This post refers to a peice ("Mums' not the way")in the Lebanon (PA) Daily News.com, May 30, 2009.
"...some college campuses are dealing in a high level of hypocrisy, and if they don't knock it off it's likely to become an issue for the courts...." The issue is guns on campus, especially students who want the right to carry guns on campus. This sounds like tragedies waiting to happen in my opinion, but equally tragic is the refusal of colleges to allow students to discuss, debate and demonstrate. One example cited was that of a freshman at Community College of Allegheny County (PA); the student claims a dean told her she must stop distributing fliers for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and destroy the pamphlets she had created. An even more egregious example of the denial of freedom of speech can be found at Tarrant County College in Texas; the school set aside a free-speech zone, but officials refused to allow an empty-holster protest by students regarding weapon carrying in the free-speech zone. As the piece states, "It should be embarrassing for any college to stifle debate on such a significant and timely topic." And denying the First Amendment to prevent a discussion of the Second Amendment does seem ludicrous. "And it's not how colleges are supposed to operate." If the freedom of expression is prohibited on college campuses where intellectual freedom should be embraced and cherished, what does that say about the rest of society? I hope these are isolated instances, but I suspect this happens even more frequently than we realize. And where is the ACLU (or at least the NRA!) in all this? Is anyone paying any attention out there?
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I'm not especially crazy about guns, but people have every right to debate the issue. What harm would there be in allowing an empty-holster protest?
ReplyDeleteThis article epitomizes an alarmingly common problem on many college campuses. Often, the majority student population is devoutly liberal-minded except when it comes to political, ideological freedom. Although I consider myself quite liberal politically, I always try to respect others' right to feel totally differently. Some of the best academic conversations I've had involved people with vastly different viewpoints. In my experience, students were not often willing enough to have open discussions about important issues like gun control or the economy. Political conservatives were sometimes made to feel silenced. School administrations operating like narrow-minded young students is even worse! Hopefully, stories like this help remind us all to uphold the principle of intellectual, ideological freedom, especially for those with whom we disagree.
ReplyDeleteAgnes
I can understand administrations concerns with having students crazy guns on campuses (especially with recent tragedies) but not letting students address the issues is a whole different thing! I totally understand how this happens though. When we had issues where I attended college it seems things were kind of swept under the rug by administrators. Students protested, but eventually got tired of no one listening.
ReplyDeleteThe failure of the ACLU to address Second Amendment rights, while zealously defending the rest of the Bill of Rights, is my biggest criticism of the group. I actually posted about this in my blog, Tammy. The student was able to get FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) to come to her defense (http://www.thefire.org/index.php/case/787.html ).
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