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Every Idea Is an Incitement

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
January 8, 2013  •Leave a Comment
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Dear CRM 495 Students:

Welcome back! It’s hard to believe that Christmas break is over and that it’s time to start a new semester. It’s almost as hard as believing that one of your professors is actually sending you an email using the word “Christmas.” But even the liberals agree that I am no ordinary professor. Please allow me to explain.

After I got tenure, I left the political Left and became a conservative Republican. I know you’ve never had a conservative professor before and you are probably wondering what to expect. In a nutshell, you can expect to hear the truth about a number of things for the very first time in your college career. And that means you can probably expect to be offended from time to time.

Just in case you are wondering whether you are getting in over your head, let me give you a few examples of beliefs I hold, which you may well deem to be offensive. Based on the following revelations, you can make an informed decision as to whether this class is really for you.

African-Americanism. I think the term African-American is ridiculous. If you insist on being called this then you aren’t American and you’ve probably never been to Africa. If you demand to be a hyphenated American then you’re just un-American. Get over yourself or get out of the country. Sorry if you’re offended but you offend me with your ethnocentrism.

Coke. I cannot stand that four letter word that begins with “c” and refers to female genitalia. Repeating it at The Vagina Monologues does not make women empowered. It makes them unrefined idiots. If you c*** c*** a feminist play without using feminists who say the word c*** then you simply c*** be taken seriously. Sorry if you’re offended, but women who curse like sailors offend me.

Daddy issues. Every semester, I get at least one female student who comes into class late and hyperventilating. She makes a scene in order to get sympathy. Then, she apologizes after class while dumping all her personal problems on me. Let me be blunt: women like this have daddy issues. Put simply, daddy didn’t give them enough attention and now they are seeking it from me because I remind them of daddy. Sorry that offends you. Go tell your daddy.

Guns. I have more guns than I need but fewer than I want. In fact, as I sit in my home office writing this email I am positioned between two packed gun safes. There are enough guns in this room to issue a 21 gun salute in the event you don’t make it through the semester. There are also about 12,000 rounds of ammunition in this room. And there is more elsewhere in the house. Some people are afraid of guns but I am afraid of gunlessness. Most of your professors say that homophobia is a social disease. I say that hoplophobia is a social disease. If you don’t like abortion – oops! I mean guns – you don’t have to have one.

Momma’s boys. Every semester, I get at least three male students who cannot run their lives. They constantly ask me questions that I have already answered on the syllabus. When is the first test? What kind of questions are on it? How many tests are there? These are the kinds of young males who still could not wipe their bottoms when they were 12 (and probably still can’t do their own laundry). If you are one of them, you have no chance of passing my class and no chance of succeeding in life. Please drop out now and join the army. Sorry if that offends you but you need to be a man. If that’s too much to ask, just complain to momma next time you’re home dropping off your laundry.

Pepsi. I cannot stand that five letter word that begins with “p” and refers to female genitalia. Every year at The Vagina Monologues, they sell p***** pops, which are little candied vaginas on a stick. The feminists walk around licking them in a display of feminist empowerment. I hate to be p**** but why don’t they sell p**** pops, too. Maybe that would offend them. That’s too bad because their sexism offends me.

Queer Centers. When I was a kid, we played “smear the queer” (dodge ball). Later, they said we could not call it that. Now, the word “queer” has made a queer re-entry into the realm of social acceptability. Some colleges are even opening “Queer Resource Centers.” Make up your mind, thought police. And stop acting like women with daddy issues! Sorry if that offends you. Indecisiveness offends me.

Racial Preferences. If you can’t get into college without checking a box that says African-American or Hispanic, you do not need to be here. Sorry but the only reason there are racial differences in SAT scores is because minorities refuse to take off the training wheels. You’re just as smart as anyone else so hop off the Big Wheel and join the bike race. Sorry if you’re offended but your racism offends me.

Wolf-crying. People cry racism all the time. In fact, I’ve been told I’m a racist for opposing affirmative action. That’s funny to me. I don’t think blacks need a crutch because I believe they are equal. Therefore, I’m called a racist – even though I was the first kid on my block to own a Flip Wilson record. Those people (oops, I said, those people) need to chill. In fact, I should let them borrow my old Flip Wilson record to lighten the mood. Next thing you know, they’ll say Flip Wilson offends them because Geraldine made fun of cross dressing. Have I mentioned that cross-dressing offends me?

XXX. Pornography is more than disgusting. It is evil and I hate it. This is probably not offensive to anyone – unless, of course, you are a porn star. But, once you become a porn star, you pretty much give up the right to be offended. If you’re offended anyway just drop my class and sign up for one of Dr. Porco’s instead (no I did not make up that last name). Dr. Porco was just hired by the UNCW English Department despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he published a book of pornographic poems – some of which were written while he was drunk and hanging out in topless bars. He tries to pass them off as academic. And that offends me, which is why I simply choose not to read them.

Now that everything is on the table, you are ready for your first assignment. Since this is a class covering the First Amendment, we are going to focus on important US Supreme Court decisions dealing with free speech. Our first case will be Gitlow v. New York. I want you to read it with two questions in mind:

1. Since the Supreme Court nationalized the First Amendment, speech codes have emerged on most state-run campuses. How have these speech codes survived in light of the nationalization movement?

2. Holmes’ dissent in this case has been often quoted. If he is correct in saying that “every idea is an incitement” then how can universities actually enforce speeches codes? As they are actually enforced, do these codes violate other portions of our constitution?

