Posted on 10/16/2003 9:03:51 AM PDT by Between the Lines
A Southern U.S. university is no longer prohibiting the display of Confederate flags from students' dormitory windows.
This past summer, the University of Alabama threatened to pass a regulation banning a student's Confederate Flag display in his dorm room. But when the Alabama Scholars Association (ASA), a campus chapter of a national organization that promotes academic freedom, accused the school of unlawfully targeting a single group, the school responded by passing a blanket ban on all window displays in student dormitories.
ASA director Charles Nuckolls says his organization then wrote a letter informing the University of Alabama that it was violating the free-speech rights of students. And to bolster their point, the group asked their student friends in the same dormitory and in others to place the United States flag in their windows.
Nuckolls says the ASA virtually "dared the university to enforce its regulation by coming in and removing the American flag. If they had done so, of course, it would have been a public relations disaster for the university."
University officials recognized that fact and "immediately backed down," Nuckolls says, thus proving his belief that the administration's attempt to stifle students' free expression was the result of something more than mere political correctness. The ASA's director says the university is a business, and its current president, Robert Witt, is primarily a businessman.
"What [Witt] wants to do is increase enrollment by 5,000 students; he sees the display of a controversial symbol as inimical to his quest to increase enrollment. It's a simple marketing decision," Nuckolls says.
And that, he explains, is how the ASA attacked the free speech-suppressing regulation -- by realizing that business concerns were at the heart of the university's decision to rule out controversial symbols. "We showed [the administration] that the public relations damage of enforcing that regulation would be far worse," Nuckolls says.
The University of Alabama administrators seem to have gotten the message. The regulation banning window displays has been "indefinitely tabled," which suggests that it is essentially dead. The school's Dean of Students has vowed personally to work to protect the First Amendment on campus.
for the TRUE CAUSE,sw
the school responded by passing a blanket ban on all window displays in student dormitories. ASA director Charles Nuckolls says his organization then wrote a letter informing the University of Alabama that it was violating the free-speech rights of students.
Students don't have much property right in a dorm room/building - more like hotel room guests than regular apartment tenants - and hanging things from the windows of someone else's property is quite a stretch as a free speech right. Many housing occupants - private renters, condo owners, and even residents of my tidy subdivision - have contractual restrictions on what they can have on or around their property.
IMO, the university would be legally entitled to have a universal "nothing out the windows" rule. If dorm residents don't agree with the facilities' rules, they can move out.
the school responded by passing a blanket ban on all window displays in student dormitories. ASA director Charles Nuckolls says his organization then wrote a letter informing the University of Alabama that it was violating the free-speech rights of students.
Students don't have much property right in a dorm room/building - more like hotel room guests than regular apartment tenants - and hanging things from the windows of someone else's property is quite a stretch as a free speech right. Many housing occupants - private renters, condo owners, and even residents of my tidy subdivision - have contractual restrictions on what they can have on or around their property.
IMO, the university would be legally entitled to have a universal "nothing out the windows" rule. If dorm residents don't agree with the facilities' rules, they can move out.
And IMO, folks should be required to read tha article before commenting on it...
<grin>
In fact, there was nothing said about things hanging OUT the windows. The article said
<quote>...the group asked their student friends in the same dormitory and in others to place the United States flag in their windows.</quote>
****
Students don't have much property right in a dorm room/building - more like hotel room guests than regular apartment tenants - and hanging things in the windows of someone else's property is quite a stretch as a free speech right. Many housing occupants - private renters, condo owners, and even residents of my tidy subdivision - have contractual restrictions on what they can have in, on, or around their property.
IMO, the university would be legally entitled to have a universal "nothing except university-issue curtains in the windows" rule. If dorm residents don't agree with the facilities' rules, they can move out. For example, my subdivision does not allow owners to cover the interior of windows with aluminum foil, because this may affect the value of other owners' properties.
Thank you Burbon also, for the link and introduction to the ASA.
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