Dueling Rulings

This from ABC News:

Rulings Cloud Issue of School MySpace Suspensions

Federal appellate judges wrestling with whether schools can discipline students for Internet speech posted offsite reached different rulings Thursday in two Pennsylvania cases.

One 3rd U.S. Circuit Court panel upheld the suspension of a Schuylkill County eighth-grader who posted sexually explicit material along with her principal's photograph on a fake MySpace page.

However, a different three-judge panel said that school officials in Mercer County cannot reach into a family's home and police the Internet. That case also involves a MySpace parody of a principal created by a student at home.

And, in dissent, a judge in the first case said his colleagues were broadening the school's authority and improperly censoring students.

"I believe that this holding vests school officials with dangerously overbroad censorship discretion," Judge Michael Chagares wrote in the case, which upheld the March 2007 suspension of a Blue Mountain Middle School student.

"Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever allowed schools to punish students for off-campus speech that is not school sponsored and that caused no substantial disruption at school," Chagares wrote.

School boards, free-speech advocates and others had been awaiting the rulings for
clarity on how far schools can go to control both online speech and offsite behavior.

"The law was unclear and now it's in a state of chaos," said lawyer Witold Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the Mercer County case.

Similar free-speech cases have surfaced across the country, with different rulings, but none have reached the Supreme Court....

Harvard Backs Off Media Policy

This from N Y Times:

Harvard Medical School is backing off a new student policy that would have restricted interaction with the news media after students complained it would chill their ability to talk about current issues in medicine, school officials said Tuesday.

“We need to be very careful,” said Dr. Nancy E. Oriol, the dean of students, who helped develop the policy. Promising it would be revised, she said the policy was intended to help students, rather than limit speech or control what they say on controversial topics.

But several students said the policy was an attempt to keep them quiet about issues like medical conflicts of interest...

The statement added Feb. 2, which the administration now says it will revise:

Student Interactions with the Media.

All interactions between students and the media should be coordinated with the Office of the Dean of Students and the Office of Public Affairs. This applies to situations in which students are contacted by the media as well as instances in which students may be seeking publicity about a student-related project or program.

Evangelists stir up controversy among students

Students have returned to the plaza today to confront the preacher who caused a stir over the past two days by barking condemnations at all who would listen. Yesterday, students chose to return the favor.

But according to the PinPoint Evangelism calendar, the preacher is not scheduled to return today. Monday, he moves on the the University of Sinsinnati for more of the same.

Wanna Catch the Show?
UC: Nov 9 & 10
Morehead: Nov 18
Western: January 2
Middle Tenn: Jan 4
Murray: Mar 2 &3
Spring Break in Daytona Beach Mar 7 - 13
Austin Peay: Apr 4
UofL: Mar 23
UK: Mar 25
Campbellsville: Mar 30
Tenn Tech: Apr 1
Indiana SE: Apr 13
Morehead: Apr 15
UT: Apr 20 & 21

A return trip to EKU is planned but not yet confirmed for Apr 6 & 7.

This from Traviss Witt & Meg Wilson at the Eastern Progress, Photo by Wilson:

Three traveling evangelists from southern Kentucky attracted attention from Eastern students in Powell Plaza on Tuesday. The group preached for several hours, telling them they would be spending eternity in Hell.

"Brother Tracy" began shouting his arguments as students raised questions and expressed disagreement with his beliefs. The evangels' main targets were those practicing other faiths, those having pre-marital sex and the LGBT community.

Several students brought posters and megaphones as a counter-protest, which read "If I'm going to Hell, I will see you there," and "Separation of church and hate."

The situation grew more tense when Lateisha Ousley, a broadcast news major from Lexington, grabbed a Bible and began loudly refuting what the preachers were saying. One of the evangels stuck out his hand, motioning her to stop, saying, "you are a woman, you can't teach a man."

Most students at the gathering said they were confused or offended by the Pinpoint Evangelism team. "He's saying only God can judge, but he's judging everyone," sophomore William Leslie said.

Others said they thought the situation could be a good discussion starter for others wishing to talk about their religions."It isn't that what they're doing is a bad thing," junior Eric Philbeck said. "It isn't that they're doing a bad thing. Anytime you can get people to discuss religion it's a good thing. The way they're going about doing it is the bad part."

Free Speech Zone: Alive and Well at EKU

I had heard about this guy.

When the recent flap over free speech on campus errupted and EKU's "Free Speech Zone" was misinterpreted by campus police as precluding students from protesting outside of certain designated areas, President Whitlock clarified that the restriction only applies to folks who were not a part of the university.

One of the examples given in justification of a free speech zone was a certain minister who accosted students on campus to tell them they were all sinners and were going to hell.