As you can see, we’ll be tackling some serious issues this semester. So we need to weed out all of the self-absorbed, hypersensitive products of the era of political correctness in higher education. That was the purpose of this email. If you are still reading then congratulations! You’ve demonstrated more intellectual integrity and emotional maturity than the majority of your professors.

See you next week in class.

 



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Bankrupt State University

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
November 30, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Many of my friends and readers are disheartened by recent cultural and political trends. Many blame our universities and wonder whether we can ever restore sanity in our nation, given that the enemy seems to control the modern university. They see no chance to win in the war of ideas as long as they are forced to support the public university and, therefore, forced to fund a war against their own cherished values.

But I know something they don’t know. The public university that has declined so steadily in recent years will cease to exist in just a few short decades. The moral bankruptcy we have seen over the last twenty years is about to be followed by another sort of bankruptcy. Before long, many of the universities that have betrayed taxpayers and alumni will be forced out of business. It will happen for the following reasons:

1. Federal funding reductions. LBJ got us deeply entrenched in the business of federal funding for institutions of higher education. When he did, tuition began to skyrocket. More recently, the federal government has gotten us deeply entrenched in the business of individual student loans. This has had the same effect. When a lot of people are able to borrow a lot of money to purchase goods or services, the effect on the price of those goods and services is dramatic. Supply and demand is not a rule; it is a law.

State university administrators seized upon the increased demand for higher education by raising tuition. This was done for three reasons: a) because they could, b) because they wanted to give themselves raises, and c) because they wanted to hire associate and assistant administrators to do their work for them.

Now, the federal deficit is spinning out of control. As a result, the federal government will soon have to cut aid to state universities. This will confront administrators with this important decision: will they a) cut administrative spending, or b) raise tuition? The answer will be “b.”

2. Student loan bubble. People are easily enticed into taking the bait when offered unlimited funds to pursue education. This applies to those who are not qualified to attend college at all. (Think about the housing bubble for just a moment). As tuition continues to rise, many more students who enroll will figure out that they have been duped long before they graduate. The universities have lied to them during recruitment. Departments in the social sciences and other disciplines have betrayed them by exaggerating the pay scale and availability of jobs they could likely expect upon graduation. These realizations will result in a massive upswing in the dropout rate over the next few years. These dropouts are many times more likely to default on their college loans than students who graduate.

When the whole college loan industry collapses, people will actually have to pay for school as they go. That will result in many empty seats in many college classrooms. Universities will have to make up the difference by turning to alumni donors.

3. Declining donations. Consider the following scenario: just two weeks ago, a fraternity of 80 men was ejected from a public university campus. They were investigated for hazing but then exonerated. They were also investigated for an alcohol violation that was so minor that police declined to arrest anyone. They were found to be guilty of only one offense, which was dubbed “failure to cooperate with the investigation.” This was another way of saying the university thought but could not prove they were guilty because they refused to confess. At the end of the day, the 80-man fraternity was banned from campus for three years.

This real life incident will have two real life repercussions: a) the administrator who led the investigation will be promoted for expelling a politically incorrect fraternity (one of their flags has a Confederate symbol embedded within it). b) 80 future alumni will respond to the administrative overreach by refusing to donate for the rest of their adult lives.

This issue is serious. As the university administration has grown, it has assumed more control over the lives of students. In recent years, students have been prosecuted with increasing frequency for increasingly petty offenses with drastically decreasing respect for their due process rights. This includes petty prosecutions for speech code violations that amount to stripping students of the right to participate in the free exchange of ideas – the very reason many came to college in the first place. Is anyone foolish enough to believe this will have no effect on their willingness to donate?

The army of administrators that grew in the 1990s as a result of generous federal funding and the explosion in student loans bureaucracywill soon have to beg in order to retain their positions. Alumni will wisely apply the norm of reciprocity by exercising their power over these overpaid and underworked administrators who once practiced authoritarianism on them. They will wisely withhold donations and instead focus on paying their entirely-too-high student loan payments.

For all of these reasons, the public universities will eventually go bankrupt. And that is good news for a nation that is going morally bankrupt in the shadow of the ivory tower. They had a good thing going but the party is close to being over. The hangover will soon begin.

 



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Cleaning Up After Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
November 26, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Of all the sloppy and confused decisions rendered by the Supreme Court in recent years, few compare with CLS v. Martinez (2010). The decision was more than just poorly reasoned. It was also based upon willful blindness toward factual misrepresentations by the defendants in the case. Justice Ginsburg authored an opinion she knew she could arrive at only by pretending to believe facts she knew were not true.

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, offers a good critique of the decision in his new book, Unlearning Liberty. I write about it today because the decision is still causing serious problems for us in higher education. The problems are due to both a) incompetence and b) feigned ignorance concerning the holding in the case. Either way, the mess has gotten so out of hand that the only solution is state legislative intervention.

Nearly every conflict between a religious organization and a public university begins with a refusal of the group to affirm sexual practices and lifestyles that the administrators endorse. That isn’t always the case but it is too often the case. Surely, my libertarian and liberal friends agree that our public universities ought not to have official positions on such private matters. But, unfortunately, they do.

To be clear, these administrators do not simply favor toleration of alternative lifestyles. Tolerance presupposes a moral judgment they, which they refuse to offer. Instead, they use their power to make sure no one else is offering these judgments either. If any organization goes against their beliefs about sex, they simply refuse to recognize the organization.

Enter Christian Legal Society, or CLS, at Hastings College. A few years ago, they had the audacity to say that anyone who “advocates or unrepentantly engages” in sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman could not be eligible for leadership or voting membership in their official student group. They were de-recognized and then they sued.

