Campus Group Pressures Alabama U. Into Lifting Dixie Flag Ban

Worthy News ^ | October 16, 2003 | Jim Brown

[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.

[PAR35]

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.

It has nothing to do with property values - they don't want you to block the mind control rays. You might want to smoke them out by wearing a tin-foil hat when you walk around the neighborhood. You'll see a reaction if you watch their eyes closely.

[Tax-chick]

Wow, I hadn't even thought of that! I've been hearing these voices saying, "It's time to plant fall annuals! You need curtains on those French doors! Get those bicycles in the garage and put the door down!" I thought my husband had done something with the computer ... time to head to Sam's for the foil!

[stand watie]

wrong answer. there is a federal court decision from the 1960s that states that universities & colleges MAY NOT interfere with such 1st amendment issues.

free dixie,sw

[Tax-chick]

federal court decision from the 1960s

'Nuff said, don't you think? :-) The federal courts have no compunction about trampling on property rights, but that doesn't make it Constitutionally correct, does it? I know I'm being a bore; I was just at a Constitutional law seminar a week ago, and I'm still "processing."

Anyway, it's swell about the flags, and I'm glad the students stood up to the censors.

[stand watie]

no institution of higher learning may interfere with the exercise of a student's FIRST AMENDMENT rights, if they accept federal funds; that imVho, is a GOOD THING!

free dixie,sw

[STONEWALLS]

.....thanks for the post......lately I've been encouraged by interest in the flag by young folks.....last Saturday I went to a farm auction on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.....I saw at least 4 or 5 Confederate flags in the form of bumper stickers, belt buckles, tee-shirts; do rags ect........all young people too......I expect they see thru the politically correct bullsh*t propaganda they've been spoon fed in the public schools and they're showing their defiance.......more power to 'em.

[stand watie]

let's hope!

free dixie,sw

[Tax-chick]

It could be fun to discuss the definition and expansion of "First Amendment Rights," but it's off the topic so I won't.

You have a great day defending the South :-).

Deo Vindice,
Xy

[Guillermo]

Imagine if a University tried to ban a Rainbow flag...

[wardaddy]

I despise how homo-activists have appropriated the rainbow symbol which otherwise was often used as simply either a Christian or innocuous symbol for their own.

The left turns everything upside down.

[bourbon]

good point. It's even weirder if you consider that the rainbow flag is linked to the Stonewall riots which occured when some NYC drag-queens were celebrating Judy "Over the Rainbow" Garland's birthday.

I read a Mark Steyn column recently in which he was tired of being sterotyped as gay b/c he liked show tunes. He made the insightful observation that the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals of the 40s-60s were the "thruway of American culture" whereas the Stephen Sondheim musicals of the 70s and 80s were nothing but a trite "gay ghetto."

You're right. It really is sad how the left distorts and destroys things. Another interesting example would be the Confederate flag. During the 70s, the rest of the country viewed the confederate flag as a quaint piece of Americana. Now it's a "racist symbol of hate."

[bourbon]

AL news ping.

[wardaddy]

Yes...the CBF is about the most extreme example of their "success".

They have learned well from their instructor Uncle Joe.

[STONEWALLS]

"They have learned well from their instructor Uncle Joe."

....that's a good point......with the decline of the trade movement in the U.S. the Marxists had to find a new class of "opressed"......besides, they weren't doing too well with the American working class anyways........they've done very well in creating a new "opressed" class however.... gays; blacks; native americans; women; hispanics; illegal immigrants ect.......next up for inclusion into victimhood....the over weight.

[stand watie]

Deo Vindict.

free dixie,sw

[Colt .45]

I spent 20 years on Active Duty protecting people's rights, now I'm exercising mine. I have a bumper sticker on my truck that has the CBF on it with the phrase "Keep it Flying". I've had a few compliments on it, and nothing negative so far. I wear a "CS" belt buckle and have had no negative remarks made about it as of yet. I live in the great State of Nevada and I think a lot of my fellow citizens are conservative in nature. We doan need no stinkin Political Correctness around here! And I preserve the spirit of rebellion against any form of tyranny over man. That same spirit that was born and illustrated so eloquently on July 4th, 1776 in the Declaration of Independence. -

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

And as General Robert E. Lee said - " Duty is the most sublime word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less. "