Perhaps, this is the guy.

Some students will tell you that he is part of a university hoax, purpetrated by the psychology department; or the sociology department; designed to gauge the reactions of students.

Whatever this effort is - they were asked to move away from the Powell Building by universtiy staff to a very particular spot on the nearby plaza.

Here' the gist:

"You're not a Christian. You don't love Jesus."

You have a filthy heart, Sir.

" You're doing a terrible job of living."

I'm here to stop your sinning."

"If you are living the wicked lifestyle of homosexuality,

then you are the reason God is angry today."

"If you love Jesus Christ, you will stop your sinning."

Anatomy of a Protest: 2009

The Scene: Eastern Kentucky University
8:55 AM - and about a block away from the protest site. All's quite. Police hover.

9:00 AM - Time for the protest to begin. Daniel Boone is present. The Eastern Progress photog is present. The protesters... not so much.

Grad student Rebecca Sears reports a lot of activity on Facebook all morning. EKU students have been changing their status in support of the protest. So the place is packed - virtually.

KSN&C spies one R. Fern- a known associate of famous UK student radical from another era Steve Bright - approaching the protest scene.

KSN&C: Excuse me, Sir, but aren't you an associate of that famous 60's radical, Steve Bright?

Fern: Why, yes I am. He's at the Southern Poverty Law Center now isn't, he?

KSN&C: Last I heard, I believe so. But tell me Sir, are you here to protest this morning?

Fern: Protest what?

So much for that scoop.

9:02 - The first protester arrives. Jordan Yurt, Lexington, Junior 9:08 - Stuart Warren, Harrodsburg, Senior, arrives with breakfast, but he didn't bring Jordan any. He also brought a sign that said: 9:15 AMKSN&C returned after class. By 10:30 AM the group had grown by five people and three signs, and now the signs all said something. Warren declined to characterize the group other than to say, "some might be libertarian and some might be Republican."

Heidi Jenkins, Lexington, Sophomore (with naughty pink sign)
Luke Morgan, Lexington, Junior (second from right)
...and others arrive

Asked about her sign, Jenkins said,

I've offended a lot of people. I've gotten a lot of attention. I think it really drives the point across. You know if there wasn't any free speech, you couldn't say whatever you wanted to say. And if I want to say that lack of free speech is bullshit, I'm allowed to.

Education Dean Bill Phillips stopped by to listen to and encourage the students for standing up for free speech.

Warren told Phillips the story of his being chased away by Interim Police Chief Mark Merriman during Congressman Ben Chandler's recent visit to campus.

"We had one sign and five guys talking to one another, sitting here on these benches. They told us we had to leave, and that we had to register. All we were doing was sitting here...not talking to one single person who didn't come up to us," Warren said.

The sign read: "Ben Can't Win in 2010"

Warren added,

I like Dr Whitlock and I think he's a wonderful person and he's going to be the first person to help us stand up for this. I thought it was awesome of him to have Jordan and I come in and meet with him yesterday morning.

Finally, a crowd arrived. But it turned out to be a tour group of prospective students visiting the campus. Apparently, they always take groups past the Daniel Boone statue. The tour guide asked the protesters to share their views with the visitors, which they did.

I left with them. As we departed, lead protester Warren shouted to the visitors, "Good luck, guys. We really do have a wonderful university."

In the interest of full disclosure, Rick Fern and I were frat brothers at UK in 1970, during a different kind of protest. As I recall, neither of us would pass for protesters. As the ROTC building burned, I was helping evacuate Blazer Hall next door. Both of us were friends of Bright, who appeared, a la Animal House, in my dorm room one night to extend a bid to join Sigma Nu. Fern teaches economics at EKU. Bright is a lawyer who works for the elimination of the death penalty.

EKU Free Speech Demonstration Expected to go off Without a Hitch

EKU President Doug Whitlock told the Faculty Senate late today that he expects student demonstrators to protest on campus tomorrow - outside of so called "Free Speech Zones" and without any trouble from the university.

Whitlock told the Senators the "institution is not concerned." On the contrary, Whitlock said the "free exchange of ideas" is crucial to the university environment and it is "healthy for our students to be engaged" in politics.

Whitlock said that opinions expressed in two recent letters that ran in the Eastern Progress "grew out of a misunderstanding" of free speech zones.

The university does have such a policy, but the Free Speech Zone policy applies only to off-campus individuals."

Whitlock reminded veteran Eastern faculty of an evangelical preacher who used to accost students and faculty on campus and essentially tell them all they were going to hell...or worse. While the campus is public, it exists to fulfill a specific purpose in law, so free speech zones were established to allow the work of the university to continue and provide a venue for the preacher's (and other off campus individuals) expressions at the same time. After that, the preacher was placed near the chapel on campus where he drew crowds - and essentially told them all they were going to hell...and worse.