Early in the litigation, Hastings College committed itself to a willful and knowing misrepresentation of its own policies. They specifically claimed that all groups had always been operating under an open membership or “all-comers” policy. That is to say, they were claiming that no group was ever allowed to exclude anyone from leadership or voting membership on the basis of beliefs about sex – or anything else, for that matter.

The argument was demonstrably false. At the time CLS filed suit, a gay student club, Outlaw, was forcing members to adhere to a belief statement that was favorable toward homosexuality. Additionally, La Raza, a radical leftist Hispanic organization, was requiring adherence to certain political beliefs. They were also requiring that members be Hispanic.

Nonetheless, Justice Ginsberg pretended to believe an obvious falsehood in order to fashion the following rule: public universities with all-comers policies do not violate the First Amendment when they prevent groups from selecting members and leaders on the basis of belief provided that the university does not target such groups on the basis of their beliefs.

In other words, a government entity has not really deprived a group of its First Amendment Freedom of Association rights provided it has deprived everyone else of those same rights. It takes years of working for the ACLU to develop that kind of enlightenment on the issue of religious liberty.

When confronted with the possibility that hostile groups might take over organizations they disagreed with, Ginsburg dismissed the concerns as “more hypothetical than real.” Those were her actual words. The irony is that while Ginsburg was saying she did not want to rule on a hypothetical case, she was actually ruling on a hypothetical case. Her ruling about universities with all-comers policies was based upon a case involving a university that did not really have an all-comers policy. In other words, it was a “more hypothetical than real” fact scenario.

Imagine a world with no hypotheticals. It’s easy if you try, Ruth.

Now back to reality. Just two months after Ginsburg wrote her opinion, all UNC student organizations received a memo telling them that the CLS decision required them to sign on to a new statement concerning open membership. This was odd, for the following reasons:

1) the CLS decision did not require anyone to do anything. It said the university could – not must but could – impose a ban on belief requirements if such a ban were put in place across the board.

2) No UNC campuses actually practice open membership. All of them have fraternities and sororities that require members to take oaths of membership. These groups typically have creeds or belief requirements. In other words, there has never been an open membership policy at any of the UNC campuses.

In addition to not being required to impose such a ban on belief requirements, universities in the UNC system are not even allowed to do so because they do not impose the ban across the board. But they did in anyway.

Within two years, here at my own university, the belief requirements started to disappear from religious and political organizations run by students wholly unaware their rights were being violated. The university told them to remove them in response to a non-existent mandate and they simply complied. They were duped.

When a group I now advise came to our campus this semester, its officers were told to remove officer belief requirements. I found out about it and fought them successfully with the help of FIRE Vice-President Robert Shibley. Specifically, the university altered its policies to conform to its pre-CLS practice stating that groups founded on certain beliefs can require officers and members to affirm those beliefs.

Game over. Right? Wrong.

A student reporter recently called our university and asked whether it was true that – as FIRE reported on its blog, The Torch – UNCW has now backed off its open membership policy. The university denied that it had. So I re-investigated the matter and found something very disturbing.

Just before the new paragraph stating that groups founded on the basis of belief can require officers and members to affirm those beliefs, a strange paragraph appears. In this paragraph, it says that UNCW has an open membership policy with regard to sexual orientation, religion, and a number of other variables.

So why did they specifically use the term “open membership”? And why the denial that they have in any way backed off their previous “open membership” policy – the one they did not actually practice because they had fraternities and sororities who require agreement with creeds as a condition of initiation?

The reason is simple: they are using that language as a trump card. They are preparing for the possibility that a group like CLS will come to campus and have a specific requirement for officers concerning sexual conduct. When they do, the university will seize upon language by Ginsburg, from CLS v. Martinez, which talks about the difficulty of separating status (e.g. sexual orientation) from belief (e.g. homosexuality is wrong) in the implementation of student membership policies.

Administrators will then claim that such a requirement violates their open membership policy – the one they do not actually have. Finally, Ginsburg or some other dishonest judge will pretend to believe them.

The only way to prevent this from unfolding in court to the detriment of the taxpayers is to have immediate legislative intervention. University bureaucrats are incompetent at best and scheming at worst. It’s time for lawyers in the NC House to come in and clean up the mess created by Ginsburg.

The state cannot offer less liberty than the Supreme Court requires. But as long as it does not rely upon the interpretation of federal law, it can offer more. And it should do so immediately while Republicans control the house and the N.C. governor’s mansion.

With one page of legislation, Ohio passed a law that banned all universities from interfering with the freedom of association rights of public university students. It should serve as a model for the nation. We should adopt it in the Tar Heel State and even add criminal penalties for college administrators who conspire to deprive students of their basic religious freedoms. We did it once to stop the KKK. Why not do the same to these robed and hooded academic bigots.



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Evidence Tampering U

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
November 12, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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For years, I’ve been writing about the issue of censorship on our nation’s campuses. But I have given far too little emphasis to due process violations within the so-called campus judiciary. Today, that all comes to an end. This will be the beginning of a series of columns highlighting the worst colleges in America when it comes to due process violations. I will reveal the name of this week’s winner after explaining why this university is being ushered into the due process Hall of Shame.

In 2005, a professor was brought up on charges of quid pro quo sexual harassment. Specifically, he was accused of giving a student an A in exchange for dancing with the professor in a sexually provocative way. There was only one problem with the charge: it wasn’t true.

One set of university documents (the transcripts) revealed no A was given. The university convicted the professor anyway even after it was clear that another set of documents (the official harassment accusations) had been doctored in order to sustain the charge.

