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Educator in Hot Water for Protecting Allegedly 'Offensive' Speech

by Jim Brown
August 27, 2004
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(AgapePress) - A civil liberties group says Rhode Island College (RIC) in Providence is putting a professor on trial for refusing to punish speech protected by the First Amendment.

Professor Lisa Church has been brought up on charges of discrimination, including harassment, for failing to punish two women who allegedly made comments another adult found "racially offensive." While at the daycare center Church runs on campus, the two mothers allegedly expressed negative opinions of interracial relationships and the belief that certain minority groups' rights were valued over the rights of whites.

After receiving a complaint from the offended woman, Church said she would take the matter to the executive board, but could not punish the women based on a third-person report.

Greg Lukianoff with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says the school's decision to pursue charges against Church has a chilling effect on free speech.

"This is pretty remarkable," he says of RIC's move. "Not only does it just assume that this sort of speech can be punished, it also creates a positive duty to suppress speech that offends other people. Now that's way out of line of what the Constitution actually says."

RIC officials claim Professor Church violated the school's affirmative action policy. On behalf of Church, Lukianoff has urged the school to drop the planned hearing. He says Church is being tried for simply obeying the law.

"And what makes Rhode Island College's behavior even more unforgivable is the fact that their lawyer ... Actually [told them] this is protected speech and you can't be punished for not punishing protected speech," Lukianoff explains. "So they knew that they had very sound advice from their own lawyer."

The FIRE spokesman says it is unfortunate that there is an increased sense in higher education that one has a right not to be offended.

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