Google is very easily accessible. The Foundation for Individual Rights for Education is a group that defends students and educators who have had their free speech and due process rights violated. They do everything from writing articles to bring attention, to tabulating instances of censorship, to writing letters to schools informing them of violations, to representing students and professors in court. They do great work that has benefitted tons of individuals and helped immensely in the never ending fight to preserve freedom of expression. They have limited resources, so I don't imagine they like wasting time. I grabbed most of those examples from that site, and you are free to do your own research. I recommend you spend a lot of time browsing their site though. It's eye opening.

She wasn't fired, she's still working. SAFESPACES RUN AMOK!

It's pretty unusual to have a workplace where you can swear at customers and be unprofessional any time you please.

Oh, of course. This is an example of the classic "Gish gallop," where you spam the discussion with countless terrible arguments. When one argument gets destroyed, you spam the thread with dozens more. No one has the patience to keep up with your 40-hour posting binges, so you can always claim victory through sheer volume:

The magic of the internet makes this tactic even easier. You can just copypasta without even reading the articles. But I'm not going to play this game. Let's focus on the swearing professor. Do you think a college shouldn't be able to fire a tenure-track prof who doesn't meet their basic standards of decorum? And WTF does this incident have to do with either the 1st amendment or "safe spaces?"

I am kind of grunching here but is this the thread-wide accepted position on the First Amendment? That only Congress is even capable of violating any first amendment rights?

As originally written, I think that's correct, but subsequent to the 14th amendment my understanding is that 1st amendment restrictions apply to the entirety of the federal and state (edit: and local, to be clear) governments.

Hey look, guilty as charged, sort of. Several of these I simply went to the FIRE websight, searched, read the paragraph describing the issue, and linked it. Many of them appear indicative of the clamping down on speech and potential chilling effect on critical thought in our higher ed system described in many of the articles previously posted. FIRE has decided to devote resources to defending this one, but maybe it's nothing. There are several examples in there where I've done much more research.

We can go through this one if you like, try and get to the bottom of it. As long as your willing to let me pick the next one. Agreed?

https://www.thefire.org/cases/rowan-...ourse-content/
There's no indication any of the students were "cursed out," only that they took offense. So, lets dig deeper. Do you students should get offended if their profs use a bit of colorful language, or show them a few racey videos? And if a few do, is that a big deal? Would it really surprise you, considering what we've seen on campus lately, if this were really a situation where a few ultra sensitive left or right wing activists with ideological grudges rallied to get their prof fired?

And employees and actors thereof.

And while people often use the terms "free speech" and "first amendment rights" interchangeably they are not the same thing. The entirety of your rights to freedom of speech are not entailed in the first amendment. That is simply the LEAST that you are entitled to.

And even further, freedom of speech is important as a philosophical concept as well, not simply as a legal one. There are good reasons that is is an important check on government power, but government isnt like the only "thing" we should care about checking.

It's not even just about the First Amendment, although we should understand why it is such an important constitutional right. It's because freedom of expression is the foundation of liberal ideals. Even private institutions should provide protection for it, and most private schools even claim to in their bylaws, and advertise that in their promotional material. Sometimes FIRE takes private institutions to task, challenging them on there own bylaws under contract law.

Yeah I ninja edited something to that effect, but I definitely agree. Its the first amendment to the Constitution BECAUSE its a fundamentally important concept to a free society, not the other way around. It isnt some burdensome thing that we, unfortunately, just MUST follow because its too hard to get amendments changed.

I'm not finding much on this first fired professor, Dawn Tawwater. Looks like she's got a pretty favorable rating at her new job though, 4.5/5 from students on this site.
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/Show...jsp?tid=960665

Apparently she's hot too, lol.

Fold, you get that you just quoted a facebook post of some kid...right? And then REPOSTED it when we didn't comment. And then said it was a "good post".

WHAT.THE.**** is wrong with you. What part of you compells you to find stupid things kids say on facebook on seemingly this one and only one topic?

Uke, you keep coming at foldn with this again and again, he's not going to give you a succinct answer because he would have already if he had a good one. You (and the rest of us) have to come to our own conclusions why.

Because this is just a continuation of a near two year troll of the politics forum by FoldN?

We know that several students complained, and the administration thought their complaints were valid enough to take action.

If professors are behaving in a manner that's completely unprofessional, the college has every right to show them the door. It's weird that you seem to think "free speech" means I get to cuss my boss out and never get fired. It's also weird that you dismiss this as "a bit of colorful language" when you have no idea what was said, how often, what the context was, etc. Your article is very light on details.

