Posted on 10/29/2004 1:34:35 PM PDT by MaineRepublic
DURHAM — Frustrated by students in his dorm taking the elevator up and down one or two floors, University of New Hampshire sophomore Timothy Garneau thought he had the perfect solution.
The Berlin native decided to post fliers throughout his dorm, Stoke Hall, joking that freshman women could lose the "Freshmen 15" by taking the stairs instead of using the elevator.
Now, Garneau, 20, is living in his Ford Contour in the student parking lot for the rest of the semester after university officials evicted him from the dorm when they found him guilty of violating policies on affirmative action, harassment and disorderly conduct, according to a civil liberties organization.
In addition, judicial affairs officials sentenced the student to mandatory counseling and probation.
"This is a ridiculous and outrageous case," said David French of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an organization defending the student. "The flier was an obvious joke and jokes are protected under the First Amendment, but the University of New Hampshire believes if a person gets their feelings hurt, then someone must be punished."
Garneau said he and his parents cannot afford off-campus housing rent this semester, but he has a commitment for off-campus housing next semester.
Now, with no dorm room as a base, the pre-law student eats his meals in the dining hall, showers at the gym and studies at the library.
"The whole point of reaching out to FIRE (the civil liberties group) was to get back in the dorms and get back in the flow and concentrate on my academics," he said. "This has taken a lot of stress and time."
The university declined to comment on the incident citing federal student privacy laws.
Garneau posted the fliers shortly after school started on Sept. 3. The fliers include a picture of a women in workout gear with the following message: "9 out of 10 freshman girls gain 10 - 15 pounds. But there is something you can do about it. If u live below the 6th floor takes the stairs. Not only will u feel better about yourself but you will also be saving us time and wont be sore on the eyes."
Two hours after Garneau posted the fliers, a resident assistant at Stoke Hall removed them all.
Then, Brad Williams, the dorm’s resident director, approached Garneau and accused him of hanging the fliers. Garneau initially denied it, but later recanted and was charged with acts of dishonesty, violating affirmative action policies, harassment and disorderly conduct.
Following the incident, Garneau wrote a public apology for unintentionally offending others in his dorm.
Garneau said he offered to apologize in person to anyone who was offended by the fliers.
A majority of those who came to him and told them the poster was funny were women, he added.
But on Oct. 8, the Judicial Affairs Office at the university found Garneau guilty of all charges, sentenced him to immediate expulsion from student housing and put him on probation through May 30, 2006.
He was also required to meet with a counselor to discuss his actions, write a 3,000-word reflection paper about the session and write a letter of apology to residents of Stokes Hall.
Garneau contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education prior to his appeal, which was later denied on Oct. 24.
On Oct. 22, the organization wrote a letter to UNH President Ann Weaver Hart asking her to reverse the university’s decision because their actions were unlawful.
"Forcing a student out of housing for posting a satirical flier is both outrageous and unlawful," wrote Greg Lukianoff, the organization’s director of legal and public advocacy. "It is appalling that the University of New Hampshire would violate one of its own student’s moral, constitutional, and indeed, human rights through these disciplinary actions."
Satire, jokes and even highly offensive material is protected under the First Amendment, most notably by the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court case, Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell, according to the civil liberties group.
The court ruled the magazine was protected under the First Amendment when a cartoon suggested Falwell lost his virginity in a drunken encounter with his mother in an outhouse.
"It is so far from the cartoon at issue in the Falwell case. This is not even a close case and the university chose to put extreme sanctions on him," French said.
The university may have also misinterpreted federal sexual harassment laws, French said.
Citing a letter from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, the office recognized "that the offensiveness of a particular expression, standing alone, is not a legal basis to establish a hostile environment."
To qualify as sexual harassment, the pattern of harassment must be sufficiently serious as to limit or deny a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the educational process, the letter said.
The civil liberties group is asking the university to affirm Garneau’s opinions are protected under the First Amendment, rescind all of the current sanctions, remove any record of this incident from his file and guarantee Garneau will endure no further punishment.
If the university does not comply, French said the organization will then proceed to the next step, filing a lawsuit in federal court.
French believes the message the university sent in this situation is a chilling one, basically telling students one point of view is permissible on campus and it is the university’s point of view.
"Students are punished whenever they write or say anything that another students find offensive," French said. "(Universities) misuse diversity policies, affirmative action policies and harassment policies to punish the speech they don’t like."
Memo to self: Print this out and cross UNH off of HS kid's college app list.
If I were in college today, i'd have been crucified, dead, buried, dug up and crucified again for the way I acted there 25 years ago.
PC Nazis to the Nth degree.
LOL.....I laughed for 5 minutes after reading this. The kid shouldn't have been evicted, good Lord! Have we become so insane about "PC" in this country that a JOKE is now actionable?
I know a lot of freshmen who would have loved the right to live off-campus, btw, which is kind of beside the point, but true nonetheless.
Watch. Next semester, the university will spend $100,000 to come up with a way to encourage students to exercise more.
The Totalitarian Left is at it again....
This is what happens when RATs take over. If Kerry wins, we can expect this silencing and punishment of free speech to expand all over the place, and worse. Hill will get us and take away everything we hold dear.
Besides, I've seen some of the freshmen these days. It's more like the Freshman 150 for some of them!
Yep.
My youngest (9th grade) said the pity about all of this PC stuff was "that everyone was so uptight, and no one can take a joke." He gets it.
Doesn't compassion for the homeless trump compassion for the potentially chubby in the brave new PC world?
Why didn't they go get some quotes for this article from the fat-assed freshwomen?
Some of us who were college kids just a short time ago "crucified, dead, buried, dug up and crucified again for the way" we acted for doing nothing more than pulling jokes.
A friend of mine got a $10K plus settlement out of CMU for it.
Anyone care to guess the average weight of those running the Judicial Affairs Office?
Not to mention that this is a student (customer) paying for his education-- not an employee getting paid to comply with stupid rules.
If WalMart treated its customers like the government schools treat their students, it would soon fold: ATTENTION SECURITY! A CHILD DROPPED A GUM WRAPPER IN AISLE 13! PLEASE ESCORT HIM TO THE DOOR AND BE SURE TO TAKE HIS MONEY FIRST!
When free men can't be sure of what they can say, the only people who can be free of speech are those who are in "The Party".
Oh, Freshman 15 means "dorm-butt," aka "OBD" (Oregon butt disease).
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