Free Republic

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. (CNN/Ewa Roman, WHP) — Vending machines at one university don’t just dispense soda and snacks, they sell the morning-after pill. Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania is providing its students easy access to the pill. Students there can simply walk into a room inside the health center and get Plan B emergency contraception from a vending machine.

Shippensburg group claims rights violated Thursday, May 08, 2008 BY JOHN BEAUGE For The Patriot-News A campus religious group claims Shippensburg University is violating its right to free speech by threatening its student organization status, in part because the group requires its president to be a man. The Christian Fellowship of Shippensburg University, in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, accused the school of violating terms of a 2004 settlement in a different case that also involved the right to free speech. In that case, two students claimed the university's student code of conduct improperly barred students from such activities as...

It is extremely challenging for conservative college students to pop the bubble of political correctness that surrounds them, and when they do speak, you seldom hear about it. But I have good news for you. More and more students are refusing to take assaults on family values sitting down. For example, on April 15, a young group of College Republicans at Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania, organized a day of support for traditional marriage. Looking for reinforcements, the College Republicans invited members of TFP Student Action to join in their efforts. Shippensburg College Republicans had a table inside the CUB Great Hall...

A Pennsylvania university has agreed to repeal its controversial speech code. Back in September, a federal judge declared most of Shippensburg University's cultural diversity project and code of conduct unconstitutional. The school had banned what it called "acts of intolerance," which could include denigrating a person on the basis of creed. However, after being sued the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Shippensburg agreed to drop that and other provisions that stifled free speech. FIRE attorney David French says the settlement is a major victory for free speech. "The chilling effect of the speech code is now removed," the...

<p>A Pennsylvania college has revised a portion of its student-speech policy that critics said violated free speech and was at the center of a federal lawsuit filed by current and former students.</p> <p>The Shippensburg University's Council of Trustees changed some wording in its Student Code of Conduct two weeks ago after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of some provisions.</p>

  You would think nobody would object to a poster denouncing arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden. But Pennsylvania's Shippensburg University did.The school said the poster violated a university code prohibiting "acts of intolerance," including racist, sexist and homophobic speech.It wasn't clear where the anti-Osama poster fit into this, but it no longer matters. The school is changing the code after a ruling by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, who said the restrictions "could certainly be used to truncate debate and free expression by students."  

<p>Most college presidents argue that their campuses and classrooms encourage the free exchange of ideas. Where else but here, they say, can difficult issues be debated?</p> <p>But as campus officials look for ways to accommodate the growing diversity of their student bodies, an increasingly vocal number of students — most of them white and predominantly conservative or Christian — say there is little room for their opinions and beliefs.</p>

A federal judge has enjoined Shippensburg University from enforcing key provisions of a speech code that bars all "acts of intolerance" -- including racist, sexist and homophobic speech -- after finding that the Pennsylvania university failed to show that the code was needed to protect students' rights or to avoid disruption of the educational process. In his 32-page opinion in Bair v. Shippensburg University, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III of the Middle District of Pennsylvania found that while the speech code was "obviously well-intentioned," it simply went too far in attempting to regulate the speech of adult students....

<p>A federal judge told a Pennsylvania college Thursday it couldn't enforce a school code that could violate its students' First Amendment rights.</p> <p>Judge John E. Jones II temporarily barred officials at Shippensburg University from implementing some provisions from the school's Student Code of Conduct, which urges students to take views that don't antagonize others and "mirror the official views of the administration." Judge Jones said parts of the code could "likely" be found unconstitutional in a future ruling.</p>