Tomorrow morning at 9 AM, some Young Republicans are going to protest EKU's lack of tolerance for free speech - all over campus. And apparently, the campus police aren't going to care.

Is Free Speech about to Take Center Stage at EKU?

Do two Op Eds in today's Eastern Progress foreshadow a period of campus unrest over the issue of free speech at EKU?

Alum, Colin Reusch, encouraged students to fight against the limitations of "free speech zones" on campus by not only [petitioning] the administration and employing Student Government to do away with the policy, but also to "treat the policy as one that is unjust. Ignore it, break it, flaunt it."

While Eastern has a new policy concerning bulletin boards and posting places, the campus is still far from a bastion of free expression. Just this week students were threatened with arrest for protesting Ben Chandler's visit to campus.

While I personally think their reasons for protesting were downright stupid, I believe in their right to do it, especially on a college campus.

I spent the better portion of my time at Eastern fighting its restrictive and likely unconstitutional policies concerning the freedom of expression (or lack thereof) on campus but I did not get much accomplished.The Student Government Association first took issue with Eastern's posting and free speech zone policies more than six years ago and has been unable to affect any real change until this past school year.

On the same page, EKU Junior Jordan Yurt called for civil disobedience.

...this Tuesday, October 6, EKU College Republicans will be hosting a campus-wide protest. However, we are requesting for students not to protest in the "free speech zones." Please meet at the Daniel Boone statue in front of Keen Johnson and we will disperse from there at 9:00 a.m. If you cannot make it at 9:00 a.m., just come out when you are able. This protest will run from 9:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m.

We will ignore requests to stop protesting from the police and we will run the risk of being arrested. The university will not continue to dissolve us of such an unalienable and constitutional right. This is 2009, we really shouldn't have to do this.

Then Yurt closed with a phrase I hadn't heard since the 60s.

"Free your mind."

Being relatively new to campus, I was surprised to learn that all campus bulletin board postings required approval, a policy that was removed only recently. And I was ignorant of free speech zones. Personally, I always thought America was a free speech zone and I supposed 99% of our students are 18-years old and older.

I am not immune to enjoying the occasional schadenfreude moment and something inside me would be amused by seeing those who would spread lies and fear arrested (not really knowing if the our college Republicans would behave as badly as some other adults have in recent days). But alas, Reusch is correct. "Offensive and unpopular speech is the only speech that needs protecting."

So stay tuned and we'll see where this goes.

How Can Schools Regulate Off-Campus Internet Speech?

Over at EdJurist, Justin Bathon responds to the legal and ethical issues surrounding a school districts decision to "scan students' Facebook pages and assign consequences to those that express dislike for certain teachers or use profanity in any way?"

...Legally, what the courts have done is establish a mechanism by which schools can reach outside of the four corners of the school and regulate off-campus behavior.

(1) the court looks for a "nexus" (connection) with the school district. ...we are seeing them permit quite a bit of regulation of the net.

(2) Once the nexus is established, then we run through the traditional student speech analysis.
(a) Is it speech? ... If yes, continue, if no - regulate.
(b) Is it lewd, vulgar, plainly offensive? ...feel comfortable regulating.
(c) Does it promote illegal activities, such as drug use. Yes = regulate. No = continue.
(d) Does it cause a disruption? This is the biggie. There is a lot of legal history here establishing what is and is not a disruption, but the administrator's perception will usually get quite a bit of deference. Typically, if you have a nexus, you probably have a disruption - as the disruption is the nexus...

The effect was to make schools much more proactive in regulating everything related to students.

[Columbine; Bullying and Cyberbullying; Sexual predators & Porn; and other factors],

combined to create an environment where school regulation of off-campus speech was not just allowed by courts ... but it was encouraged by society and school boards.

At some point administrators thought it was their job to regulate off-campus speech....

The Free World Bars Free Speech

This from the Washington Post:

For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments.

Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem.

But now an equally troubling trend is developing in the West. Ever since 2006, when Muslims worldwide rioted over newspaper cartoons picturing the prophet Muhammad, Western countries, too, have been prosecuting more individuals for criticizing religion. The "Free World," it appears, may be losing faith in free speech...

Student blogger plans libel lawsuit

This from the Boston Globe; Backstory from KSN&C:

BURLINGTON, Conn.—An attorney for a high school student who brought a free speech lawsuit against her school district last year said he now plans to file a libel lawsuit against the principal.

