University just doesn’t get that free speech thang
Posted on December 3, 2008
They set up a “free expression tunnel” and are then surprised that students use it to express themselves freely!
“UNC system President Erskine Bowles wants a commission to determine whether every state university campus in North Carolina should establish a university code that blocks hate speech. Bowles’ decision came less than a month after four N.C. State University students spray-painted statements that many deemed racially inflammatory on the Free Expression Tunnel on campus.
Bowles met Tuesday afternoon with leaders of the state chapter of the NAACP and saw a photograph of one section of the graffiti for the first time. After the meeting, he declared the graffiti hate speech. The graffiti suggested shooting President-elect Barack Obama in the head. It also used a racial slur.
In a letter sent to Bowles on Tuesday, leaders of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union urged caution if university leaders are to consider policies that declare certain language “hate speech.”
Nice to get some support for free speech from the ACLU for a change. Some branches of the ACLU seem to be better than others.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Bill Of Rights, Education, Multiculturalism/PC, News, Political Correctness, Racism, Social Engineering, liberalism
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3 Responses to “University just doesn’t get that free speech thang”
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“The graffiti suggested shooting President-elect Barack Obama in the head. It also used a racial slur.”
As you know, that’s nothing to be taken lightly- although I’m sure you wouldn’t mind that actually happening. If anything that graffiti on the wall proves that racism is still alive and well today. Quite contradictory to what you people here seem to think.
I’m sure if it had mentioned Shooting President Bush in the head it would have been lauded as some trendy artpiece
The Secret Service investigated and found there was no credible threat.
“Racism” is not just against black people. And it will always exist wherever human beings exist.
The thing is that there are all sorts of horrible things painted in the tunnel all the time; they only get attention when the N word is used and the fact that the press was looking for racism against Obama in particular in the wake of the election.
This is a “free expression tunnel.” Had it not existed in the first place there would have been nothing spray painted anywhere.
It’s simply ridiculous what is going on. I know students at the university who will quit if they are forced to go through some kind of “sensitivity training” because of this.
What the people did in spray painting what they did did not harm any individual. To go and mete out a punishment on an entire student body in what is essentially an effort to purge thought is fascist.
The idiot from the NAACP and his counterparts just want attention (and donations).
I read a shocking editorial quote from one of his counterparts: “let’s work more diligently on peace and unity within our land. Punishment must be swift in the aforementioned instances and in any subsequent incidents.”
Peace and unity in this context means conformity of thought. And the “punishment must be swift” part sends a chill up my spine.
I thought in the US we had due process, not “swift punishment.”