Post on ‘Phi Beta Cons’ Defends FIRE
by Emily Guidry
April 19, 2007
Former FIRE President David French
posted on
Phi Beta Cons today about the recent
article in
The Chronicle of Higher Education by Jon Gould calling for FIRE’s dissolution. Responding to Gould’s allegations that FIRE inflates the state of speech codes on today’s campuses, David wrote:
I will believe that FIRE exaggerates the prevalence of speech codes the day that a federal judge upholds as lawful a code that FIRE labels ‘red’ in the
Spotlight database. We can argue about legal interpretations all day long, but federal judges make the ultimate decision, and so far FIRE hasn’t gotten one wrong yet. Since 2003 alone, “red” rated speech codes at
Shippensburg University,
Texas Tech, and
Temple have been struck down by federal courts. Many other universities have agreed to rewrite their codes when faced with a lawsuit, including
Penn State,
Georgia Tech, and
SUNY Brockport. And the codes at these schools are not unique. They are representative of the codes at hundreds of other universities. Until FIRE’s record drops below 100%, I think I’ll trust FIRE’s ratings.
Thanks for your continued support, David!
Torch readers can read FIRE’s own responses to Gould’s article in earlier posts this week by
Chris,
Samantha, and two
from Robert.