Jon Schoenhorn, a Hartford attorney representing Avery Doninger, said he has served notice to Lewis S. Mills High School Principal Karissa Niehoff of the impending lawsuit.

Doninger and her family have been at odds with the district since last year, when Doninger used offensive slang to refer to administrators on an Internet blog. School officials removed her as class secretary, which Doninger said was a violation of her constitutional rights.

The case went as far as the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York as Doninger sought an injunction to regain her spot as class secretary and speak at her class graduation in June. The court rejected that request, but her lawsuit is pending.

The threat of a new libel lawsuit stems from an e-mail exchange that Niehoff had with a Wisconsin man who read about the legal case in the New York Post.

School administrators said Niehoff improperly disclosed information about Doninger in the exchange, which the man forwarded to Doninger's family. Niehoff was suspended for two days without pay for the incident.

Schoenhorn said Thursday that Niehoff will be sued for libel "for the false things she said to people about Avery."

A formal lawsuit has yet to be filed, and Schoenhorn declined to give details about when and where the suit might be filed.

Niehoff's attorney, Christine Chinni, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

Doninger's mother, Lauren, said Niehoff was punished for making a comment and distributing it on the Internet, the same reason cited for the punishment of her daughter, she said.

"It's not a decision we made lightly," she said. "The irony is too overwhelming that Avery, at 16, made some ill-considered remarks and sent them into cyberspace, and she was punished relentlessly. The principal effectively does the same thing. Does she expect no consequences?"

Connecticut Court Looks At Student Speech on the Internet

This from the Hartford Courant:

NEW YORK — - The dispute over a Burlington, Conn., teenager's Internet journal gave rise on Tuesday to a wide-ranging and contentious federal court hearing about free speech, whether schools can regulate students' language off campus and how the Internet blurs the boundaries of a school campus.

Avery Doninger, the 17-year-old high school senior at the center of the case, sat in the front row as a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals lobbed questions at the attorneys. Lawyers for both sides described the hearing as uncharacteristically lengthy and suggested that the duration underscored the case's position in new legal territory.

In simplest terms, the hearing Tuesday addressed whether Doninger should be allowed to serve as senior class secretary at Lewis S. Mills High School and, as a class officer, speak at her graduation.

The principal had barred Doninger from serving on the student council because of derogatory comments she made about school officials in an Internet blog...

...The appeals court did not rule Tuesday, but the judges raised questions ranging from the specifics of the high school's student council election procedures to how the Internet changes students' rights to free speech.

The attorneys staked out opposite positions on the free-speech question.

Asked whether schools should be allowed to regulate anything students write on the Internet, Doninger's attorney, Jon L. Schoenhorn, argued that the Internet should not give schools more cause to regulate off-campus speech. "It's just a bigger soapbox," he said.

The school officials' attorney, Thomas R. Gerarde, argued that the Internet has fundamentally changed students' ability to communicate, allowing them to reach hundreds of people at a time. If a student leader makes offensive comments about the school on the Internet, the school should have the right to act, said Gerarde, who represents Mills Principal Karissa Niehoff and former Region 10 Superintendent Paula Schwartz. "We shouldn't be required to just swallow it," he said.

Doninger's case began with a dispute about the school's annual Jamfest, a battle-of-the-bands-type program that Doninger had helped coordinate. Frustrated that Jamfest was not going ahead as scheduled, Doninger wrote on her livejournal.com weblog that "Jamfest is canceled due to the douchbags [sic] in central office." She also encouraged others to write or call Schwartz "to piss her off more," and included an e-mail her mother wrote as an example.

In fact, Jamfest wasn't canceled and was rescheduled.

After administrators found the blog entry, about two weeks after Doninger wrote it, Niehoff told Doninger to apologize to Schwartz, show her mother the blog entry and remove herself from seeking re-election as class secretary.Doninger agreed to the first two, but refused to withdraw her candidacy. Administrators did not allow her to run, though enough students wrote her name on the ballot that she won. She was not allowed to serve.

In his August ruling, Kravitz suggested that while Doninger wrote her blog entry off school grounds, she could be punished for it because the blog addressed school issues and was likely to be read by other students.The issue of on-campus and off-campus speech was a key theme Tuesday as attorneys and judges grappled with how the existing legal framework for school-speech issues applies to the Internet.

Student-speech issues have long been governed by a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case. It established that disruptive conduct by students is not constitutionally protected, but that schools can prohibit expression only if they can show that not doing so would interfere with schoolwork or discipline.

A 1986 Supreme Court ruling added another cause for schools to regulate speech, allowing them to prohibit "vulgar and lewd" speech if it would undermine the school's basic educational mission. But those cases involved speech that took place on school grounds or during a school activity.

