Posted on 11/12/2015 3:44:31 AM PST by Timber Rattler
An innocent man lost his job. Racial tensions are at an all time high. Faculty members refuse to acknowledge students' First Amendment rights. Campus authorities are policing speech.
This is my reality as a student at the University of Missouri.
I believe in liberty for all people, but the current climate on campus runs counter to that. Some friends tell me they are afraid to voice their opinions lest they come under fire from the administration or peers - or the police.
The University of Missouri police department sent an email urging students to report offensive or hurtful speech - not because it is illegal - but so the Office of Student Conduct could take disciplinary action against these students.
Several of us are afraid to disagree with other students, who in turn may report us to the authorities so we can be "dealt with." Many students have told me they are also afraid to speak out against the protest narrative, afraid they will be called "racist" and become campus pariahs.
What's lost is honest dialogue.
Those of us who want to support on some level the protesters' pain bristle at their disregard for the First Amendment and freedom of the press and willingness to listen to others.
The "safe space" built at Mizzou means dissenting voices are decried as "racist," "offensive" or "hurtful." Students face diversity reeducation, pending expulsion.
Speech on my campus has become limited, not just on the quad. Grad students refuse to dissent from the opinions of liberal professors lest they lose their position, for example.
This is not an Orwellian dystopian novel - this is the climate of the University of Missouri, and it's the reality that I, and my fellow students, face every day.
Despite this, some of us will not be silenced. We refuse to yield our rights. We will fight back against censorship and intimidation.
Mizzou's Young Americans for Liberty will host a "Free Speech Wall" on campus on Wednesday, Nov. 11, where students can express their feelings or concerns without fear of repercussions or administrative backlash.
A fitting tribute, considering Veterans Day is a time during which we honor those who have dedicated their lives to protecting our rights. The very rights which are being trampled by the "authorities" at the University of Missouri.
Later this week we will also host a free speech forum with the reporter who was harassed by Professor Melissa Click in response to the rampant free speech abuses on campus. We aim to educate students, and perhaps faculty, about the importance of free speech on campus.
Freedom is a necessary condition for love, and only love can overcome the hatred and anger that festers within this campus community. Hate cannot be shouted and beaten out of a person; love cannot be "reeducated" into a person.
Racism can and should be addressed organically by students – but not at the expense of an honest discussion that includes all voices and all viewpoints.
There is more than one narrative.
Ian Paris is a senior at the University of Missouri majoring in political science and president of Mizzou Young Americans for Liberty.
Tactically and short term I would use their terminology against the thought police.
This kid is going to suffer big-time for speaking out.
He’s got guts, so there is hope.
Hell hath no fury as a radical Liberal’s intolerant scorn.
Honest dialog with a mob?
‘There is more than one narrative.’
LOL, no, no there isn’t. In the liberal world there’s only ONE view point. Anything counter to that gets squashed, violently is ncessary. Liberals arent about compromise, fair play or any of that rot. No, its all about control, dominance and force.
Bump. Kudos to him and the Young Americans for Liberty.
I wonder how the Free Speech Wall went over yesterday?
White students should use te same tactics that were used to cause this situation. Any time a black student use the N word in conversation with anothe black student, report it as offensive. if nothing is done threaen to boycott shool sports activities or go on hungerr strike. Threaten a massive boycott of the school itself and threaten to go to another school.
see how they like the reverse race cars.
sorry about the typos. ding this on my phone
That is why we aren’t a Democracy. Individualism is destroyed by the mobocracy. Reason is not possible in a “mob”....it is all irrational (emotion)—exactly like a lynch mob.
We are becoming exactly like Germany in 1935.
Reason (Just Law) has been ejected for fascism/socialism (emotions rule).
How did the police get student email addresses? Was there a subpoena? A warrant?
Why is the police inserting themselves in university-student affairs if there is no crime?
-PJ
What 'racism'?
“afraid they will be called “racist”
How about coward, sissy or spineless. That’s ok but racist?
%99 of the time the true racist is the accuser simply for
lack of knowledge or just too stupid to understand what the
word means. It’s the ignorant persons trump card and the
only epithet that seems to hurt whitey.
Only racists accuse other people of being racists. Normal,
non-racists people have no use for the word.
Go to Fort Lauderdale.
It's the off season and they could use the business. Boycott the U. Show them who actually pays the bills.
Let them have their "Utopia". Just take your stuff with you. Chances are it will be burned or looted by the usual freedom loving suspects.
If all the people who don't want to live in this dystopian version of a center for academic pursuit walk, the campus will become a ghost town.
Show them the future.
White students should transfer out of that liberal PC hellhole en masse.
How you liking your “hope and change”?
Students are routinely assigned a college or university email address as part of the enrollment process. Its primary use is communication with instructors and students about class assignments, meeting locations, paper submissions, etc. through some educational application like “Blackboard.”
Administrators and police have access to individual and collective email addresses as part of their need to administer the institution and post security-related notifications (like, unfortunately, active-shooter alerts). Police departments also now routinely monitor and post to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
The police posting to the students probably went out on the university email system as a collective message to everybody (faculty and students alike) and was also posted to the social media sites that students are known to monitor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.