Central Connecticut State University: Controversy Over Newspaper Cartoon

September 20, 2007

FIRE fought Central Connecticut State University’s (CCSU) urging the creation of “oversight boards” to “look further into making substantive, constructive changes” to the CCSU student paper, the Recorder, and suggesting the possibility of instituting a mandatory “cultural awareness” requirement after the Recorder published a cartoon that offended some members of the campus community.  FIRE wrote CCSU president John W. Miller to remind him of his constitutional obligation to uphold freedom of the press and therefore cease unconstitutional university actions resulting from the cartoon’s publishing.

Student Handbook: Rights and Responsibilities- Racism and Acts of Intolerance Policy

Speech Code Category: Policies on Tolerance, Respect, and Civility
Last updated: March 30, 2017

The Board of Trustees for the Connecticut State University system, on November 3, 1989, endorsed the following policy regarding racism and acts of intolerance: Institutions within the Connecticut State University system have a duty to foster tolerance; The promotion of racial, religious, and ethnic pluralism within the University is the responsibility of all individuals within the University community; Every person within the University community should be treated with dignity and assured security and equality; Individuals may not exercise personal freedoms in ways that invade or violate the rights of others; Acts of violence and harassment reflecting bias or intolerance of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and ethnic or cultural origins are unacceptable; and The University shall take appropriate corrective action if such acts of violence or harassment occur.

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Student Handbook: Student Code of Conduct- Prohibited Conduct

Speech Code Category: Bullying Policies
Last updated: March 30, 2017

Offensive or disorderly conduct which causes interference, annoyance or alarm or recklessly creates a risk thereof at CSCU or CSCU premises, CSCU web or social media sites, at a CSCU-sponsored activity or in college or university courses, including cyber bullying. This offense does not apply to speech or other forms of constitutionally protected expression.

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Student Handbook: Student Code of Conduct- Prohibited Conduct

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: March 30, 2017

Harassment, which is defined as conduct which is abusive or which interferes with a person’s pursuit of his or her customary or usual affairs, including, but not limited to, such conduct when directed toward an individual or group because of race, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical attribute, or physical or mental disability or disorder, including learning disabilities and mental retardation.

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Student Handbook: Student Code of Conduct- Preamble

Speech Code Category: Policies on Tolerance, Respect, and Civility
Last updated: March 30, 2017

All members of CSCU must at all times govern their social and academic interactions with tolerance and mutual respect so that the students who pass through a CSCU door are enriched by these experiences and are prepared for full and enlightened participation in a multi-cultural society. Because of the BOR’s and CSCU’s commitment to principles of pluralism, mutual respect, and civility, certain activities are not acceptable on CSCU campuses. Acts of intolerance, of hatred or violence based on race, religion, sexual orientation or expression, disability, gender, age, or ethnic background are antithetical to the BOR’s and CSCU’s fundamental principles and values. It is the BOR’s and CSCU’s responsibility to protect our students’ right to learn by establishing an environment of civility.

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Student Handbook: Rights and Responsibilities- Commitment to Civility

Speech Code Category: Policies Restricting Freedom of Conscience
Last updated: March 30, 2017

As a Central Connecticut State University student:

• It is in my own best interest to help create a world, a community, and a campus of compassion, equality, and justice for all people.
• It is my responsibility to help build a community that fosters mutual respect and a safe environment for all human beings regardless of race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, and socioeconomic status.
• It is my moral obligation to behave in ways that contribute to a civil campus environment, and I resolve to support this behavior in others.
• I therefore commit myself to actively work towards these goals in my daily life. This is my commitment to Central Connecticut State University.

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Student Handbook: Sexual Misconduct, Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence Policy

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: March 30, 2017

Sexual misconduct may include engaging in one of more behaviors: (a) Sexual harassment, which can include any unwelcome sexual advance or request for sexual favors, or any conduct of a sexual nature when submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s education; submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for academic decisions affecting the individual; or such conduct has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual’s academic performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive educational environment. Examples of conduct which may constitute sexual harassment include but are not limited to:

• sexual flirtation, touching, advances or propositions
• verbal abuse of a sexual nature
• pressure to engage in sexual activity
• graphic or suggestive comments about an individual’s dress or appearance
• use of sexually degrading words to describe an individual
• display of sexually suggestive objects, pictures or photographs
• sexual jokes
• stereotypic comments based upon gender
• threats, demands or suggestions that retention of one’s educational status is contingent upon toleration of or acquiescence in sexual advances.

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Student Handbook: Student Code of Conduct- Preamble

Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
Last updated: March 30, 2017

Academic institutions exist for the transmission of knowledge, the pursuit of truth, the development of students, and the general well-being of society. In line with this purpose, the Board of Regents for Higher Education (“BOR”) in conjunction with the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (“CSCU”) has the duty to protect the freedoms of inquiry and expression, and furthermore, has the responsibility to encourage all of its members to develop the capacity for critical judgment in their sustained and independent search for truth.