Much of the discussion Tuesday involved another 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals case, Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District in New York. A student was suspended after he created an instant-messaging icon, visible to
his friends, that suggested his English teacher should be shot. The court upheld the suspension last year, saying it was reasonable to expect that the icon would come to the attention of school authorities and could create a risk of substantial disruption to the school environment...

Recent Court Rulings on Sexual Orientation

This from C-J:

...On Jan. 31, two court decisions and one lawsuit in three states made an already hot fight over sexual orientation in public schools even hotter.

In a Massachusetts case, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by parents who wanted school officials to notify them whenever same-sex couples were mentioned in their children's elementary classrooms.

According to the court, exposure to gay marriage (e.g., reading to second-graders a story about two princes who fall in love) does not constitute "indoctrination" or a discussion of human sexuality, as the parents contended, but rather an age-appropriate acknowledgement of the existence of same-sex couples in a state where gay marriage is legal.

On the same day, a lower court in Maryland rejected a challenge by conservative groups to a new sex-education curriculum in Montgomery County that includes teaching "respect for differences in human sexuality."

Opponents charged that the curriculum promotes homosexuality. Proponents argued that the curriculum gives students information about sexual orientation in a way that is nonjudgmental and fair.

Meanwhile in the Florida Panhandle, the culture-war shoe is on the other foot: The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, also on Jan. 31, against a high school that reportedly bans all student expression of support for gay rights, extending even to such things as rainbow stickers.

After this dizzying one-day legal whirlwind, school officials may be forgiven for being
more anxious than ever about how to handle issues related to sexual orientation without calling a lawyer. One thing is clear: As public acceptance of
differences in sexual and gender identity grows, pressure on schools to address
these issues will continue to rise....

And from the School Law Blog:

Schools May Restrict Anti-Gay Speech, Judge Rules

Public school officials may restrict speech disparaging homosexuality, a federal district judge has ruled.

The Feb. 12 decision is the latest in a long-running case stemming from an incident in which a California high school student wore a T-shirt with hand-lettered messages that said, “Homosexuality is shameful. Romans 1:21,” and “Be ashamed."

"In this court’s view, a school’s interest in protecting homosexual students from harassment is a legitimate pedagogical concern that allows a school to restrict speech expressing damaging statements about sexual orientation and limiting students to expressing their views in a positive manner," said the ruling by U.S. District Judge John A. Houston in Harper v. Poway Unified School District.

"There is no doubt in this court’s mind that the phrase “Homosexuality is shameful” is disparaging of, and emotionally and psychologically damaging to, homosexual students and students in the midst of developing their sexual orientation in a 9th through 12th grade, public school setting," the judge added....

...Judge Houston rejected free speech arguments made on behalf of the Harpers, and he said the Supreme Court's decision last year in Morse v. Frederick "affirms that school officials have a duty to protect students, as young as 14 and 15 years of age, from degrading acts or expressions that promote injury to the student’s physical, emotional or psychological well-being and development which, in turn, adversely impacts the school’s mission to educate them." ...

Blog post praising Columbine killers leads to arrest of teacher

Legal experts say anonymous post on political site

is likely protected under free speech laws

December 05, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A Wisconsin high school teacher was arrested last week after a blog post that included support for student killers like those involved in the 1999 Columbine, Colo., High School massacre.

James Buss was arrested Nov. 29 and charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communications systems, according to a spokeswoman from the West Bend, Wis., police department. Buss, a teacher from a high school in Milwaukee, admitted to making an anonymous blog post on the political blog Boots and Sabers on Nov. 16, the spokeswoman said.

In the post, Buss said teacher salaries in West Bend "made me sick; $60,000 for a part-time job where you 'work' maybe five hours per day and sit in the teachers' lounge and smoke the rest of the time. But whining here doesn't stop the problem. We've got to get in back of the kids who have had enough of lazy, no-good teachers and are fighting back. Kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time! Too bad the liberals rip them; they were heroes and should be remembered that way." ...

This from ComputerWorld.

Between Free Speech and a Hard Place

The president of the university faced a no-win situation. A controversial speaker had been invited to campus, alumni were in an uproar, members of the faculty were outraged, even local business leaders protested.

The university president responded with a fierce declaration of principle: “It is my view that as long as our students can be orderly about it they should have freedom to discuss any problem that presents itself and in which they are interested.”

The writer was Robert M. Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago. The year was 1932. The speaker invited to campus by a student group was the Communist candidate for president, viewed by many in that era as a national threat.

Controversial speakers have probably visited American campuses for as long as there have been campuses, and university officials faced with managing the situation have often reacted as Mr. Hutchins did, with a fervent defense of academia as a marketplace of ideas that must be kept unfettered.

