Public colleges, the cancellation of white nationalist events, and the First Amendment
As the nation reels from the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, two public colleges this week have canceled or disallowed campus events featuring white nationalist Richard Spencer. Yesterday, Texas A&M University canceled a “White Lives Matter” event, featuring Spencer, planned for September 11. This morning, the University of Florida denied a request from Spencer’s organization, the National Policy Institute, to rent campus facilities.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story Schools: University of Florida Texas A&M University – College Station
‘The Talk’: How to ‘do’ free speech (VIDEO)
Since James Madison first drafted the First Amendment in 1789, free speech has been a fundamental right for all Americans. But how do we do it?
FIRE’s 2017 summer interns sit us down and give us “The Talk.”
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story, Top Video, Video
Profile: Mary Beth Tinker on ameliorating civic education
For nearly a year, Mary Beth Tinker’s home away from home was a 23-foot-long RV named Gabby. Plastered across Gabby’s side was an illustration of a large magenta wave carrying the words “speech, press, petition, religion, assembly” towards three waving children on a school bus. A white peace sign and a bold speech bubble for each student (one voicing “civics education!”) artfully summed up Tinker’s mission: It was the fall of 2013, and the student rights advocate was traveling the nation with Student Press Law Center attorney Mike Hiestand, on a Tinker Tour. Their goal? To promote civics and encourage students to know and use their rights.
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California legislature unanimously urges colleges to adopt free speech policies consistent with the ‘Chicago Statement’
The California legislature unanimously passed a resolution that urges “all private and public universities in California” to adopt free speech statements modeled off of the Chicago Statement and a statement issued by the Chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, Howard Gillman. The resolution was introduced by Assemblymembers Kevin Kiley and Bill Quirk. It passed the California Assembly 76-0 and the Senate 39-0.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story
Cases: FIRE Launches Campaign in Support of University of Chicago Free Speech Statement
A defense of dialogue: What I learned from Daryl Davis
One of the keynote speakers at this year’s FIRE Student Network Conference was Daryl Davis, a rock ‘n’ roll piano player and the patron saint of dialogue. In addition to his illustrious musical career, Davis, an African-American man, spends his time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. As astonishing as this sounds at first, evidently there’s something to it: More than two dozen people, including a former Grand Dragon and a former Imperial Wizard (state and national Klan leaders, respectively), have left the KKK as a direct result of Davis’ influence ― not through censorship or intimidation or judicial prosecution, but through simple conversation.
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On the violence in Charlottesville
We at FIRE were deeply saddened to hear about the violent response to counter-protesters against white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which resulted in the death of civil rights advocate Heather Heyer and serious injuries to many others.
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FIRE high school intern to peers: Add campus free speech climate to college search criteria
Applying to colleges: It’s an experience most people choose to forget once they actually begin school. Well, as a 17-year-old rising high school senior, I’m in the thick of that dreaded search. From campus tours, to meetings with guidance counselors, to the (shameful) number of hours I’ve spent trolling College Confidential, my search process is, in most respects, pretty typical. However, as a result of interning for FIRE this summer, my method of finding the ideal school has expanded to include a new question: How well do the schools I’m interested in protect and encourage First Amendment freedoms?
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Feds request pause in lawsuit as Department of Education reconsiders unjust campus sexual assault mandate
On Friday, federal attorneys asked the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to hold in abeyance for 90 days a lawsuit challenging the Department of Education’s unlawful 2011 mandate that schools use the low “preponderance of the evidence” standard when determining guilt in campus sexual assault hearings. Defendants requested the pause in Doe v. Lhamon, No. 1:16-cv-01158 (RC) (D.D.C. Aug. 15, 2016), because the department’s Office for Civil Rights “is reviewing the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter that is challenged in this litigation.”
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story
Cases: U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights: Federal Lawsuit Challenges April 4, 2011, “Dear Colleague” Letter
Best of Newsdesk: Senators McConnell, Sanders talk about protecting free speech on campus; McConnell mentions FIRE on Senate floor
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of FIRE’s annual “Best of Newsdesk” retrospective, where we search the archives to bring you stories worth a second look. This one, highlighting bipartisan support for FIRE issues, originally ran June 26.
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Best of Newsdesk: DOJ Opens Investigation into Northern Michigan University Self-Harm Policies
Northern Michigan University’s (NMU’s) policies on self-harm have once again brought scrutiny down on the Upper Peninsula school. In September of this year, FIRE reported on NMU’s practice of forbidding students from discussing thoughts of self-harm with other students. In response to a national outcry, the administration publicly announced an end to the practice of telling students suspected of having suicidal thoughts that discussing those thoughts with others would result in disciplinary action (although NMU has failed to remove related policies from its student handbook). Now, the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Civil Rights Division has opened an investigation into NMU to determine whether its treatment of students suspected of self-destructive thoughts amounted to disability discrimination under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
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