Again, it was the administration that ultimately took action and not the students. It's possible they made a poor decision, but nothing in your link supports that theory. But yes, it is a big deal if professors are being genuinely offensive *******s and interfere with the mission of the college.

If it wasn't obvious already, it's pretty clear here that you have zero intention of having an honest discussion. You don't know what was even said or what exactly the prof did, but you're framing the students as "oversensitive" over "a bit of colorful language." It's pretty disingenuous to do that without having the slightest clue what happened. It's blatant high-frequency trolling and you should have been banned years ago. Go back to SMP.

Because it is fundamentally the correct criticism. Like this is what happens over and over. Foldn posts a Facebook post a black student made that is stupid. What are we supposed to do? Agree that a black student somewhere said something stupid on Facebook? Pointing out how ridiculous his posting pattern is is just the logical coufse

I actually don't know, I was drunk and popping off. I haven't studied 1A law. But, how could the Supreme Court violate the first Amendment? It makes no laws, and it is the final arbiter of what the constitution means.

You could just decide he's concern trolling for his own amusement, and that there's something wrong with him upstairs for doing so. I think he just stumbled upon/came across this subject at some point, and something about it gives him pleasure and stimulation and has him infatuated with this thread.

If he were slipped one of those truth serums from the movies I think you would be let down by his answer. "I think it's funny to bump this thread! I'm kind of a simpleton who has to hang on like a dog with a bone to this minor topic to get my kicks and fulfillment."

How could Alabama? It isnt "Congress."

The 14th amendment.

This is basically exactly what I think.

Like we are trolling what you term "the simpleton" who thinks he is being so clever and rekking everyone by linking to stupid facebook posts of black college students.

So why on earth do you have your knickers in a knot? Can't we laugh at him for this?

It looks like the firing of Dawn Tawwater for "offensive speech" is a dead end for now, until more information comes out. Still seems pretty strange to me. Looks like some of you, inexplicably, seem confused why revelations that the private Facebook "support group" for women of color doubled as a place students were routinely spreading hatred is embarrassing and should be a blow to the safe space movement on campus.

Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone with the next example, because there is plenty of information on it. It involves a professor forced to resign from Claremont McKenna College, which also happens to be one of the colleges served by The Claremont Independent, who broke the story of the WOC "support group".

Dean of Students Spellman was forced to resign for writing a letter that offended students at Claremont:
http://claremontindependent.com/cmc-...-resignations/



The students were upset because she wrote, "especially those who don't fit into our CMC mold." And in addition to a lot of other microaggressive speech they've endured over their time there, the students were upset because of a photo taken at a halloween party of cultural appropriation:



A student went on hunger strike.
Here you can view the demonstration at the college. It's long but there's no way to get a better view of the students grievances, which they take turns airing out.



It's all very disturbing to me, as these students are in so much emotional pain. It's clear the president, who comes out to address them at about 18:00, is also very concerned. They are not easy on him, holding his feet to the fire, refusing to give him a megaphone, and demanding he yell if he's serious. At about 43:30 there's an apology from Dean Spellman, who attempts to explain how her phrasing was not meant to offend, that she had previously visited with many grieving students who claimed they didn't fit in, and she was only trying to reach out to them.

By the end of the rally, one of the students' major demands was met: a temporary safe space for people of color with a guarantee of a permanent safe space in the very near future. The next day another demand was met: Dean Spellman resigned.
http://claremontindependent.com/dean...udent-protest/

Days later there were support groups organizing events in spaces which were designated only for people of color.
http://claremontindependent.com/safe...mont-colleges/
One of those groups was the 5C Students of Color Alliance.



It turns out the Facebook group with 1100 subscribers of only women of color who recently pulled the plug after finding out hateful posts were leaked to The Claremont Independent was organized and run by the 5C Students of Color Alliance, including many student leaders and staff members from Claremont and surrounding colleges.
http://claremontindependent.com/3473-2/

I don't know how much more of this I'll need to explain, but so far it all looks very bad to me.

No

I literally didn't read that but I guarantee it's FoldN repeating an example he forgot he already found lol.

You're not trolling him by way of your straightforward, honest questions, but he's certainly trolling you. A simpleton. That's embarrassing.

Seriously FoldN your concern for securing a future for white children is palpable but have you considered starting over from square one and developing a goddamn thesis?

This thread as a livejournal for random articles you discover tangentially related to your generalized hatred for minorities speaking out isn't really a great use of electrons.