Campus Free Speech Victories and Battles

FIRE is reporting on a victory in the battle for free speech on college campuses, with a federal judge issuing a permanent injunciton against Temple University's former speech code. The case involves:

Christian DeJohn, a Temple graduate student and sergeant in the Pennsylvania National Guard, was allegedly denied his masters degree for expressing his viewpoints on the war. Represented by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), DeJohn filed suit against the university in February 2006. The court refused to dismiss the case on the grounds that there is significant evidence of ideological discrimination.

Meanwhile, the Washington Times is bringing light to a case at Georgia tech:

A speech code and an Orwellian "free speech zone" have been used to prevent Christian students from voicing dissent on homosexuality. A judge threw out the code and the zone. Brochures from the school's "Safe Space" program have declared certain biblical interpretations on homosexuality to be wrong, comparable to slavery apologias. All this has landed the school in court. Within the next several weeks, we hope, the judge will send the remainder of the school's repugnant policy the way of its code and zone.

There is no reason students may not speak freely on the subject of homosexuality. Strange, but we thought college campuses were "free speech zones." Georgia Tech's repeated attempts to muzzle even civil dissent reflect extremely poorly on its capacity to foster reasoned debate. Surely, an environment of reasoned debate is not what plaintiff Ruth Malhotra has faced. In the name of "tolerance," the school has invoked its speech codes and zone to silence her criticisms of homosexuality. In the meantime, Ms. Malhotra has received death threats, threats of rape and other avowed assaults by e-mail and otherwise from thugs lurking in the student body and elsewhere, as FrontPageMag.com reported this week.

The school is beyond hypocritical. It takes what are effectively theological positions on the proper use of the Bible and even presumes to pass judgment on which American churches are homophobic -- making Georgia Tech the first state university in America we've encountered which has official theological positions.

Have you any doubts left about the agenda of modern college administrations. The fact that speech codes even exist on campus runs counter to the school's mission, which, obstensibly is to foment graduates who can think and debate ideas for themselves. But political correctness rules the day far too often.