Private College Muffles Liberty Bell, Bans Conservative Student Publication (Whittier College)

Agape Press ^ | 9/26/03 | Jim Brown

[truthandlife]

A California college has ordered a student-run conservative magazine to discontinue publication on campus.

Shortly after publishing its first issue, editors of The Liberty Bell were told by officials at Whittier College that they could not distribute the magazine until it received official approval from the school's liberal-dominated publications board.

Whittier administrators claim their demand is standard procedure. But Liberty Bell editor-in-chief Josh Barnett believes he and his staff were censored because of their conservative viewpoints.

"There are other publications that are structured the same way as ours, run by students, and they don't require any formal approval from the school. They are allowed to distribute and publish as they wish, but ours was singled out to be stopped," Barnett says.

The college magazine's head says Whittier College authorities want the conservative publication suppressed, so they have given the magazine three undesirable alternatives, including allowing them to operate as a subsidiary of the college's student Republican group.

A second option is to set up a formal publication through the school, with the officially prescribed rights and responsibilities of such a publication. But Barnett explains that this official arrangement would cost the student magazine all of its autonomy.

"The problem with that is the administration -- through the publication board, which is a group of students -- would have control over our staff. They [could] choose who our editor-in-chief is, suspend or fire our editor for cause or no cause, and have complete control over all of our funds," Barnett says.

Barnett says the magazine has also been given the option of operating independently of the college. However, he says under this scenario the Liberty Bell staff would be charged with trespassing if they were to distribute the publication on campus, because Whittier is a private school.

The student journalist says he is merely trying to provide an alternative voice for students on a campus replete with left-wing professors. An attorney has offered his services to the Liberty Bell, but Barnett says no formal arrangements have been made to file a lawsuit as yet.

[Mr. Bird]

Didn't Nixon go to Whittier?

[Spirited]

Alternative voices must be silenced unless they are speaking favorably about alternative lifestyles...

[Blood of Tyrants]

So much for the freedom of the press.

[MissAmericanPie]

"There are other publications that are structured the same way as ours, run by students, and they don't require any formal approval from the school. They are allowed to distribute and publish as they wish, but ours was singled out to be stopped," Barnett says.

Big lawsuit...big.

[mewzilla]

Freedom of the press is only for libs.

[truthandlife]

Didn't Nixon go to Whittier?

Give that man a prize!

http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/collections/nixon/aboutnixon.html

While attending Whittier College, he played on the football team and was elected president of the student body. Graduating summa cum laude in 1934, Nixon was awarded a scholarship to attend Duke University Law School. After graduating from Duke in 1937, he returned to Whittier, California, to practice law. While in Whittier, Nixon took an interest in amateur theater and landed the lead role in the play The Dark Tower. It was during this production that he met Thelma Catherine "Pat" Ryan, his future wife.

[Savage Beast]

The left preaches diversity but demands conformity. It preaches freedom but demands license and oppression. Leftists would love the taliban if they could set the rules.

[steve8714]

Nixon was no conservative. Remember wage and price controls?
Nixon was hated only because he was a Republican...no other reason.
The story that he tried to steal an election he already had bagged is ridiculous on its face. The thing the burglars were seeking was evidence of Communist widespread infiltration of the Democrats in order to swing Congressional and local elections and fundraising.
Problem is, so many front orgs are unknown to the public and have high sounding names.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>A California college has ordered a student-run conservative magazine to discontinue publication on campus.

More proof that Naziism is just another form of Left-Wing Socialism.

[shhrubbery!]

Nixon was hated only because he was a Republican...no other reason.

Nixon was hated because he was a Republican. Even liberal so-called Republicans are hated by the Left simply because of the little (R) after their names -- we have only to remember Bob Packwood.

But in Nixon's case there was another reason. The Left harbored an extra special, white-hot hatred for Nixon, because of his successful pursuit of the communist, Alger Hiss.

[Steely Glint]

These guys need to sue the Hell out of Whittier College.

[Mr. Bird]

On what grounds?

[GovernmentShrinker]

First Amendment grounds. The college and its students receive federal funds, and under current law, this obligates them to respect students' free speech rights. Of course, they could give up the right to any federal funding, including GSL eligibility for all students, but it's very difficult for a college to survive that way, and no left leaning college has done it (kinda goes against their political philosophy of government-funded everything, y'know). Hillsdale, Grove City, and a handful of fundamentalist religious colleges are the only no-federal-funding accredited colleges in the U.S.

Whittier will back down on this quickly, as soon as their attorneys explain the simple facts to them.

[Mr. Bird]

I understand that in principle, but we see instances of institutional "censorship" at nearly every college and university in the country. If suing on 1st amendment grounds was a viable option, I would think there would be more litigation. As it is, it seems that only definitive state schools have been subjected to such scrutiny.

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

...the school's liberal-dominated publications board

Ah, yes. The "Ministry of Truth"

[monkeyshine]

A second option is to set up a formal publication through the school, with the officially prescribed rights and responsibilities of such a publication.

Hey I got an idea. Why not let them publish what they want, when they want... and if they libel someone sue them for that. You know, a free market of goods and a free market of ideas, and all that?

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[hobbes1]

Nixon was hated only because he was a Republican...no other reason.

Not Quite. It was Nixons Defense of Hiss, that caused the insane Hatred of the left.

[hobbes1]

OOps! CHAMBERS...DIMBULB.