Yet beyond agreement over the need to protect free speech, there are still no accepted standards for how college presidents should handle such divisive debates. If anything, the issue has grown murkier.

In the last two weeks alone, ugly spats over speech have erupted at the University of California at Irvine; at Stanford University; and at Columbia University.

At the University of California at Irvine, anger followed when the institution withdrew an offer to Erwin Chemerinsky, a prominent left-leaning law professor, to become dean of its new law school, and his political views were blamed; the offer was later restored when both conservative and liberal legal scholars objected.

When Stanford’s Hoover Institution offered a visiting fellowship to Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, thousands of professors, students and alumni signed an online petition opposing the decision; the university’s president emphasized the free speech principles at stake, while other officials noted that the invitation was not from the university but from Hoover.

And last week, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran accepted an invitation to speak at Columbia, Lee Bollinger, the university president, was faced with the question of how to protect open discourse involving a leader who denies the existence of the Holocaust and calls for Israel’s destruction. Perhaps trying to make lemonade out of lemons, he gave a blistering quasi-introduction that began by defending free speech and ended with Mr. Bollinger’s wish that he had effectively expressed “revulsion at what you stand for.”

In the end, few people were happy with that solution. But few can offer alternatives that satisfy everyone.

Disinviting a speaker can trigger as much or more fury as the invitation itself. And lofty defenses of free speech can sound cowardly to critics who believe the university’s choice of speakers is ideologically biased or that a particular speaker is uniquely evil and should be denied a public platform.

What magic formula could possibly satisfy a constituency that includes students, faculty, alumni and the community — as well as trustees and the big donors universities rely on so greatly these days?

Technology broadens the audience for such events, providing a way to rally the opposition even in the planning stages. (The Stanford petition against Mr. Rumsfeld exists online and began circulating even before students and many faculty were on campus for the fall semester.)

“It is incredibly complicated and difficult,” Mr. Bollinger said in an interview, one of many he gave to defend his combative stance during his introduction of Mr. Ahmadinejad. “And I think there are always strong incentives to withdraw from public discussion. My strong view is that that does and will impoverish public debate.”

Managing such controversies was hardly easier in the past. Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, recalled protests during the Vietnam War era when the students did more than sign virtual petitions or hand out fliers to object to speakers.

One time, Mr. Bok recalled, Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor and a Harvard Law School professor, was drowned out while moderating a discussion.

“He had tears in his eyes because the principle was very important,” Mr. Bok said, adding, “It was a repudiation of all the best that universities stood for. I still remember his huge distress.” ...

This from the New York Times. Cartoon by Joel Pett of the Herald-Leader.

In Court: When Clothes Speak to More Than Fashion

Given the importance placed on robust student expression, it’s not completely surprising that a federal judge in New Jersey last week found himself opining on whether it was appropriate for two fifth graders to be sporting buttons featuring Hitler Youth members. The occasion was a protest against the local school district’s party-pooper policy mandating uniforms for students in kindergarten through the eighth grade.

Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. ruled in the affirmative, no doubt helping the wardrobe planning for some parents.

But for those seeking guidance on how far Johnny and Julie can go, a reading of the full 28-page decision is a cause for some comfort and some alarm. Its review of a surprisingly ample array of similar cases raises more questions about acceptable attire and behavior than it answers.

The ruling by Judge Greenaway, of the Federal District Court in Newark, came in response to a suit by two Bayonne families seeking to bar the school district from suspending the pupils if they continue to wear the buttons after being told not to.

He ruled that the buttons, which featured the words “No School Uniforms” in a slashed red circle over a photo of young boys in Hitler Youth uniforms, was protected speech, in that wearing them did not “materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.”

That language came from a 1969 ruling that allowed students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. In that case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the court ruled that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or freedom of expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

But then things got complicated. In Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser in 1986, the Supreme Court ruled against a high school student who had been disciplined after giving a speech invoking an extended, but not explicit, sexual metaphor. The court ruled it was a highly appropriate function of schools to “prohibit the use of vulgar and offensive” speech.

The general thought that emerged in court rulings was student political speech, [yes], offensive speech on sex and drugs, no. But you can see where this goes. So, for instance, in Boroff v. Van Wert City Board of Education, a federal appeals court ruled that a high school student couldn’t wear a Marilyn Manson T-shirt to school because the musician and his band promoted “destructive conduct and demoralizing values that are contrary to the educational mission of the school.” Black Sabbath? Britney Spears? Eminem? Good luck figuring out whose values pass muster.

