FIRE Official Blasts DePaul for Selective Viewpoint Censorship
by Jim Brown
February 16, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The nation's largest Catholic university -- DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois -- is considering whether to punish a student for organizing an on-campus protest against affirmative action, but a spokesman with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) believes the school is trampling on certain people's rights to express their views. DePaul officials recently shut down an "affirmative action bake sale" held by the DePaul Conservative Alliance, a student group on campus. During the one hour before the event was shut down, the group offered their baked goods for sale to black and Hispanic students at lower prices than they were charging white and Asian students for the same items.
The university is now investigating student Michael O'Shea, the organizer of the bake sale, for a possible violation of the school's anti-discriminatory harassment policy. But Charles Mitchell, a program officer with the advocacy group FIRE, has condemned DePaul's censorship and insists, "It is not harassment to state the view that affirmative action is wrong."
And that, Mitchell contends, is all these students did when they held a sale demonstrating their protest against affirmative action. "DePaul's harassment policy is over-broad," he says, "and it's completely inappropriate for a university to accuse someone of harassment simply for stating a political view -- and, I would state, a fairly popular political view -- that people happen to disagree with."
And this is not the first time DePaul has come under fire for what some see as its attempts to stifle a certain viewpoint, the FIRE spokesman notes. He points out that the university is already being sued by a professor who was dismissed from his post for getting into a heated argument with pro-Palestinian students who took issue with his support of Israel.
Mitchell feels DePaul is particularly resistant when challenged on the issue of viewpoint discrimination and censorship. "Most other universities, when they have problems like this pointed out to them, they see the light and they back down," he says. However, that has not been the case with DePaul.
"FIRE has fought these affirmative action bake sale battles across the country," the group's program officer notes. "In most places, the universities either get a letter from us and say, 'Oops! We will respect these students' rights,' or -- after they take some heat publicly -- they'll back down. DePaul has done neither so far."
A spokesman for the Catholic institution claims the Conservative Alliance's bake sale was shut down because the location of the protest was inappropriate. Yet, according to FIRE, a week later the university allowed the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a group protesting animal testing and fur use, to set up a table in exactly the same place.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
