A civil rights organization says it has put hundreds of college presidents and attorneys who serve as legal counsel for the institutions on notice that their hefty personal payment packages could be hit – and hit hard – if they violate the free speech rights of students on their campuses.
'Administrators may be held personally liable for continuing to maintain unconstitutional speech codes in violation of students' First Amendment Rights," according to a new letter from The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Certified letters containing the warning were dispatched to nearly 300 public colleges and universities across the nation suggesting that those education executives "should be ready to pay out of their own pockets if they continue to violation their students' free speech rights."
"For too long, public college administrators have been intentionally violating the free speech rights of their students, secure in the knowledge that they won't personally lose a dime should a court rule against them," said Robert Shibley, a senior vice president for FIRE. "This has given administrators the opportunity to censor whatever opinions they dislike and make all of us pay for it.
"But thanks in large part to FIRE, the excuse that makes this possible – that they 'didn't know' that students had free speech rights – is quickly vanishing," he said.
In fact, WND reported recently when U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell Jr. ruled in the case of Valdosta State student Thomas Hayden Barnes. He was expelled in 2007 after he peacefully protested plans by then-President Ronald Zaccari to use $30 million in student activity fees to build a parking garage.
The court found Zaccari was not shielded from personal liability for violating Barnes' rights.
"This is a major finding against a former university president, and if upheld (on appeal), it will serve as important federal precedent for holding future administrative malefactors personally responsible for their abuses of student rights," FIRE documented.
FIRE reported its letter was dispatched to 296 of the biggest and most prestigious public colleges across the nation.
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3 comments:
It's about time !
Salisbury University has one of these speech codes. They call it the Inclusive Language Policy. The problem here is far more than a writing. It is some of the faculty. I can't imagine that any administrator would try to supress demonstrative political speech such as in the Valdosta State case; nevertheless, I can visualize some of the extremely leftist faculty in the Liberal Arts School or the "gagle" of environmental wacko faculty that populate the School of Science penalizing some right leaning student for nonconforming views expressed in a paper-then to fight off the protest with cries of academic freedom and tenure. This University has had several MARXIST faculty for years. Many of these faculty would not have been permitted to serve in uniform during the Cold War. The worst part of it is that this University is not unusual. Your tax dollars at work.
Hopefully, hanging a few carcasses on the fence will deter the rest of them.
It's time to take a page from the ACLU playbook, and quit trying to avoid offending liberals.
If you trample my God-given Constitutional rights, I'm coming after you.
It's time to go on the offensive.
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