Broussard v. School Board of the City of Norfolk held that another school board did not violate the First Amendment rights of a 12-year-old by prohibiting her from wearing an antidrug T-shirt that included a word deemed to be “lewd, vulgar or offensive.” So you could be antidrug and offensive at the same time...

This from the New York Times.

Free Speech wins

Kentucky School News and Commentary posted a story recently about hundreds of Stanford University protesters who objected to the addition of Donald Rumsfeld to the University's conservative Hoover Institute, which also claims Condoleeza Rice and Eric "money won't make our schools better but it sure affords me a better lifestyle" Hanushek as members.

The argument is essentially that Donald Rumsfeld is a politician and a liar and should therefore be denied any "voice" that might influence others.

Countering this argument is Chris Holt, writing for the Stanford Daily.

...I propose that Donald Rumsfeld become the new Dean of Students. Liberals have questioned placing a politician in our academic environment, but I can tell you that I’ve been surrounded by nothing but academics at this university; that just proves we’re not really committed to diversity.

In contrast, while many conservatives point to the educational value of Rumsfeld’s experience, anyone who is familiar with his interviews over the last few months knows he doesn’t remember anything. Rather, we need his innate administrative skill...

...He’d also be a big supporter of the administration. Why, he’s renowned for his loyalty to governing bodies. No matter how controversial the decision, Dean Rumsfeld would put up a good front...If the University accepted money from a donor who sought to...erect a large gym without showers, Rummy would stand by the administration’s decision...He’d reassure us with things like, “It’s complicated” and “hard work.”

...Some students have expressed cynicism at the appointment of Rumsfeld. They suggest that Rummy would not be likely to engage students in an active debate, and, instead, his very presence seems to implicitly support numerous war crimes and one of the least popular administrations in recorded history. Many claim that even conservatives consider him the embodiment of failed policy and a blight on their party.

While the Hoover Institute is a separate body, these students assert that his selection is an embarrassment to the greater campus community and an insult to the innumerable soldiers and civilians that have lost their lives in Iraq.

To these foes, I can only reply: you go to school with the ethics you have, not with the ethics you want.

On the other side of the country Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial appearance at Columbia University brought out protesters saying he should not be permitted to speak.

The argument is essentially that Ahmadinejad is a politician and a liar and should therefore be denied any "voice" that might influence others. As Newsday reported:

[His] controversial appearance at Columbia University yesterday began with harsh, combative words from protesters, politicians and even the university president - who introduced the hard-line leader to a packed auditorium as "a petty and cruel dictator" with "a fanatical mindset."

"Today, I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Columbia University president Lee Bollinger said in a stinging rebuke of Ahmadinejad that also defended the university's decision to invite him to speak. "We do not honor the dishonorable when we open our forums to their voices."

Combative and engaging, Ahmadinejad was quick to respond, contending that Bollinger's introduction contained "many insults and claims that were incorrect" and that the audience should be allowed to draw its own conclusions after hearing him speak.

That's the way it is with free speech. It exists to protect the speech we don't want to hear. It matters less where the lies come from. It matter much more, that American democracy is buttressed by an educated public that can think for itself and see through the lies - regardless their source.

Inside the First Amendment: We're strangling high school free speech, press

Op Ed by Gene Policinski, Gannett News Service, in the Courier-Journal.

WASHINGTON -- As high school students head back to school this month, far fewer have a chance to participate in real student journalism owing to reduced or eliminated programs, fewer trained professional advisers and quite possibly antagonistic school administrators.

Journalism educators gathered here Aug. 9 to talk about high school journalism, 20 years after the first Scholastic Journalism Summit. They heard that many of those same problems considered two decades ago remain -- and the more recent news is even more chilling.

The combination of school abandonment of support for free press and speech and court decisions in the last two decades is "chipping away at fundamental freedoms" in a trend "for which I see no end in sight," warned Mark Goodman, who led the Student Press Law Center for much of that time.

Some student cases in point:

A federal appeals court recently ruled that New York school officials could suspend an otherwise-exemplary eighth-grader for posting a 2001 online picture message from home on his parents' computer and sending it to a few of his friends. The court said the drawing threatened the student's English teacher, but its holding wasn't based on any finding that the threat was "true." Rather, it was because school officials made the case that they believed it would disrupt classes.

In a serious case with a funny nickname, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," the U.S. Supreme Court carved out yet another exception to a hallmark 1969 student-speech case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Court will permit school authorities to punish student speech that administrators deem to indicate even a smidgen of support for illegal drug use.

In Minnesota, an award-winning editor of a student newspaper found his publication censored by a principal because he was going to run a picture of the simulated destruction of a U.S. flag -- in a report about a play on the Civil War.

