really is a Murdock propaganda piece. Look, sometimes a person is reliably and consistently stupid and evil. This means saying "oh, I'm sure Ghengis isn't riding towards those young girls to be nice to them" is not prejudice, just justifiable wisdom. Now your point would be really great if this was an exception. But let's see what I find if I look it up.

WSJ:

At Western Michigan University, it is considered harassment to hold a "condescending sex-based attitude."

Actual policy (I'm not going to include the context here; please read yourself):

Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual conduct which is related to any condition of employment or evaluation of student performance.

and in a separate paragraph near to but not related to the definition of harassment, the only use of the word condescending:

All persons should be sensitive to situations that may affect or cause the recipient discomfort or humiliation or may display a condescending sex-based attitude towards a person.

If something is put in a media outlet which belongs to Murdock, assuming that the truth is the opposite will only make you wrong about 10% of the time. In this case, it's about Murdock trying to attack the freedom of speech of the people at universities.

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=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by chmod+a+x+mojo · 2012-11-18 06:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yeah, well, the site is retarded. They rated my University "red" because we have policies in place to prevent discrimination and hate speech. Heaven forbid the poor racist bastards would get punished if they make some other student who just wants their own educations life a living hell. Same with the sexual harassment codes. Nope, we have to get up in arms just cause you can't derogatorily call that black dude a nigger or the Chinese chick a chink, and damn it all who gives a shit what that chick thinks... we all know they just want the cock, am I right? Seriously, ro read what they have "issues" with the "openness" of the speech with the University of Wisconsin, it's a damn joke.

As long as you are not intentionally being offensive you can chalk messages on the sidewalk... just provide the chalk, no need for permission - this includes political views, religious views, and pretty much anything else you want. Same with dorm rooms, you want to post intentionally offensive stuff on your dorm room? Post it on the inside of the door, the harassment codes specifically state that as a matter of fact.

Shit, we just had an annual remembrance get-together remembering when a bunch of student had a huge protest in the 60's that had hundreds of arrests and over a hundred expulsions. The school provided funds to something that basically was just rubbing the schools face in the dog shit.

TL;DR: site was shit, just a bunch of whiny idiots complaining because they can't be racist / sexist / harassing anyone anywhere.

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To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by Dragon+Bait · 2012-11-18 06:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

"If my guy does it, you're just overreacting if you disagree," and "if their guy does it, it's automatically suspect, move along, nothing to see."

Except, you and the guy you are supporting are completely wrong about what's going on here. This really is a Murdock propaganda piece. Look, sometimes a person is reliably and consistently stupid and evil. This means saying "oh, I'm sure Ghengis isn't riding towards those young girls to be nice to them" is not prejudice, just justifiable wisdom. Now your point would be really great if this was an exception. But let's see what I find if I look it up.

Even a blind pig occasionally finds acorns. My oldest made the comment that "children are nothing but a black hole of need." Some PC idiot said "you can't say that, that's racist." The teacher walked by and told her that she wasn't to make such racist comments in the future (and threatened her with explosion).

Universities are no longer liberal institutions where ideas can be freely discussed. Idiocy and censorship do abound. But feel free to shoot the messenger and ignore the problem.

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by phantomfive · 2012-11-18 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's basically a bunch of crybaby Republicans whining about how unwelcome on campus their harassment of women, minorities, gays, muslims, any anyone else not like them is.

Freedom of speech isn't free anymore when you stop crybaby Republicans from whining.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by opus_magnum · 2012-11-18 06:49 · Score: 4, Funny

(and threatened her with explosion).

Shouldn't your daughter have reported her as terrorist?

Re:Could the summary possibly be more slanted? by rtfa-troll · 2012-11-18 07:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

The writer is selecting the parts that support the thesis, but says nothing inaccurate. The policy does in fact threaten sanctions for a "condescending sex-based attitude".

a) the writer says it is considered harassment to hold a "condescending sex-based attitude." where actually harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual conduct which is related to any condition of employment or evaluation of student performance. So the writer is actually saying something "inaccurate"

b) I can't see any sanctions clearly linked to not being "sensitive" which is the only context where this occurs. Now, I am not a lawyer, so I'm quite willing to bow to your 'expert' opinion, however please do explain how you parse the policy so that you see sanctions linked to a "condescending sex-based attitude". I have no doubt that my fascination will be fully aroused by your explanation.

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=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();

However.... by pastafazou · 2012-11-18 14:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

And, in fact, the greatest damage moderates and right-wing could do to the left wing extremists is to invite them to freely speak their minds. The resulting spew of sexist, anti-Semitic, elitist, racist, and hate filled non-sequiturs would likely shift most people just a bit to the right.

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