In 2009, our present inductees disciplined a fraternity for waving a fraternity flag that had a portion of the confederate flag imbedded within it. Incidentally, they waved it at another southern fraternity that also had a fraternity flag with a portion of a confederate flag imbedded within it. The all-white fraternity waved it at the other all-white fraternity at a university intramural game at which no nonwhites were present. So a white university official charged them with violating the campus hate speech code.

I wrote about the incident and the university soon realized the campus speech code (as applied) was illegal. So, rather than dropping the charges, they doctored university documents in order to remove any evidence that the charges against the fraternity were related to the speech code. They then inserted new allegations and convicted them under those. The fraternity was then punished with suspension from intramural sports competition for “taunting” rather than “hate speech” as originally charged.

In 2011, a professor was accused of sexual harassment and sought out legal counsel to defend him. During cross-examination by his attorney, the female accuser claimed not to have made two statements included in the official charges. In other words, the university helped the accuser by padding the charges without even bothering to tell her.

The accused was eventually dismissed from the university. Those tampering with the evidence were never identified and disciplined.

In 2012, police responded to an off campus alcohol-related incident involving a campus social organization. The police left shortly after arriving and no charges or arrests were even contemplated by police. Nonetheless, officers of the student organization were brought in to the Dean’s Office for interrogation. Since they were being asked about behaviors that were minor violations of the criminal law, they asked to have legal counsel present. Their request was denied.

Recently, I had a chance to hear the tape recorded interrogation of the student officers. University officials repeatedly denied their requests for counsel and asked them to turn off the tape recorder. By the end of the investigation, the university had prepared three different reports on the incident. The facts in report #3 bore no resemblance to the facts in report #1. Each time the university realized its charges were incorrect they simply constructed a new version of events. Decent people would have dropped the charges once they realized they were wrong. But this is not the way things are done at Evidence Tampering U. The charges are still pending and the fate of the student organization is still hanging in the air.

Again in 2012, a professor appealed a sexual harassment charge (anyone seeing a pattern here?) and was exonerated on charges of inappropriately touching a student. Finally, there is some good news at Evidence Tampering U, right? Wrong. I’m not finished.

During the appeal of the conviction for inappropriate touching the university inserted a new charge of “inappropriate communication.” The university convicted the professor of that in partial retaliation for his appeal on the charge of inappropriate touching. No chance of winning an appeal at Evidence Tampering U. These people are good. They rig appeals by adding new charges each step of the way. They base their judiciary rules on Franz Kafka novels.

This is all very important because the way universities administer justice affects the way students view justice. At Evidence Tampering U., justice is not a process. It is a result. The ends justify the means. It is the same mentality that justifies stealing elections. And it is not the way we educate young people. It is the way that a constitutional republic eventually turns into a banana republic.

Unfortunately, it is the way things are done at The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, our inaugural inductees into the Due Process Hall of Shame. Their liberal administrators make providing a liberal education damned near impossible. It may seem ironic. But that’s what the evidence reveals.

In the next installment, we will learn about the role the Obama Department of Education has played in the erosion of campus due process. Students aren’t biting the hand that feeds them. They just re-elected the hand that is slapping them.



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Facing the Giants

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
November 8, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Nearly ten years ago, I helped organize a lawsuit against UNC-Chapel Hill. The university was forcing Christians to allow non-Christians to run their organizations. It took me 18 months to find a plaintiff but I did. In case you were wondering, we took the case to federal court and we won. For a time, freedom of association was preserved at North Carolina’s flagship university.

But tyranny is a hungry beast ever in need of replenishing itself at the expense of weaker prey. This semester, the predator was once again a UNC public university campus. But I am pleased to report that with the help of Robert Shibley of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) we were able to win another freedom of association case. Working together, we won the case without a lawsuit. And we did it in just twelve days.

I am reproducing the email correspondence from that case in order to help others who are interested in challenging universities that knowingly violate the First Amendment. I have departed from my traditional practice of naming names as a reward to the university for backing down and saving the taxpayers from unnecessary litigation. I hope you find the following exchange (as well as my interspersed remarks) helpful:

Ms. (Administrator), it has come to my attention that you have asked Ratio Christi to remove its requirement that officers be Christians.

I need to know immediately and in writing by what authority you propose to force them to abandon their belief requirements.

This matter is urgent and and I expect a prompt written response.

Mike Adams


Thank you for the inquiry. We are in the process of working with these students as they pursue registration as a student organization. As the process is ongoing and in the beginning stages, our office has much work left to do with these students, including the review of Ratio Christi’s constitution, before any final decisions regarding their organizational status are made. We appreciate your concern in this matter and will continue to work with the students to welcome their organization to the campus community.

(Ms. Administrator)
Ms. (Administrator), you have not answered my question. It has come to my attention that you have asked Ratio Christi to remove its requirement that officers be Christians.

I need to know immediately and in writing by what authority you propose to force them to abandon those requirements.

This matter is urgent and I expect a prompt written response. If no response is forthcoming, I will assume the following:

1. You have attempted to interfere with Ratio Christi’s First Amendment right to determine the believe requirements of its officers.

2. You have done so on your own and not in accordance with any specific (university) policy, office, or individual administrative directive.

I have copied Robert Shibley of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. I have asked his organization to join my investigation into the matter. The chancellor is copied as well.

