Wednesday, December 06, 2006

You don't say! 

Report Finds Rampant Censorship at American Colleges and Universities:
The report�s findings include:
  • Public colleges and universities are disregarding their constitutional obligations. More than 73% of public universities surveyed maintain unconstitutional speech codes, despite numerous federal court decisions striking down similar or identical policies.
  • Most private colleges and universities promise free speech, but usually do not deliver. Unlike public universities, private universities are not legally bound by the First Amendment. However, most of them explicitly promise free speech rights to their students and faculty. For example, Boston University promises �the right to teach and to learn in an atmosphere of unfettered free inquiry and exposition.� Unfortunately, it also prohibits speech that would be constitutionally protected in society at large, such as �annoying� electronic communications and expressions of opinion that do not �show respect for the aesthetic, social, moral, and religious feelings of others.�
Macalester College gets special mention for banning �speech that makes use of inappropriate words or non-verbals.� Here's their student handbook and a write-up that FIRE did of their code in July. SCSU isn't much better, limiting public squares to specific areas of campus. FIRE has collected information on us from our own webpages.

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