The forces of political correctness once vowed that, should they ever take over, their free expression on all kinds of issues — from gay rights to amnesty for illegals to space aliens inspiring the pyramids of ancient Egypt — would no longer be censored.<\/p>\n
Censored? Heck, spouting the PC line is now MANDATORY, as many a professor lately hauled before a college Star Chamber on charges of having \u201cgiven offense\u201d now learns.<\/p>\n
Internationally renowned Austrian economic professor Hans-Herman Hoppe used a standard textbook example of investment time preferences in a classroom lecture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a few years back, pointing out gay couples often invest with shorter time horizons, since they are less likely to have children to profit from investments that mature after they\u2019re gone. A gay students filed a complaint — initially with the benefit of anonymity.<\/p>\n
At this next lecture, Mr. Hoppe apologized. The student complained that the APOLOGY offended him. UNLV\u2019s diversity police wanted Professor Hoppe to give up his next raise and his next sabbatical in penance. They backed down when Mr. Hoppe hired a lawyer and went public. Needless to say, Hans-Herman Hoppe is no longer at UNLV, where benighted Keynesianism again reigns unperturbed, teaching Nevada\u2019s youth that Tim \u201cTax Cheat\u201d Geithner\u2019s plan to print billions more greenbacks and use them buy Treasury bonds is bound to work out just fine.<\/p>\n
No, the PC forces are certainly not proving themselves very \u201ctolerant\u201d when it comes to people who want to talk about things that don\u2019t meet with THEIR approval.<\/p>\n
A student who wants to form a gun-rights group at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) in Pittsburgh has been threatened with disciplinary action for her efforts, reports the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).<\/p>\n
Student Christine Brashier reports administrators banned her informational pamphlets, ordered her to destroy all copies of them, and told her that further \u201cacademic misconduct\u201d would not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cCCAC has demonstrated a shocking lack of respect for the rights of free speech and free association,\u201d FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said in a May 27 release. \u201cAcross the country, students are increasingly denied the First Amendment right to debate the Second Amendment. At CCAC, this censorship trend has reached a new low.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April, Ms. Brashier created pamphlets to distribute to her classmates encouraging them to join her in forming a chapter of the national Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) organization at the college. The handbill states that the group \u201csupports the legalization of concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses.\u201d She personally distributed copies of the flyer, which identified her as a \u201ccampus leader\u201d of the effort to start the chapter.<\/p>\n
On April 24, Jean Snider, Student Development Specialist at CCAC\u2019s Allegheny Campus, summoned Ms. Brashier to a meeting that day with Snider and Yvonne Burns, Dean of Student Development. According to Ms. Brashier, the deans told her that passing out her non-commercial pamphlets was prohibited as \u201csolicitation.\u201d Trying to \u201csell\u201d other students on the idea of the organization was prohibited, they claimed.<\/p>\n
College officials told Ms. Brashier that the college must pre-approve any distribution of literature to fellow students, and that pamphlets like hers would not be approved, even insisting she destroy all copies of her flier.<\/p>\n
The young lady reports that she was also interrogated about whether she owned a licensed firearm and had ever brought it to campus (she has not), and whether she carries a concealed firearm off campus.<\/p>\n
Dean Burns reportedly said \u201cYou may want to discuss this topic but the college does not, and you cannot make us.\u201d Ms. Brashier was then told to cease all activities related to her involvement with SCCC at the college; that such \u201cacademic misconduct\u201d would not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
FIRE wrote CCAC President Alex Johnson on April 29 about these violations of Ms. Brashier\u2019s First Amendment speech and association rights, pointing out that \u201cher free speech in no way constituted solicitation, that CCAC is obligated to permit students to distribute literature and may not ban it on the basis of viewpoint or content, and that if CCAC recognizes student organizations at all, it must recognize an organization that supports concealed carry on campus.\u201d FIRE requested a response by May 13; officials responded only by promising a reply from either the college or the Allegheny County Solicitor\u2019s office at some \u201creasonable\u201d future time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is true that trying to \u2018sell\u2019 students on an idea is prohibited as a matter of solicitation, virtually the entire enterprise of the college is prohibited,\u201d points out Robert Shibley, FIRE Vice President. \u201cAll persuasive speech would have to be pre-approved by the college. CCAC must end this unjustified assault on its students\u2019 rights immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
This incident is the worst and latest in a significant trend of punishing students for debating the Second Amendment in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings (where students died because they were denied the right to carry arms to defend themselves), FIRE reports. At Central Connecticut State University, after a student gave a class presentation about concealed firearms on campus, his professor called the police. At Hamline University, a student was suspended — pending a mental health evaluation! — after he advocated in an e-mail for concealed weapons on campus.<\/p>\n
The SCCC chapter at Tarrant County College in Texas has been prohibited, two years in a row, from holding an \u201cempty holster protest.\u201d At Lone Star College near Houston, the Young Conservatives of Texas were censored and threatened with de-listing when they distributed a humorous flyer listing \u201cTop Ten Gun Safety Tips,\u201d the free-speech group reports. Lone Star\u2019s general counsel suggested that even a \u201cmention of firearms and weapons\u201d is inherently a \u201cmaterial interference\u201d with the school\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n