In the midst of the Obama scandals and the assault on political freedom by the Internal Revenue Service and the NSA, the Obama administration has also been active on college campuses making sure we are all politically correct. In a directive that is applicable to all universities that receive federal funding, the Departments of Justice and Education have issued new guidelines on what constitutes sexual harassment. It now must be defined as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” including “verbal conduct.”
On its face, it seems innocent enough. On the mild side, if someone tells another a dirty joke and someone overhears it and is offended…that is sexual misconduct. If there is a debate on the morality of homosexuality, that is sexual misconduct. If the school reads or performs The Vagina Chronicles, that is sexual harassment. It has also been used to stop pro-live groups from certain activities on campus because it made some students “uncomfortable.”
This overturns a previous policy defined in 2003 which stated sexual harassment must “include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols, or thoughts that some person finds offensive.”
The new policy guidelines were issued in an advisory letter to University of Montana co-opting requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act for notice posting and public comment on all such regulations. Once again the Obama administrative is playing fast and loose with the law to get what it wants be executive decree.
The response from universities has been tepid. Already mired in “hate speech” codes, the associate counsel for the State University of New York (SUNY) stated:
“The Education Department and higher education administrators are well aware of the First Amendment and academic freedom. Encouraging the campus community to report instances of sexual harassment and leaving the evaluation of such reports to designated experts is appropriate and lawful”.
In other words, you can trust the university to make the decision as to whether or not there are free speech violations. Just like the NSA is telling Verizon customers to trust them not to use the mass of information being collected by them to be used inappropriately and only for “national defense.”
A case in point re: trusting university administrations occurred at the SUNY Oswego campus:
“In October 2012, exchange student Alexander Myers was suspended and ordered to vacate his campus residence after emails he sent were alleged to "defame, harass, intimidate, or threaten another individual or group." Myers had contacted three area hockey coaches as research for a class assignment he was writing on SUNY Oswego men's hockey coach Ed Gosek, explaining that "what you say about Mr Gosek does not have to be positive." The next day, Myers received a letter from President Deborah F. Stanley, which placed him on interim suspension and charged with "disruptive behavior," on the grounds that SUNY Oswego policy prohibited emails that "defame, harass, intimidate, or threaten another individual or group." FIRE wrote to Stanley on October 26, 2012, arguing that the charges were blatantly unconstitutional. In response, SUNY dropped the "disruptive behavior" charge, though it found him guilty of "dishonesty" and ordered him to write apology letters to the hockey coaches.” (from article posted on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education web site.)
SUNY was publicly chastised by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and backed down from its position dropping all charges. Nevertheless, America…wake up to what these fascists and thought control people are doing to this country.
Does anyone see a pattern here?
(THE ABOVE IS BASED ON ARTICLES APPEARING ON THE WEBSITE OF FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION AND WASHINGTON FREE BEACON)
No comments:
Post a Comment