Mike Adams


Dr. Adams-

Our staff is still working with the students on the constitution for the establishment of the Ratio Christi student organization. Therefore, your inquiries are premature and your assumptions incorrect. I would encourage you to be patient as we work with these students to develop their organizational constitution and assist them in becoming a recognized student organization. Since the administrative review and process is not yet complete, your inquiries are premature and inappropriate. When the process is complete, I will be happy to respond to any issues you may have with the outcome.

Many thanks,

(Mr. Administrator)

Executive Director of Campus Life


(Mr. Administrator was then hit with a public records request seeking the information his office refused to divulge. He wrote back in less than 48 hours).


Dr. Adams-

Yesterday, (Ms. Administrator) and I met with representatives from the Ratio Christi student organization to discuss their organizational constitution and to assist them in becoming a recognized student organization. Unbeknownst to (Ms. Administrator) the (university) Office of Student Life has been reviewing its non-exclusionary membership clause in its student organization constitution template prior to your recent e-mails. During the meeting, I provided Ratio Christi with the following updated language for their inclusion in the constitution:

***

“ Student groups that select their members on the basis of commitment to a set of beliefs (e.g., religious or political beliefs) may limit membership and participation in the group to students who, upon individual inquiry, affirm that they support the group and agree with its beliefs …”

***

As I mentioned to you in my previous correspondence, the administrative review and process is not yet complete, but I believe that any issues have been resolved. When the process is complete, I will be happy to respond to any issues you may have with the outcome.

Many thanks,

(Mr. Administrator)

Anyone reading the previous exchange can see what happened here. The university tried to deprive students of their First Amendment freedom of association rights by leveraging the power of their office to control funds through the group recognition process. When they were caught and called out on it, they responded with predictably self-righteous indignation. But one official legal document -a public records request suggesting the prospect of litigation – jolted them back into reality (and civility).

After some reflection on the matter, the university decided to move forward with a quick change in policy in order to avoid litigation. There is little reason to believe they were actually contemplating any sort of policy change “in (their) student organization constitution template prior to (my) recent e-mails.” Administrators simply cannot be trusted. But that is not the point of the present column. The point of the column is rather obvious: to teach readers all it takes to change an unconstitutional policy is one maverick professor working in conjunction with one FIRE attorney.

The question is: where are all the maverick professors? And why are they so afraid of their employers despite the protection of tenure?



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Putting on the Fresh Person Fifteen

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
October 29, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Author’s note: The use of an asterisk indicates that the college or university has revised its speech code thanks to the work of my friends at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE. (See www.TheFire.org). The best source of information about campus speech in general is: Greg Lukianoff. Unlearning Liberty. New York: Encounter Books, 2012. Click here to order a copy now.

All week long, people have been sending me emails expressing their outrage at UNC Chapel Hill’s decision to remove the word “freshman” from all university documents in order to be gender inclusive. But why are they surprised? And why are they writing to me to express their outrage? I’ve been telling readers for over a decade that they need to directly call and write the universities that are responsible for encouraging hypersensitivity through the use of campus speech codes.

If you do not know what a speech code is then you are probably new to my column. So here is a list of some examples that have actually been implemented at colleges and universities across America. If you write to complain, make sure your messages are written in stark violation of their campus speech codes. You are about to learn that it may not be very difficult.

*At Drexel University, prohibited harassment once included “inconsiderate jokes” and “inappropriately directed laughter.” Students at Drexel had to be careful. If someone made a joke that was funny, they had to look directly at them. Looking the other way and laughing could have constituted harassment.

*Florida Gulf Coast University actually banned expressions deemed “inappropriate.” Did you hear that one? I’ve always hated the expression “know what I’m saying.” Does that make it a violation of the speech code? Or is it racist for me to suggest that it is? Know what I’m saying?

*Ohio State University actually banned jokes about differences related to “socio-economic background and etc.” Hey, do you know the different between a Republican and a Democrat? A Republican drinks 12 year old wine; a Democrat drinks wine when he’s 12 years old. Don’t laugh! That could be a speech code violation! No need to rely on the catch all “etc” to violate it. Man, that’s rich! I mean person that’s poor.

*College of the Holy Cross implemented a speech code that banned even unintentionally causing emotional injury through careless or reckless behavior. Even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked. But a Holy Cross administrator doesn’t seem to know. They got rid of the word “unintentional” but left the word “careless.” So you can still be nailed to a cross for accidentally violating this (w)hol(l)y ridiculous dictate.

Grambling State University has an email policy that prohibits offensive comments about “hair color.” So if you make a dumb blonde joke, you might get charged with violating the school’s hair-assment policy. I guess that sort of thing needs to be highlighted and then rooted out of the educational system. Bald assertions probably need to go, too.

Marshall University bans incivility or disrespect of persons. Better not go around saying “we are Marshall.” That’s exclusive and, of course, exclusivity is disrespectful.

*California State University – Chico banned stereotypic generalizations including continued use of generic masculine terms. How about this for a stereotype: most college administrators are bed wetting liberals. Hehehehehe!

*The University of Florida once threatened disciplinary action against organizations or individuals that upset the “delicate balance of communal living.” I have no idea what that means so I can’t say much in response. I just know it was written by an imbalanced communist.

Mansfield University bans any behavior that would diminish “self esteem” or “striving for competence.” Right now I want to say that Mansfield administrators are incompetent idiots. But that might hurt their self esteem while they are striving for competence. It’ll never happen. But let’s make them feel warm and fuzzy while they try to strive for mediocrity. Sexist idiots! I mean, why don’t they call themselves Persons-field University?

