Eleven from Muslim Student Union charged for disrupting speech by Israel’s ambassador

Inside Higher Ed reports on the continuing fallout from last year’s demonstration by members of the University of California Irvine Muslim Student Union aimed at interrupting a speech by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. The Orange County District Attorney has charged 11 persons affiliated with the Muslim Student Union with two misdemeanor counts: disrupting a meeting and disturbing a meeting.

If convicted, the students could face up to six months in jail. The charges stem from an incident a year ago in which members of the student group repeatedly interrupted a talk at Irvine by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Leaders of the Muslim student group have denied that they did anything wrong, and some at Irvine who criticized the heckling have said that this is a matter that should be adjudicated by the university (which has already done so).

Canadian Universities may not recognize anti-abortion groups

Inside Higher Ed has a brief report on debates at Canadian universities on whether it is appropriate to support anti-abortion campus groups.

OSU student government leaders ask that official student groups no longer be allowed to deny membership to gays, nonbelievers

Ohio State University student government leaders have asked the OSU administration to stop allowing official student groups to deny membership to those who don’t share their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

"It’s the general feeling among most students that Ohio State should not tolerate discrimination of any kind," said Micah Kamrass, president of the Undergraduate Student Government.

Kamrass said he thinks that religious groups don’t have to compromise beliefs to be open to everyone and that many don’t use the exemption.

The decision on whether to accept the recommendation is likely to take some time and changes, if any, will not be in place until the fall.

[The Columbus Dispatch via The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life]

Christian Group to Defend Expression of Socially Conservative or Religious Views on Campus

The Alliance Defense Fund, a non-profit Christian organization, is undertaking a special initiative to defend against what it sees as widespread and unconstitutional restrictions on free speech at public colleges.

That organization, the non-profit Alliance Defense Fund, is now undertaking a special campaign on a familiar front of the culture wars. Armed with a $9.2 million donation from an anonymous family plus its own matching funds, the group is stepping up efforts to combat what it says is widespread and unconstitutional censorship at public colleges.

With an estimated three years of funding, the University Project, as it is called, will deploy more attorneys to defend students or student groups that feel they are being prevented from expressing socially conservative or religious views.

The article in The Arizona Republic describes some of the currently active cases, interviews several supporters and critics, and gives useful information for evaluating the effort.

[The Arizona Republic via The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Religion News]

Conservative Christian group contests free speech codes in Texas

A report by Gene Trainor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram begins,

A national conservative Christian group is calling on several area colleges and universities to drop or change their free speech and expression rules because they could discourage students from voicing opinions about religious beliefs and other issues.

The Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has given what it calls "red lights" to 14 Texas schools, including Texas Christian and Texas Woman’s universities, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington and Tarrant County College South Campus. The University of Texas at Austin and Rice and Texas A&M universities were also named as part of a national campaign.

Red lights indicate that the organization considers a school’s free speech codes unconstitutional and unfriendly to free speech, said Greg Scott, the group’s national media relations director.

The particular significance of this story for religion on campus lies in the Defense Fund’s central concerns:

ADF strives to see an America whose laws affirm religious liberty, protect life from conception to natural death, defend the family, and preserve marriage as being between one man and one woman.

[Fort Worth Star-Telegram via Pew Forum on Religion and Politics: Religion News]

Institutional Academic Freedom and Church-Related Colleges and Universities

The 1915 General Declaration of Principles issued at the founding of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) strongly disapproved of educational institutions that were, in their words, “designed for the propagation of specific doctrines prescribed by those who have furnished its endowment.” The Declaration labeled these institutions “proprietary schools,” because “[t]hey do not, at least as regards on particular subject, accept the principles of freedom of inquiry, of opinion, and of teaching; and their purpose is not to advance knowledge by the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators, but rather to subsidize the promotion of the opinions held by the persons, usually not of the scholar’s calling, who provide the funds for their maintenance.” While the Declaration professed (somewhat disingenuously) no desire to express an opinion on the desirability of the existence of such institutions, it said that it wanted to assure that such schools not fly under false colors and to deny them the title of true university.

Student Academic Freedom: the 1967 “Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students” and beyond

In 1967, representatives of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and several student, student-service, and education associations issued a Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students. In the Joint Statement faculty are enjoined to encourage free discussion, inquiry, and expression in the classroom and in conference. “Students,” the Joint Statement submits, “should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion,” adding a significant qualifier that stresses that the student’s freedom is a freedom to learn, that students are nonetheless “responsible for learning the content of any course of study for which they are enrolled.”

The Joint Statement also states that student performance “should be evaluated solely on an academic basis, not on opinions or conduct in matters unrelated to academic standards” and that students “should have protection through orderly procedures against prejudiced or capricious academic evaluation.” Again, this norm is qualified in a way that points to the student’s freedom to learn: “At the same time, they [students] are responsible for maintaining standards of academic performance established for each course in which they are enrolled.” Naturally, such procedural safeguards should afford students a chance to appeal evaluations that the students feel were made on the basis of religious or political belief as well as characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

Student Academic Freedom: The AAUP’s 1915 “Declaration of Principles”

From its beginning the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has recognized that the freedom of the faculty member to teach entails certain correlative obligations to secure students’ freedom to learn. In the AAUP’s 1915 General Declaration of Principles, some of these correlative obligations are spelled out in more detail than is the case in the 1940 Statement or 1970 Interpretive Comments and with more emphasis on what the faculty member should do as opposed to not do.

Since the Declaration is often selectively cited by advocates of “student academic freedom,” it may inform faculty conversations on academic freedom and religion on campus to get a fuller picture of the Declaration’s argument.