Showing posts with label Foundation for Individual Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foundation for Individual Rights. Show all posts

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Hundreds Of Colleges Form "Bias Response Teams" To Combat "Hate Speech" Like "Build The Wall"

Over the past year, an organization called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has been surveying college campuses around the country to assess how the liberal bastions of safe spaces handle reports of "hate speech" (a.k.a. "any opinion, or fact for that matter, that runs contrary to the widely accepted views of leftist professors and administrators").  Apparently, and to our great shock no less, hundreds of college campuses all around the country have established so-called "Bias Response Teams" tasked with the crucial responsibility of scrutinizing campus speech that may be deemed "hateful."


While FIRE published a very comprehensive, 35-page report on the 230 "Bias Response Team" systems they surveyed, below is just a taste of some of the atrocities they uncovered.


The first example comes from Ohio State University, where one precious snowflake was apparently appalled to discover that someone had written "Build the Wall" on a class chalk board and brazenly left the vicious hate speech there for the world to see.





"There is chalk on the oval saying "Build the Wall" which could be construed as hate speech against Hispanic students and undocumented citizens.  This is unsafe for the University community and cannot be allowed."



Meanwhile, students at the University of Michigan were absolutely terrified of this "snow penis."  Of course, rather than simply demolish the phallus, the "triggered" Michigan students were forced to alert the authorities.


UofM



Finally, a student humor publication (akin to The Onion) at the University of California San Diego called The Koala, was recently censored for the following satirical article that was intended, ironically, to poke fun at college safe spaces.





Administrators at UC San Diego are creating an all new, state-of-the-art Dangerous Space for UCSD students who just don’t feel like their needs have been met on campus. In the past few weeks, the lack of dangerous space at UCSD has become increasingly apparent; students have been lashing out with puppy parades, non-violent protests, and other equally safe gimmicks. Safe spaces at UCSD are commonplace, and threaten individuals who do not like feeling safe. The logical next step has been taken by the university in creating a place to fairly support all UCSD students, continuing the university’s theme of inclusion and equality.



Located in the center of Library Walk, the new Dangerous Space is the ideal place for students to do whatever the hell they want. Senior Frank Yu gave The Koala the following statement: “The needs of dangerous-space students have been overlooked for generations, but UCSD is finally recognizing what means the most to 19-year-old Asian nerds: fucking a dead body with a picture of my waifu taped on the face.”



F. Yu isn’t alone. Not only will this new dangerous space allow people of all ethnicities and sizes – even unnaturally large sizes – it will allow for knifes, guns, opinions that might be different than yours, drug paraphernalia, sharp writing instruments, and explicit pornography.



The new Dangerous Space is guaranteed to get students excited for a good time, and will probably end like all good things do, with body mutilation and feelings of remorse.



Unsafe Space



So what happens when a university"s Bias Response Team is alerted to "offensive speech" on campus?  The Washington Examiner explains:





What happens when the Bias Response Team is alerted to subversive or offensive speech? Some teams have demonstrated an awareness that a public university cannot (and should not) act to chill protected speech, focusing their efforts instead on supporting students who encounter offensive speech. But others, such as the University of California, San Diego, call upon their lawyers to find "creative" ways to censor offensive speech: in that case, a student newspaper satirizing "safe spaces." (The university is now being sued for these "creative" efforts.)



Many Bias Response Teams respond with what they characterize as an "educational" response. This might sound like a faculty member visiting a student who was reported for racist speech and discussing the Civil Rights movement. But it"s not. Rather, it"s often an administrator, not an educator, summoning a student or faculty member to a meeting, reprimanding them, and "educating" them about how their words upset someone.



That was the case at the University of Northern Colorado, where an adjunct professor encouraged students to confront views with which they disagreed. When a student sparred with the professor over transgender rights, a debate raging both in the media media and legislative and judicial chambers, the professor was summoned to meet with an administrator, who warned the professor that discussing such issues might result in lengthy investigations.



With such quality education and services, we can"t for the life of us understand why such a huge percentage of millennials are completely incapable of holding a job and still living in their parents" basement.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Maryland Considers Teaching Kids That Boys Are Presumed Guilty In Rape Accusations

Submitted by Greg Piper via The College Fix,


“Affirmative consent” is a fuzzy concept even for adults, which is why one of them taught 10th graders in California that they must say “yes” every 10 minutes during sex or it becomes rape.


The concept was enshrined in state law in October 2015, and since then California has remained the only state to legally require “yes means yes” be taught in public schools.


Maryland could soon be the second.


The Washington Post reports that a House of Delegates committee is considering a bill today (HB 365) that would set up a pilot program in Montgomery County, just outside Washington, D.C.


It would “provide instruction on affirmative consent as part of a specified curriculum in specified grades in public schools in the county beginning in the 2017-2018 school year.”


But that’s just the start for the sponsors, Montgomery County Democratic Dels. Ariana Kelly and Marice Morales, according to the Post:





The two lawmakers say they are drafting a companion piece of legislation that would extend the mandate statewide.



Both measures would define consent as “clear, unambiguous, knowing, informed and voluntary agreement between all participants to engage in each act within the course of sexual activity.”



Local education officials would be required to teach the concept in both seventh and 10th grades, but individual districts would be able to decide how to tailor the lessons in an age-appropriate way.



The Post report fails to note that affirmative consent essentially shifts the burden of proof onto the accused student, which in the vast majority of cases is a male being accused by a female.


It inexplicably cites the National Coalition for Men, whose president said affirmative consent is driven by “people who don’t like men that much,” as the face of the opposition.


But the consent standard has better known and less polarizing critics who cite the lack of due process inherent in affirmative consent, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Maryland-based female-led advocacy group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments.


FIRE in particular has warned that affirmative-consent provisions do not put students on notice of what behavior can get them punished. Tracking the language of other bills and campus codes, the Maryland measure requires consent for “each act within the course of sexual activity” – which could mean anything from changing positions during intercourse to each kiss and touch preceding intercourse.



The bill also does not define “sexual activity,” a problem it shares with a college-specific bill signed into law in Connecticut last summer.


One Republican lawmaker on the committee hearing the bill, Del. Kevin B. Hornberger of Cecil County, makes a federalism argument rather than a due-process argument to keep the county-level pilot from going statewide, the Post says:





“What works best for Montgomery County doesn’t necessarily work best for Cecil or any of the other jurisdictions in this state,” Hornberger said. “The positive from this experiment is that it puts the conversation out there and raises awareness of affirmative consent.”



Hornberger was also a “peer educator” in college who taught affirmative consent. Chances are he was never accused of rape months after a sexual encounter because the consent did not consist of a continuous stream of “yes” statements.