FIRE UPDATE | MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory

Steve Farrell

2008-02-25 at 10:09 pm · Filed under Education, Vox Populi

Table of Contents

February 25, 2008


1.	FIRE Launches Weekly Podcast Series: FIREside Chats
2.	Brandeis University Joins Red Alert List; FIRE Releases New Podcast on Case
3.	FIRE on the Continuing Situation at the University of Delaware
4.	Victory for Free Speech at the University of Utah
5.	Recent Media Coverage
6.	Recent Posts to The Torch

FIRE LAUNCHES WEEKLY PODCAST SERIES: FIRESIDE CHATS

On February 18, FIRE debuted the first episode of our weekly podcast
series, “FIREside Chats.” The series focuses on students’ rights on
campus and FIRE’s ongoing casework and events. The podcasts are
available on our Multimedia Project page, or on iTunes. To hear the first complete podcast, featuring FIRE’s Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Samantha Harris and Campus Freedom Network Associate Director Luke Sheahan, please click here.

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY JOINS RED ALERT LIST; FIRE RELEASES NEW PODCAST ON CASE

In spite of widespread condemnation from faculty, the media, and the public, Brandeis University remains unrepentant about its mistreatment of Professor Donald Hindley, and today Brandeis joins FIRE’s Red Alert list. Brandeis declared Professor Hindley, a nearly 50-year veteran of teaching, guilty of racial harassment and placed a monitor in his classes after he criticized the use of the word “wetbacks” in his Latin American Politics course. Hindley was neither granted a formal hearing by Brandeis nor provided with the substance of the accusations against him in writing. Brandeis’s faculty reacted to Hindley’s mistreatment with outrage, and Brandeis’s actions were roundly condemned by FIRE, the media, and the general public. Brandeis then attempted to sweep the matter under the rug by informing Hindley that it “considers this matter closed,” despite the complete lack of due process Hindley was afforded. To make matters worse, Brandeis implied that the reason thematter was closed was because it seemed Hindley’s not Brandeis’ had learned a lesson. Until Brandeis learns the lesson that it must live up
to its stated commitments to free speech and due process, FIRE believes
that its students? and faculty members? rights are not secure. For this
reason, Brandeis joins our Red Alert list. For more information, listen
to our newly released podcast on the topic.

FIRE ON THE CONTINUING SITUATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

Despite outrage from the national media, students, and civil libertarians, indoctrination is still the goal of the University of Delaware Residence Life (UD ResLife) staff. The UD Faculty Senate?s Student Life Committee has rejected a ResLife proposal to run essentially the same, highly politicized “sustainability” program in the Delaware dorms next year. Reports from inside UD agree
that ResLife officials are entirely unrepentant. The rejected proposal maintains the intrusive one-on-one sessions with resident assistants (RAs), aims to affect students? “thoughts, values, beliefs, and actions,” and includes the inculcation of specific views about “citizenship” for a “global society.” The proposal shows that the ResLife directors cannot be trusted to administer any residence lifeprogram at UD. The faculty is starting to step in, but ResLife remainsthe domain of heavy-handed oppressors who seek to use RAs to do what no student should be expected to do to another student.

VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

The University of Utah “FIRE’s” February 2008 Speech Code of the Month has
eliminated its unconstitutional speech code and now earns FIRE’s most
favorable speech code rating, a “green light.” Less than a week after the policy was named Speech Code of the Month, administrators from the university’s Department of Housing and Residential Education informed
FIRE that the posting policy we highlighted was no longer the university’s practice and was being removed from the residence life handbook effective immediately. A new handbook has been posted online, and the offending policy is now gone. The policy, which prohibited the posting of any material “deemed to be racist, sexist, indecent, scandalous, illegal, inciting, advertise alcohol or illegal substances, or in any way oppressive in nature,” earned the university a poor, red-light rating on FIRE’s Spotlight. With that policy now off the books, FIRE has updated the University of Utah’s Spotlight entry to a green-light rating for having no policies that inhibit free expression. FIRE is thrilled that the University of Utah has taken the steps necessary to ensure its students’ First Amendment rights. We hope that more universities will follow this example.