Tag Archives: College Campus

Civil Liberties, Education, Featured

Missouri Gov. Signs Law Banning ‘Free Speech Zones’ On College Campuses

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Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed the Campus Free Expression Act (CAFE Act) into law on Tuesday, making Missouri the second state to prohibit public universities from limiting student speech to a designated “free speech zone.”

Senate Bill 93, which was created to “protect free expression on the campuses of public institutions of higher education,” designates that all outdoor areas of the campuses of public universities will be recognized as “traditional public forums.”

The CAFE Act states that any individual may freely engage in “noncommercial expressive activity” as long as the individual’s conduct is “not unlawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the institution’s functioning.”

The act, which was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Ed Emery, also notes that universities “may maintain and enforce reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions in service of a significant institutional interest” at times when such restrictions “employ clear, published, content and viewpoint-neutral criteria, and provide for ample alternative means of expression.”

“This act may be enforced in a court of competent jurisdiction by the attorney general or any person whose expressive rights were violated under this act,” Emery wrote. “A person may recover compensatory damages, reasonable court costs, and attorney fees.”

If a court finds an institution in violation of the new law, the CAFE Act states that it must award no less than $500 for the initial violation, and $50 for each day the violation continues.

Joe Cohn, the Legislative and Policy Director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), said that while “one in six public colleges in the United States use free speech zones to restrict student speech,” the CAFE Act lets Missouri “statutorily ensure that its public colleges and universities will no longer be among them.”

FIRE noted that the CAFE Act received “overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate,” and was passed by a unanimous 34-0 vote before being passed in the House of Representatives.

Virginia became the first state to ban “free speech zones” on college campuses, when it enacted House Bill 258 in April 2014, which prohibits public universities from “imposing restrictions on the time, place, and manner of student speech that occurs in the outdoor areas of the institution’s campus and is protected by the First Amendment.”

“The fact of the matter remains that universities have a track record at silencing free speech, especially in cases that they disagree with,” said Republican state Rep. Rick Brattin, who handled the bill in the House.

Brattin told the Missouri Times that the CAFE Act became necessary when lawmakers discovered that the West Plains campus of Missouri State University designated a basketball court near the student rec center as its only free speech zone.

“Free speech is not a right or left issue,” Brattin said. “It’s an individual liberty and freedom we all hold dear to our heart. It’s sad that it comes to this point that we have to pass legislation to uphold these First Amendment rights.”

Education, Politics, US

Could Concealed Carry Stop Rape on College Campuses?

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The debate over carrying concealed guns on college campuses is being looked at from a new angle, with advocates arguing that if students are allowed to carry a firearm, it could deter sexual assault.

The New York Times reported that although carrying concealed firearms on college campuses is illegal in 41 states, lawmakers in 10 states are pushing bills that would end the ban, and they are “hoping that the national spotlight on sexual assault will help them win passage of their measures.”

The 10 states include Florida, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.

Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who is sponsoring a bill for concealed carry on college campuses in Nevada, told the New York Times that she predicts her bill will pass, due to the fact that Nevada has both a Republican-controlled Legislature and a Republican Governor, and that if passed, it will make a major difference on college campuses.

“If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them,” Fiore said. “The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.”

As previously reported, Taylor Woolrich, a senior at Dartmouth University, advocated for concealed carry on her college campus after she was stalked by 67-year-old Richard Bennett, even with the presence of a restraining order.

“Dartmouth thinks banning weapons will keep students safe, but a gun ban isn’t going to stop him from attacking me,” said Woolrich. “If Dartmouth, a restraining order, and law enforcement can’t guarantee my safety, then I’m asking for the right to do so.”

John Foubert, an Oklahoma State University professor and the president of One in Four, a program that seeks to educate students about sexual assault on college campuses, told the New York Times that he thinks using sexual assaults to push for concealed carry “reflects a misunderstanding of sexual assaults in general.”

“If you have a rape situation, usually it starts with some sort of consensual behavior, and by the time it switches to nonconsensual, it would be nearly impossible to run for a gun,” Joubert said. “Maybe if it’s someone who raped you before and is coming back, it theoretically could help them feel more secure.”

On Monday, a bill to allow concealed carry on college campuses was passed by Florida’s Senate Criminal Justice Committee, with a 3-2 vote.

The bill’s sponsor, Committee Chairman Greg Evers told the Tallahassee Democrat that due to the number of registered sexual offenders living near Florida State University, he believes the bill will fix a safety issue on the campus.

“The problem is that in gun-free zones, that we have on college campuses right now, those gun-free zones are just an incubator for folks that won’t follow the law,” Evers said.

Crayle Vanest, a senior at Indiana University and the first woman on the national board of Students for Concealed Carry, told the New York Times that the group’s female membership has seen a dramatic increase.

“Universities are under a ton of investigation for how they handle sexual assaults,” said Vanest. “Our female membership has increased massively. People who weren’t listening before are listening now.”

Education, Politics, US

Colleges forcing fraternities to accept women into their ranks in the name of “gender equality”

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Middletown, Conn., September 25, 2014 –  This week, Wesleyan University made history by mandating that its two residential fraternities admit women into their ranks on an equal basis. Delta Kappa Epsilon, one of the two fraternities affected by this new policy at the University, has openly criticized this decision.

On Monday, the university sent a letter to the entire student community stating, “We have decided that residential fraternities must become fully co-educational over the next three years. This change is something that Wesleyan and the fraternities have been contemplating for many years, and now the time has come.”

Reports of sexual assault and gang rape on college campuses in America have steadily increased in recent years, with one in five women statistically becoming a victim of sexual aggression during their college years. Across the country, many fraternity members have been accused of sexual assault and violence against women, while on-campus fraternity houses have frequently been named as the scene of the crime in many rape charges.

Wesleyan University’s new policy follows several lawsuits and rape allegations against fraternity members at the school. A student petition calling for the new measures earlier this summer garnered hundreds of student signatures, in hopes the new policy will reduce campus sexual assaults.

Earlier this summer, the University closed the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house following the serious injury of a female student who fell from a third story window. However, school spokeswoman Kate Carlisle said the decision to integrate Greek life on the campus was not related to any singular incident. Carlisle stated, “This has been the subject of ongoing concern and discussion among the people in the administration, the school community, the alumni community and so forth for a number of years.”

The University’s decision follows those of several other liberal arts colleges in the North East including Middlebury College in Vermont, Colby College in Maine, and Trinity College in Hartford.

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