Free Speech and Academic Rights

  The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a first amendment advocacy group, has asked Tulane University President Scott Cowen to clarify the university's policy on free expression. FIRE has asserted that Tulane’s free speech policy does not clearly delineate students' rights, and objects to the policy’s stipulation that free speech is subject to “respect for the dignity of others,” a condition that FIRE feels prohibits constitutionally protected speech. Read more from

  Many schools struggle to balance the ideal of free speech and the desire to maintain a safe and nurturing learning environment. Carnegie Mellon’s Controversial Speaker Policy Committee just attempted to strike a balance with a set of guidelines, which will be up for student approval after the break. Students, faculty, staff, administrators, and alums made up the committee, which tried to gauge the overall feelings of the campus. 11/20/06 Read More from Carnegie Mellon

  How much do you know about the history of activism on your campus? In light of a large rally against a string of campus hate incidents, Boston College’s paper The Heights explores activism on their campus in a two-part feature. The second installment, which is the one we’re linking you to, considers what place activism still has on the campus. While this article does reference BC’s Unity Rally specifically, the majority of the article will seem eerily familiar if you’ve ever found yourself pondering the state and relevance of campus activism today (like you are right now). 11/21/2

  A few weeks ago NSNS reported on the University of Illinois prohibiting its faculty, staff and graduate students from participating in political rallies on campus or demonstrating any political preference including wearing buttons or sporting bumper stickers on their cars. The administration based its decision on a state law intended to prevent state workers from campaigning for candidates on state time and money. The governor’s office even went a step further to assert that the law applied to

At Northeastern University, an article and accompanying editorial published in the school’s conservative paper about an academic assistance program for disadvantaged students has stirred up controversy. Some say the portrayal of the program, and the students it helps, are incorrect. For his part, the editor of The Northeastern Patriot, the paper that published the article, defends his perspective, especially in light of program information requested that the University declined to supply. For their part, the University contends that revealing the GPAs and SATs of students in the program

  Three students from Yale University were arrested on charges including first-degree reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal mischief, second-degree arson, breach of peace and conspiracy to commit second-degree arson after burning an American flag. 4/4/07  Read More from Yale University

  The University of Rhode Island Student Senate punished their College Republicans for starting a scholarship that violated Student Senate bylaws prohibiting discrimination. Though the “White Heterosexual American Male” scholarship was never granted to anyone, College Republicans still need to write a letter of apology to be printed in the paper and have all their activities approved by the Student Organization Advisory and Review Committee until February of next year. 3/15/07

  Is “local” the latest in pejorative campus slang? Howard University students have been using “local” to refer to individuals from the surrounding D.C. area. But most students seem agreed that “local” is almost always derogatory shorthand for “overly aggressive and dirty.” Hmm. This article from The Hilltop of Howard University (one of the nation’s historically Black colleges) considers whether the use of “local” doesn’t have a lot in common with the use of “nigga,” another “controversial” term. 11/28/06