*The University of Wisconsin – Whitewater banned “obnoxious jerk harassment” including “jokes, catcalls, whistles, remarks, etc.” I don’t get this. Does it mean I cannot harass an obnoxious jerk? What about Keith Olbermann? He’s man enough to take it. Come to think of it, so is Rachel Maddow.

Some freshmen put on weight because they become physically lazy. Almost every other student becomes intellectually lazy throughout his college years. The reason is simple: someone is always telling him it’s easier to be a victim than to respond to bad speech with speech that is better.

 



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Unlearning Liberty

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October 23, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Despite their feigned interest in tolerance, college campuses are among the most punitive and stifling environments in the country. Students are routinely punished for “offenses” ranging from penning mild satire to holding the wrong opinions on important social and political issues. One book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, by Greg Lukianoff, documents these abuses better than any other that has been written since I joined the campus culture wars over a decade ago. Greg is able to document these things well and for a simple reason: he has been the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for the last seven years.

The stories Greg tells in his new book are so disturbing it will be difficult for some to believe that they are all real and all come from American universities. Unlearning Liberty at times sounds like an account from some far away land that never valued the kinds of freedoms our constitution guarantees. For example,
* A student is punished for racial insensitivity for publicly reading a book that condemns the KKK.
* Students are required to lobby before legislatures for political bills they disagree with in order to graduate from a public university.
* A student Senate passes a Sedition Act to punish other students for criticizing them at, of all places, a public university governed by the First Amendment and funded by their tuition dollars.

However strange these stories seem, they deserve our undivided attention. The reason is simple: when these students graduate, their anti-liberty mindset is unleashed on the larger society.

Indeed, after a generation of unlearning liberty, these things will begin to seem normal if not addressed soon. FIRE co-founder Alan Charles Kors said it best when he stated that “A nation that does not educate in liberty will not long preserve it and will not even know when it is lost.”

For over a decade, I have been trying to explain that the campus free speech war transcends politics and religion. It is a threat to everyone. That is why I am glad that a book echoing my arguments – but in far greater depth and with much greater eloquence – was written by someone who disagrees with me on a broad range of issues. Greg Lukianoff is an atheist, a Democrat, a supporter of same-sex marriage, and a supporter of abortion rights. We have worked together for years as allies in the free speech wars because we both recognize that liberty is a sacred process, not a pre-ordained result.

We also understand that true commitment to liberty is measured by the conduct of our institutions of higher learning, and not by their statements about their conduct. For example, Harvard University claims that “Curtailment of free speech undercuts the intellectual freedom that defines (Harvard’s) purpose.” In reality, it fires even presidents who refuse to bow down to the gods of political correctness and gender sensitivity.

Harvard and other private universities claim to be free from the technical requirement that they conform to the dictates of the First Amendment. That much is true. But they are not free from the moral requirement that they must always be honest about the true state of the marketplace of ideas in their classrooms and across their campuses.

Truth be known, Harvard has a long record of suppressing free speech among students, faculty, and, more recently, non conforming administrators. Given that reality, they should refrain from telling prospective students that, “The free exchange of ideas is vital for our primary function of discovering and disseminating ideas.”

To the extent that administrators make these patently false claims, they fraudulently induce students into taking on debt, often in the realm of six digits. All this, in order to join a marketplace of ideas that barely exists in an age of administratively mandated and supervised political correctness.

The best and most accurate measure of the depth of our constitutional crisis in higher education can be seen in the campus speech codes of our public university campuses. These codes are a measure of not just the censoriousness of our public administrators but also their audacity. The fact that they knowingly enforce them – even with no prospect of winning in court shows us two things:

1. They know that even when they lose in individual cases, the presence of the often multiply-layered speech codes will help maintain orthodoxy by chilling speech that is not politically correct.
2. Due to qualified immunity, they will never have to pay personal damages and the general public – the same people they seek to censor – will have to foot the bill for the litigation.

The problem is not just at Harvard and Yale. It is at other universities – even ones located in conservative areas of the nation. For example, Texas A&M has a speech code that prohibits violating the “right” to “respect for personal feelings” and protects “freedom from indignity of any type.”

Of course, many of the smaller liberal arts colleges are even worse. Davidson College bans “inquiries about dating.” So you can’t ask someone on a date at Davidson without violating the speech code. Even if you could, you would not be able to ask your date to go see Guys and Dolls. Use of the word “doll” is considered sexual harassment.

The University of Iowa does the best job of combining the speech code and the sexual harassment policy into a powerful weapon people can use to destroy just about anyone they don’t like: sexual harassment is when “somebody says or does something sexually related that you don’t want them to say or do, regardless of who it is.” Did you get that folks? If you are a student at Iowa and the girl you like has sex with someone else and you get jealous then guess what? You’ve been sexually harassed!

Because the speech code issue is so important and because this book is so important, I will review it in several installments. In the meantime, go to this link and order a copy now. Learn about the American values students are unlearning on campuses all across America today.

 

Author’s Note: On Wednesday, October 24th, I will be debating liberal Rick Perlstein and libertarian Jim Harper at NC State University in Raleigh. The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 6 pm in Dabney Hall.

 



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Academic Malpractice Part 818

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
September 26, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Author’s Note: This is the 818th column I have written since September of 2003. If you are tired of hearing about liberal hypocrisy in academia, please do not read this latest offering. If you like guns, however, keep reading.

Dear Professor Hoplophobe (pseudonym):

First I would like to thank you for your willingness to discuss Second Amendment issues despite our deep disagreement about the scope and applicability of this important constitutional right. The first time we broached the issue, the tenor of our discussion was less than civil. Since then, you have agreed to continue our dialogue and I believe we would both agree that it has been constructive. I enjoy the opportunity to speak with professors from other departments, especially those with different educational and employment backgrounds. I also enjoy the opportunity to challenge political science professors because, in my view, the field focuses too much on the “political” and too little on the “science.”

