Fat Chance

by Charles Mitchell

August 25, 2005

Wendy McElroy’s latest Fox News column asks parents an important question: “Will Colleges Respect Your Child’s Rights?” The short answer, of course, is “fat chance.”
 
As evidence, McElroy points out Richard Stockton College, FIRE’s Speech Code of the Month “winner” for August, as well as our appalling case at William Paterson University. McElroy also plugs FIRE’s Spotlight and our Guides series as tools for parents. Her advice for parents is more than appropriate:
Parallels between Orwell and current academia can be carried too far. But the existence of clear parallels should concern every parent who has a child heading toward campus.
 
Those parents should to do a speech code search for the relevant campus in FIRE's database. Then, they should do a similar FIRE search on due process—that is, how does that campus handle your child’s right to due process should he or she express an “unspeakable” idea or attitude?
I would make only one other comment: students shouldn’t leave it to their parents to be proactive. College students are generally old enough to legally smoke, vote, and serve in the armed forces—surely they can also check Spotlight for their schools, read the Guides, and contact FIRE so we can help them fight for liberty.