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Office of Diversity and Equity: Bias Incident Response Procedure

Speech Code Category: Policies on Bias and Hate Speech
Last updated: March 30, 2017

Bias Incident – an act of discrimination, hate speech, harassment, or retaliation by known or unknown offenders that occurs on the CCSU campus or property, and that one could reasonably conclude is directed at a member or group of the Central Connecticut State University community because of that individual’s or group’s actual or perceived age, color, creed, disability, ethnicity, ex-offender status, gender, gender identity/presentation, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any combination of these or other related factors.

Hate speech or fighting words are those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke a violent reaction. They are words that are directed to the person of the hearer, and which by their very utterance tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.

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Campus Hate Crime Hoaxes: A Best-Of List

December 17, 2014

By Michael Cipriano at The College Fix From New Jersey to Wyoming, college campuses around the country have been plagued with hate crime hoaxes in recent years. Sometimes justified as trying to raise awareness for progressive social causes, the hoaxes often worked. The College Fix compiled this list of recent university hate crime hoaxes. Racist Facebook messages posted by student himself – November 2014 A University of Chicago student admitted to posting racist and violent messages against himself on his Facebook page after claiming his account was hacked. The elaborate hoax was an attempt to shame the school into making policy changes addressing race […]

Why can’t students say ‘guns’ in school?

April 21, 2009

by Glenn Garvin Miami Herald   Media snicker of the day: those crazy gun nuts, worried that the government is out to snatch their constitutional rights along with their AK-47s. 60 Minutes is the latest to have a chuckle, playing a commercial for a Washington, D.C.-area firearms show that that urges viewers to “Celebrate the Second Amendment and get your guns while you still can!” My own hunch is that the sheer number of Americans who own guns (the low estimate is something over 40 million) will keep their Second Amendment rights off the endangered-species list for the foreseeable future. […]

Hostility on college campuses against Second Amendment threatens First

March 6, 2009

College and university campuses are supposed to be bastions of learning and the expression of different ideas, but when it comes to the Second Amendment, the door to the ivory tower is evidently closed. Last October, Central Connecticut State University Prof. Paula Anderson reportedly assigned students in her communications class the task of presenting a discussion on a “relevant issue in the media.” When student John Walhberg and two other students suggested that the Virginia Tech massacre could have been mitigated or stopped altogether if students or professors had been armed, Wahlberg wound up being quizzed by police about firearms […]

Professor takes heat for calling cops on student who discussed guns in class

March 4, 2009

A professor in Connecticut reported one of her students to the police after he gave a class presentation on why students and teachers should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. Now, free speech activists say the professor’s actions are what really need to be investigated. Last October, John Wahlberg and two classmates at Central Connecticut State University gave an oral presentation for a communications class taught by Professor Paula Anderson. The assignment was to discuss a “relevant issue in the media,” and the students presented their view that the death toll in the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting […]

Racial tensions high at CCSU

October 29, 2007

Students and faculty at Central Connecticut State University plan to protest Wednesday in response to ongoing tension stemming from race and discrimination issues on campus. Students passed out fliers on campus Thursday announcing the demonstration, which will be held between the Student Center and campus cafe Wednesday from 1 to 4 p.m. A copy of the flier with an obscenity and racial slur against blacks written on it was mailed to one of the professors in the African Studies program. Vice President of Student Affairs Margaret Toston told the university’s president, Jack Miller, that two students and a professor discovered […]

Central Connecticut State president will investigate editorial process after controversial rape article

February 15, 2007

A Feb. 7 editorial in the student newspaper at Central Connecticut State University that satirically explained the benefits of rape has spurred the university’s president to launch a review of the newspaper’s editorial process. The opinion article, which the author has said was meant to be a satire, has been a target of widespread ire from the campus community. National media attention has focused on the campus, and in a statement issued Feb. 8, university President Jack Miller proposed a deeper look into The Recorder itself. “We will in the near future gather a group composed of students and faculty […]

Court Rejects University’s Use of FERPA to Withhold Police Records

January 3, 2017

A Connecticut state court judge rebuffed Central Connecticut State University’s (CCSU’s) attempt to use the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to deny an accused student access to evidence against him. The decision is a shot across the bow for schools considering invoking FERPA to withhold police records during disciplinary proceedings even though FERPA explicitly excludes law enforcement records from being withheld. Austin Haughwout, a former CCSU student, sued after he was expelled for making a “true threat,” a form of unprotected speech outside the bounds of the First Amendment. According to a campus police report, Haughwout allegedly said […]

Severe Penalties for Stealing Newspapers at Central Conn. State U.