I would like to start by sharing my concerns about a remark you made in our last conversation. You indicated that in one of your classes there was a vigorous discussion of concealed weapons permits. You summarized the discussion as follows: “We didn’t really get anywhere. I will never change my mind on the issue and I will never change theirs either.”

This statement of yours is problematic for at least three reasons. I dissect each one below:

1. You refuse to consider the evidence of the side you seek to influence. During our first discussion of this issue you asked what evidence I had to support my contention that concealed weapons permits reduce violent crime. I told you there were fifteen refereed scholarly publications supporting my position. I offered to share them with you but you declined. A couple of years later we discussed the issue again. By then, a sixteenth refereed scholarly publication came out supporting my position. I brought this to your attention but to no avail. You expressed no interest in examining the evidence. Today you continue to ignore it while clinging to the position that concealed weapons permits increase violence. This position of yours is not supported by a single refereed publication. I believe it is time for you to either a) review the evidence or b) stop referring to yourself as a “social scientist.” The terms “advocate” or “visionary” are more appropriate for those who deem all contrary evidence to be irrelevant.

2. You base your own opinions entirely on ideology. On more than one occasion you have said “I just don’t like guns.” On another occasion, you added that a world with guns was “just not the kind of world you want to live in.” Well, that is the kind of world you live in. There are guns. And when law-abiding people are allowed to carry them crime goes down. But you do not like the fact that we live in a world where guns are required to maintain civility. You think we should be able to “talk out” our differences. This is because you think people are good and that conflict is a function of misunderstanding or miscommunication. You so cling to this vision that you admit that you “will never change (your) mind on the issue.”

What you fail to understand is that by bitterly clinging to your gun-less religion – and it is a religion – you actually confirm my worldview. You prove that people are so selfish that they will jeopardize the public good just to avoid admitting they are wrong. You can call it arrogance. You can call it pride. You can call it hypocrisy. But I just prefer to call it selfishness. It is confirmation that people are not fundamentally more concerned with others than with themselves. That is precisely why we must have guns. It all goes back to the fallen nature of man.

3. You continue to teach the ideas that are contradicted by the evidence you ignore for ideological reasons. You are entitled to your views. But you also have an obligation to your students. They pay a lot of money to sit in your classes. They are also living out the most vulnerable period of their lives. The data consistently show that people between the ages of 12 and 25 are far more likely to experience violent crime than those below 12 or those over 25. So they need accurate information to make it in this “society,” which you concede is a dangerous place. They need more than your vision of what the world could be or should be. They need to navigate the world as it is. So, please, hear my plea: when a female student of yours asks whether getting her concealed weapons permit will decrease her chances of being raped just tell her what the published evidence says. But telling her the truth implies that at some point you will take an interest in learning what the published evidence says.

When willfully blind professors mislead students about the efficacy of certain policy initiatives, they do more than just a disservice to “society.” They often jeopardize the well-being of the students under their care. This is nothing short of professional malpractice. It should be grounds for the revocation of tenure.

Respectfully,

Mike S. Adams

 



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Ethnocentric Studies

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike Adams
August 18, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Ethnocentrism is under-rated. Most college students are exposed to the concept only if they take a course in Introductory Sociology or if they should chose to major in sociology. Even then, the concept of ethnocentrism is presented as an evil to be extinguished by fostering the value of anti-ethnocentrism.

For those who are not well-versed in the language of sociology, ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture. Since this is a natural human tendency, the task of fostering anti-ethnocentrism is difficult, to say the least. But it is also self-defeating.

Technically speaking, sociologists form a sub-culture with their own set of values, beliefs, and practices. And they are the only sub-culture that is known to promote the value of anti-ethnocentrism. Therefore, when sociologists tell people of other cultures (non-sociologists) that it is bad to judge people of other cultures by the values of their own culture, they are doing just that: judging people of other cultures by the values of their own culture. In fact, the value they impose on others (anti-ethnocentrism) cannot be imposed without engaging in ethnocentrism. It is intellectual Onanism. It produces no fruit.

While anti-ethnocentrism fails the test of internal consistency, its greatest weakness is external. That is to say, it fails when applied to real-world problems – problems outside the realm of theory and abstract sociological jargon. Who can read about the Rape of Nanking or the Nazi Holocaust and remain convinced that we should somehow refrain from judging that which is self-evidently wrong?

Today’s college student is just as intellectually capable as yesterday’s college student. But he (and increasingly she) often suffers from moral atrophy. We need to combat this atrophy by exercising the natural moral reflex. It might not require a whole major in Ethnocentric Studies dedicated to teaching the upside of judging cultures like Nazi Germany. But we should at least consider a course called Introduction to Ethnocentrism. It should be a required course within the Department of Sociology so that no one actually graduates before fully appreciating the necessity of judging other cultures.

On March 7 of 1996, the day I became a former atheist, I had the unique experience of interviewing prisoners inside a filthy prison in Quito, Ecuador. I was appalled by the fact that the prison served rotten meat to prisoners after boiling it in large vats in order to make it edible. In fact, I was so appalled by what I saw that I wrote an expose for an academic human rights journal. In that article, I summarized numerous human rights abuses. Unfortunately, the editor of the journal was a sociologist who was more interested in defending the Ecuadorian culture than in defending the individuals being fed objectively rotten, sub-standard food.

