Group Says 'Free Speech' Still a Misnomer at DePaul Univ.
by Jim Brown
February 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - DePaul University in Chicago is being accused of yet another assault on campus free speech -- this time after shutting down a satirical student protest against affirmative action and notifying the event organizer he is under "investigation" for violating the school's "discriminatory harassment" policy. The DePaul Conservative Alliance recently held an affirmative action bake sale on campus. In the one hour before the event was shut down, black and Hispanic students were charged lower prices than Asian and white students for the same products. A spokesman for the Catholic institution claims the bake sale was censored because the location of the protest was inappropriate -- yet a week later the university allowed a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) table protesting the use of fur to be set up in exactly the same place.
Greg Lukianoff with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says DePaul is not living up to its commitment to provide an environment of free speech to its students and faculty.
"If they wanted to make their Catholic identity more important than free speech, then they should advertise themselves that way," says Lukianoff. "But every single time the university is challenged on these violations, it claims it adores free speech; it claims it loves free speech. But then it turns around and practices repression."
According to the FIRE spokesman, the move to shut down the Alliance's event is just the latest attempt by the university to stifle views it does not agree with.
"DePaul is no stranger to double standards," he says, "and I think it's a good thing that people know more and more about this. But I think it's appalling that they continue to claim that they love free speech when they've been so hostile to it."
Last October, DePaul barred the College Republicans from putting up posters in protest of a campus lecture and workshop featuring controversial University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who compared victims of the 9-11 attacks to Nazis. Lukianoff also notes that in the recent past DePaul dismissed a professor because of his pro-Israel views.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