May 16, 2012

Invoking a deep commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, President Jack Miller of Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) has announced severe penalties against two soccer coaches who apparently stole about 150 copies of the student newspaper, The Recorder, in early May.  At least one of the coaches, Shaun Green, was caught on video taking the newspapers. Often the thieves in such cases are hard to find, but the surveillance cameras on campus (like them or not) made this investigation easy.  As you might expect, the stolen issue of the newspaper included negative information about the soccer […]

CCSU Professor on University’s Investigation of Gun-Related Speech

March 18, 2009

Jay Bergman, a history professor at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), has written on a controversy engulfing CCSU, in which undergraduate student John Wahlberg was reported to university authorities by his professor and then subjected to a police interrogation following his classroom presentation in support of the right to carry concealed firearms on campus. In his column for The Hartford Courant, Bergman highlights the CCSU controversy as indicative of the feverish political correctness and culture of fear in the academy regarding gun-related speech. While noting that Wahlberg considers the matter closed and crediting the professor for not hurting the student’s […]

Rights in the News: FIRE Issues Get the Lou Dobbs Treatment

March 13, 2009

As Will wrote earlier in the week, FIRE has seen far too many instances of students’ First Amendment rights being thrown out the window when used to support Second Amendment rights. FIRE has been all over the news concerning the most recent instance of this, in which a student at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) was reported to the police by his professor and subjected to an interrogation on the basis of a class presentation he had given in favor of concealed carry rights on campus. Building on a FoxNews.com front-page story (tipped this week in an editorial on the […]

Too Often, First Amendment Protections Denied to Second Amendment Speech

March 10, 2009

The First Amendment protects core political speech—and, as should be obvious, that protection extends to speech regarding the Second Amendment. This means that students at public universities and private universities that promise the right to free expression on campus must be free to engage in unfettered discussion of the merits of federal, state and local gun policy in the same way that they are free to discuss, say, agricultural subsidies, diplomatic relations with Cuba, or last night’s Daily Show. But an unfortunate consequence of the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University is that students are increasingly facing punishment […]

FIRE’s Shibley to Appear on CNN’s ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’

March 10, 2009

FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley is scheduled to appear on tonight’s edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN, which airs at 7 PM Eastern time. Robert will be discussing the growing censorship of gun-related speech on campus. Media interest in the topic has been growing since Central Connecticut State University’s campus newspaper, The Recorder, reported that student John Wahlberg faced a police interrogation after giving a class presentation in favor of the right to carry concealed weapons on campus. Tune in to find out more about this important free speech issue!

FIRE’s Vice President to Appear on Connecticut Radio Show Today

March 6, 2009

Robert Shibley, FIRE’s Vice President, will be joining the Dan Lovallo Show this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. (Eastern) to discuss the recent concealed carry case at Central Connecticut State University. If you are in the Hartford area, you can listen to the show on WRDC 1360 AM. For those outside of Hartford, the show is also broadcast on WMMV 1470 AM Meriden, WWCO 1240 AM Waterbury, and WSNG 610 AM Torrington.

FIRE Weighs in on Connecticut Concealed Carry Case at FoxNews.com

March 4, 2009

FIRE’s Vice President Robert Shibley is quoted today in a FoxNews.com article about John Wahlberg, a Central Connecticut State University senior whose professor called the police after he advocated for the concealed carry of firearms on campus in a class presentation. Robert points out the serious concerns this raises for those who value free speech on campus. As Robert explains: “If all he did was discuss reasons for allowing guns on campus, it seems a bit much to call the police and grill him about it,” Shibley said. “If you go after students for just discussing an idea, that goes […]

Central Connecticut Update

September 24, 2007

Last week I wrote about the uproar developing at Central Connecticut State University over the publication of a three-panel cartoon that many have found offensive. FIRE continues to follow the case, and we sent a letter on September 20 to embattled President John W. Miller encouraging a dismissal of all charges filed against the Recorder and its staff and reminding him of CCSU’s legal and moral obligation to respect First Amendment rights. The university’s responses to the newspaper’s purported offenses have already contributed to a chilled atmosphere for the student press in Connecticut. It was disheartening to see the editor-in-chief […]

Can a Three-Panel Cartoon Really Disrupt a Campus (or Get a President Fired)?

September 18, 2007

The president of Central Connecticut State University is in a difficult position. The student newspaper has published a cartoon that has offended him and others and has been called racist and sexist. The problem is that he has stated publicly that the cartoon is protected “by the First Amendment and a broad range of judicial court decisions.” Now he is under fire from communication professor Serafin Mendez-Mendez. WSFB reports not only that Professor Mendez-Mendez has filed a judicial complaint against the Recorder and its staff, but also that “Mendez and his supporters are calling for the president’s resignation and said […]

Central Connecticut State Responds to Offensive Newspaper Article

June 29, 2007

In the February 7, 2007 issue of The Recorder, the student newspaper at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), student John Petroski published an article entitled “Rape Only Hurts if You Fight it” (article not available on the paper’s online archives but reprinted in full here). The article contained such sentiments as, “[f]ar from a vile act, rape is a magical experience that benefits society as a whole,” and understandably garnered enmity among offended students, professors, bloggers, and readers across the country.   In response to campus outrage about this article, CCSU President Jack Miller issued a statement saying that “it […]