Then there was the flap last school year in a northern Indiana school district over a student newspaper column that asked for tolerance and compassion for gays. The junior-senior high school has eliminated the newspaper program and turned yearbook into an after-school club. The newspaper adviser, who successfully deflected a school board attempt to fire her, has left the public system for a private school -- where she will not be banned from the journalism program.

We can all agree that realistic threats of violence in school merit realistic responses by authorities. And I have yet to find even strident First Amendment advocates who disagree that student journalists need education, training and adult advice.

But what are we teaching students -- our future fellow citizens -- about the value of a free press when a well-written, mild-mannered essay is reason for killing off a student publication and removing the adviser?

What are we telling students about the value of free speech when the good ones are reprimanded, suspended, expelled or even face criminal charges for musings that likely would have sent a prior generation to after-school detention, at most?

When we block students from expressing themselves in school, we likely don't shut off the speech. We drive it underground or into cyberspace.

When we shut down or water down student newspapers, Web sites and yearbooks, we speak loudly about authority at the expense of education.

Again, from Goodman: "Large numbers of students are learning that government does have the power to control the content" of newspapers and speech.

Summit attendees heard some glimmers of positive news. Innovative programs like the American Society of Newspaper Editors' High School Journalism initiative offer advice and a Web home to electronic versions of high school newspapers. A new initiative by the Radio Television News Directors Association will boost student radio and television.

But in an era when too many school officials seem bent on shutting down student expression and the courts seem willing to support them, there's too little good news for those who don't see the words "except for students" anywhere in the 45 words of the First Amendment.

How 'speech' ruling hurts democracy

When I retired from public school administration I got the opportunity to teach - and to become a student again. I audited Jim Klotter's Kentucky History at Georgetown College. I also sat in on two journalism courses at UK; Buck Ryan's News Editing, and Opinion Writing taught by journalism veteran and newly minted Associated Professor Mike Farrell. Today the Courier-Journal ran Mike's Op-Ed on our precious First Amendment.
~

By Mike Farrell

Special to The Courier-Journal

The Supreme Court of the United States last month taught high school students a civics lesson.

The title was "The First Amendment guarantees less freedom for students than for adults."

...The First Amendment says nothing about maturity and doesn't mandate responsibility as a condition for enjoying freedom. Still, few who have taught or raised children want to see the public schools turned into a free speech zone where banners glorify drug use or student newspapers belittle teachers or fellow students.

Because this decision concerned speech that involved drug messages, it may do little damage to student speech. It may do greater damage to democracy.

A great deal is written, usually with great angst, about the lack of interest young people have in civics, public issues, voting and the news.

The Civic Literacy Initiative of Kentucky, led by Chief Justice Joseph Lambert and Secretary of State Trey Grayson, last year issued strong recommendations intended to re-engage students in our public life.

One way to do that is to encourage students to exercise their rights of free expression. The schools and the courts should consider whether this decision and other curbs on students' First Amendment rights are related to their lack of interest in public affairs. The percentage of young adults who vote in national elections is low.

A Kentuckian, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, wrote in 1927 "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people" and "public discussion is a political duty." A generation that doesn't vote or keep up with national news is the foundation for an inert people.

The lesson students are taught by their schools and the Supreme Court is that they may be punished if their opinions are unpopular, even meaningless and silly. That can suggest to them that it is better not to form an opinion or at least not to express one...

... The First Amendment was never designed to protect popular opinion. It was designed to protect controversial speech. The First Amendment is not easy; it demands we let people speak and write even when we consider their ideas odious or silly, even if they are students. We should ask ourselves what we are teaching the leaders of tomorrow about freedom.

College wins free-speech ruling against evangelist

An evangelist who preaches at campuses nationwide has lost his initial bid to speak at Murray State University in western Kentucky.

A judge ruled Monday that the school's campus policy requiring speakers to obtain on-campus sponsors is legal.

James G. "Brother Jim" Gilles, of Symsonia in western Kentucky, sued the university in 2006, claiming that Murray State deprived him of his rights to free speech and to exercise his religion by rejecting his requests to preach at the Curris Center - a high-traffic area frequented by students and visitors.

This from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

NKU sets policy on protests

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports:

No longer will campus demonstrations be limited to a small, confined area outside the University Center; parades and marches will be permitted; and chalking will be allowed to continue.

“The act of caging free speech wasn’t just a physical act, but a mental act,” said junior Alex Kindell. “A university is supposed to be where speech is expressed freely.”

Kindell, president of NKU’s Students for Choice, was a leader in getting the policy changed. Under the old policy, students who wanted to protest or rally could do it only in that segregated area next to the University Center.