2008 Woodie Awards
From Right Field: Academic freedom? Surely they jest!
Natasha Sell
Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: Opinions
In a recent press release, UNCG said it is "…lending support to the cause of academic freedom worldwide by joining Scholars at Risk, an international network that provides a safe haven for intellectuals fleeing oppression in their homelands." Funny, but maybe our university should look at how it treats it own intellectuals, namely the students and student organizations. As anyone in a student organization can attest, the policies of UNCG are far from academic freedom. As a matter of fact, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), a legal group which investigates violations of academic freedoms on college campuses, has given our school a speech code label of red due to, as FIRE puts it, censoring free speech.
For those who are not aware of this school's policies towards free speech, I will time travel back two years, to when this school had Free Speech Zones. These Free Speech Zones were small areas on campus where students and student organizations could organize or hold events. Clearly on a public university campus this policy was illegal and against First Amendment rights. Realizing this, the College Libertarians spearheaded a campaign to fight the Free Speech Zones, standing out on the library lawn protesting the policy. Two of them were arrested in the process but the school, after pressure from FIRE, did eventually change the policy with help from university students. I suppose the university feels that they are now open to academic freedom because of this new policy. However, recent events prove otherwise.
During this year's Turn Up the Vote, the College Democrats and S.P.E.A.K. (Students for Progressive Education and Activist Knowledge) ran into a major roadblock to getting voter information to students. Due to the universities policies, S.P.E.A.K. was asked to leave the event despite being invited and not causing problems, because they did not give 48-hour hour notice that they would be in attendance. They also made municipal candidates leave campus for the same reason, that they did not give sufficient notice. This is clearly a disturbing policy from our university. It is one thing when one group encroaches on the event of another, but when an organization goes out of their way to invite another student group to an event, the university should not have a problem with it nor a say in it. All S.P.E.A.K. was trying to do was give voters information on educational issues, not cause trouble.
For those who are not aware of this school's policies towards free speech, I will time travel back two years, to when this school had Free Speech Zones. These Free Speech Zones were small areas on campus where students and student organizations could organize or hold events. Clearly on a public university campus this policy was illegal and against First Amendment rights. Realizing this, the College Libertarians spearheaded a campaign to fight the Free Speech Zones, standing out on the library lawn protesting the policy. Two of them were arrested in the process but the school, after pressure from FIRE, did eventually change the policy with help from university students. I suppose the university feels that they are now open to academic freedom because of this new policy. However, recent events prove otherwise.
During this year's Turn Up the Vote, the College Democrats and S.P.E.A.K. (Students for Progressive Education and Activist Knowledge) ran into a major roadblock to getting voter information to students. Due to the universities policies, S.P.E.A.K. was asked to leave the event despite being invited and not causing problems, because they did not give 48-hour hour notice that they would be in attendance. They also made municipal candidates leave campus for the same reason, that they did not give sufficient notice. This is clearly a disturbing policy from our university. It is one thing when one group encroaches on the event of another, but when an organization goes out of their way to invite another student group to an event, the university should not have a problem with it nor a say in it. All S.P.E.A.K. was trying to do was give voters information on educational issues, not cause trouble.
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Catherine
posted 10/19/07 @ 11:42 PM EST
Forget two years ago, how about last spring when a UNCG student was arrested for protesting the College Republican's "PETA" day? Until then I had never heard of free speech zones and it's pretty disturbing. (Continued…)
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