FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MANDATES UNCONSTITUTIONAL SPEECH CODES AT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES NATIONWIDE

[Valin]

FIRE:

5/10/13

 

 

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2013—In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to mandate that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent.

 

"I am appalled by this attack on free speech on campus from our own government," said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has been leading the fight against unconstitutional speech codes on America's college campuses since its founding in 1999. "In 2011, the Department of Education took a hatchet to due process protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. Now the Department of Education has enlisted the help of the Department of Justice to mandate campus speech codes so broad that virtually every student will regularly violate them. The DOE and DOJ are ignoring decades of legal decisions, the Constitution, and common sense, and it is time for colleges and the public to push back."

 

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Among the forms of expression now punishable on America's campuses by order of the federal government are:

 

Any expression related to sexual topics that offends any person. This leaves a wide range of expressive activity—a campus performance of "The Vagina Monologues," a presentation on safe sex practices, a debate about sexual morality, a discussion of gay marriage, or a classroom lecture on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita—subject to discipline.

 

Any sexually themed joke overheard by any person who finds that joke offensive for any reason.

 

Any request for dates or any flirtation that is not welcomed by the recipient of such a request or flirtation.

 

There is likely no student on any campus anywhere who is not guilty of at least one of these "offenses." Any attempt to enforce this rule evenhandedly and comprehensively will be impossible.

 

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[Valin]

Obama Administration Scraps Free Speech on Campus

The administration has redefined “sexual harassment” at the expense of free speech.

Mona Charen

5/14/13

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In a 2011 letter to colleges, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) mandated that in cases of suspected sexual harassment or sexual assault, universities were to reduce the standard of proof to a more-likely-than-not standard. The new standard requires that fact finders believe only that there is a 50.01 percent chance that the charges are true.

 

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Following the Education Department’s directive, the University of Hawaii announced that students may be evicted from dormitories after no more than an accusation. At Yale, an unsubstantiated charge of sexual assault against a star football player may have denied him a Rhodes scholarship. At Xavier University, a student who was found not guilty of sexual assault by a judge was nonetheless told by the university that he would be prohibited from participating in classes or extracurricular activities with his “victim.” Caleb Warner was banned from the campuses of the University of North Dakota for three years. When police investigated the case, they issued an arrest warrant for his accuser, charging her with making a false rape charge. Only after repeated interventions on Warner’s behalf by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) did the university finally admit that the charges were without foundation.

 

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The reasonable-person standard is now gone. The new definition of sexual harassment decreed by the Obama administration is “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” including “verbal conduct.” The purported victim now has the power to decide whether a young man or woman (but it’s nearly always a man) is branded a sexual harasser. It’s entirely subjective.

 

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It must be admitted that these new rules must be enacted, as today's modern woman is such a delicate flower that she needs to be protected from such untoward advances such as...You really look Good!....and of course the totally unacceptable...Would you like to have dinner?