Her name was Michelle Stone, then an Associate Professor of Sociology at Youngstown State University. She told me she liked the article and would publish it. Then she changed her mind and made its publication contingent: I had to remove the portion of the article criticizing the food given to the prisoners. Her exact words were “It isn’t nice to judge the foods of cultures other than your own.”

Eventually, Stone stepped down as editor of that journal. The next editor was forwarded an email from me showing that Stone had gone back on her word. Because he was a psychology professor, not a sociology professor, the new editor was able to recognize the absurdity of Stone’s anti-judgmental judgmentalism. So he over-ruled her and ran the article, which was later read by a congresswoman from Florida. After reading my article, the congresswoman flew down to Ecuador to negotiate the release of a woman who was stuck in an Ecuadorian prison and subjected to inhumane treatment.

It is sad when I reflect on that incident. An article that helped secure the release of an American woman held prisoner without due process almost did not see the light of day. And the sole reason for the delay in publication was that a sociologist had given the war on ethnocentrism greater priority than the war on human suffering. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in the intellectually and morally confused discipline of sociology.

Someone needs to teach future sociologists that the failure to impose judgment results in the failure to remedy injustice. Ironically, the ones most qualified to enlighten them come from a culture other than their own.

 



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Ratio Christi

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August 11, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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In one week, it starts all over again. Thousands of young people will enroll in classes in the sixteen-campus University of North Carolina system. Before the first day of class is over, the professors and administrators will begin the assault on students and their Judeo-Christian values. Parents will have spent their entire lives saving money that will ultimately be used to turn their children against them. Students will unlearn everything they were taught about the foundations of liberty, the basis of morality, and will even begin questioning the very existence of truth. Before long, many parents will realize they have risked bankruptcy funding a legacy of intellectual and moral impoverishment.

I realized the situation was bad when a military officer wrote me a few years ago. While he was off serving his country, his twin teenaged girls were enrolling at Rice University. During “O” week, Rice orientation week, their orientation leader told them it was time to “experiment with their sexual liberty” now that they were off at college and away from their parents. The military officer was outraged over the incident – as he should have been. More parents would be outraged if only they were paying attention.

Later that same semester, I sat through an excruciating graduation speech by a feminist sociologist. She smugly told the parents of graduating seniors that she hoped their children were leaving college with a “different perspective” than the one they brought with them. She said nothing about knowledge during her speech. She spoke only of “perspective” – smugly asserting that hers was better than the one held by the parents who were paying her salary.

If I sound a little edgy when I broach this topic there is good reason for that. I abandoned my faith as an 18 year old college freshman – a mere two months into my first semester of college. It is true that I carried some anger into my freshman year, which fueled that abandonment. But it is also true that I took my first psychology class from an atheist professor who used the classroom to evangelize students.

There may have been a legitimate reason for my psychology professor’s decision to discuss Sigmund Freud’s theory of how man created God, not vice versa. But when he talked about how B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning “explained away” religion it bordered on obsession. The psychology professor who feels compelled to rid students of their faith is no less perverted than the orientation leader who feels compelled to rid students of their chastity.

I eventually made my way back. And reading apologetics played a huge role in my spiritual transformation. For years after that transformation, I wondered why there was no national organization dedicated to bringing resident apologists to campuses in order to establish Christian apologetics groups that would challenge campus atheists.

Then it finally happened. After hearing a speech I gave at Summit Ministries (www.Summit.org) in Colorado, Professor Lonnie Welch of Ohio University invited me to speak at the national conference of Ratio Christi (www.RatioChristi.org)in October of 2011. I did not even know that my friends John Stonestreet of Summit Ministries and ADF attorney Casey Mattox were on the Ratio Christi board.

Speaking at that conference was one of the greatest thrills of my year. During my speech, my friend Frank Turek came in with none other than Josh McDowell. William Dembski and Greg Koukl showed up later for our conference dinner. It was an evening to remember.

While I was there to speak, I was also there to learn. And what I learned was that Ratio Christi is the ideal campus Christian organization. There may be scores of Christian organizations already. But none prior to Ratio Christi were focusing on apologetics training. Such training is desperately needed to keep kids from falling away during college. How can students remain firm in their faith if they are not hearing both sides of the story? And how can they remain grounded if they were never grounded in the first place?

Ratio Christi is dedicated to doing the work that other Christian groups are ignoring. It is also laying the intellectual framework that the church has failed to provide for the last half-century. So it was easy to say “yes” when attorney Aaron Marshall asked me to be the faculty sponsor of the new UNCW Ratio Christi chapter. Aaron will be leaving his law practice in Charlotte and moving to Wilmington to become our new chapter advisor.

In addition to being a chapter sponsor, I am also a financial supporter for Ratio Christi. Throughout the year, I will be sending them 10% of the gross profits from every column I write and every speech I give. If you want to join me, send your donations to:

Ratio Christi
5531 Gardner Drive Erie,
PA 16509

(Aaron Marshall’s account number is 43001 if you want to direct a donation to him).

There is other good news on the anti-indoctrination front. At the end of the school year, Regnery will publish my next book, which is tentatively titled Letters to a Lost Progressive. The book is a collection of 33 letters written by me to a student who lost his way in college. Like our new Ratio Christi chapter, the book is meant to keep young people from following false ideas presented by false teachers. It assumes that ideas have consequences that should not be taken lightly.

I’ll have more to say about the book as the publication date arrives. In the meantime, take a good look at the Ratio Christi website (www.RatioChristi.org). They might make a believer of you. Or make it difficult to make a non-believer out of someone you love.



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