Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education CLICK on the picture to visit FIRE!
Cal Poly has had a long history with FIRE. Some even say if Cal Poly hadn’t decided to dig in their heals on a case of a student posting a flier for an approved speaker… FIRE may have not developed such early traction on the protection of free speech in American colleges and universities. There is no doubt they are on a roll!
FIRE continues to evaluate every university on the basis of first amendment, including issues of how protected free speech is handled on campus. FIRE designates a simple Red-Yellow and Green light to each university to signify the university’s support of the first amendment. There is a simple scale: Green is good and Red represents a very unfavorable climate for students in the area of speech. There are many great stories of authoritarian administrations and their virtual chamber of horrors. Nonetheless, Universities are not without humor, some going so far as banning the consumption and/or flagellation of a banana publicly in a sexual way. Unfortunately, other Universities have been far more draconian, some forcing students out of their dorms … with at least one living in their car during a cold and snowy winter … all over issues that were constitutionally protected. It goes without saying that the universities involved didn’t win these issues and paid off with the hard earned money of the taxpayer.
On college campuses, it is never the administration or the majority that needs protection, it is always the minority voice. Cal Poly has come a long way from it’s RED light days and currently sits at a YELLOW light. There is hope on campus that with a new president and a new administration tone, that maybe, Cal Poly will be a GREEN light university.
Greg Lukianoff coming to Cal Poly February 7th is a very good sign.
Cal Poly's Mustang Daily is supposed to be student run
After a recent article written by a conservative student columnist apparently offended administrators, the student was summarily dismissed before his final column appeared.
“after talking with Patrick, we have decided not to hire you again as the Republican columnist for the Mustang Daily….” (a portion of note sent to the conservative student columnist )
It has been my observation and opinion that nothing happens at Cal Poly without direct administrative approval. Given the fact, that this termination occurred right after the writer took the administration to task in a highly circulated article on the mysterious selection process of 3 candidates for campus President…. seems suspicious especially when a columnist of a differing opinion continued. BTW, no candidate for Cal Poly President accepted the position.
Cal Poly continues to have significant unaddressed problems in administrative transparency and disclosure, support for free speech, growing a significantly larger administrative staff and perpetuating a negative campus climate. There seems to be no end in sight.
Cal Poly is obviously ‘learning by doing’ … badly.
I really love inexperienced managers because they feel that any problem can be solved either of two ways: 1) hide, evade or just say it isn’t so (even if everyone knows what is going on) or 2) use a bigger stick to try to make it go away. By the way, managerial experience isn’t measure by years of service, it is measured by outcomes and the loyalty and respect of all stakeholders.
Yesterday, I pointed out a letter by two of the many many vice presidents of Cal Poly that appeared in the hard copy but not the on-line copy of the newspaper. Today, a related front-page article appeared in the “Virtual Mustang,” but not in the regular online format that allows comments. If an article is important enough to be on page one, shouldn’t it be presented in a form that allows the community to post responses?
As for the substance, I have placed both pages of today’s article on-line for your review. See if it doesn’t raise a few questions in your mind.
Page 1of Mustang Daily’s ‘Ombuds services article’ (Don’t call it ombudsman as that’s not ‘PC’)
1) In the article, Ombuds Patricia Ponce’s role is described as “working with students before referring the issue to another department or individual.” The example of a student admitting to slashing another student’s tires was used to illustrate a matter that would be referred. But what else is going to be “referred?” Offensive speech? “Sexually suggestive fruit eating” (actually banished by another university)? Putting up a flyer other students don’t like (which was Steve Hinkle’s“crime”)? What possible punishments await the person whose actions are “referred?”
2) Even though referrals will be made, the article states that “no individual records” or “paper trail” would be kept. How then, would an accused person protect himself/herself when David Conn goes looking for an applicable “free speech or campus policy?” Don’t we have a basic right to confront our accusers? It seems like the Cal Poly Ombuds program is combining confidentiality and accusations in a dangerous way.
FIRE has repeatedly informed the campus that the way to move their current yellow light rating to a green is to explicitly state that students will not be punished for protected speech, even if it is uncivil and offensive. Having an ombuds is fine, as long as the focus is on helping the offended student deal with his/her feelings, but Cal Poly will once again find itself in court if it tries to punish the offenders.
Before addressing the official responses to Brendan Pringle’s recent opinion piece on “inclusive excellence” in the Mustang Daily, I’d like to make a personal note to Cal Poly administrators David Conn and Cornel Morton: I would suggest approaching this and any subject in your public comments by arguing the merits of your side of the case, not attacking the student-author in question, as many view this as unnecessarily intimidating, threatening and unprofessional…. Or as they say, ‘pick on someone your own size.’ After all, universities are all about teaching critical thinking, and the collective power of two Vice Presidents coming down in a very personal way against one student seems unfair.
Getting back to the issues, I wonder how many Cal Poly faculty are aware that the program of ‘Inclusive Excellence’ – as applied by other universities following the same AACU approach – views “selectivity” on the part of elite universities as “bad,” and ignores the SAT scores and grade point averages of certain applicants in order to grant admission. I am sure most faculty do not want to offer remedial education, nor do they wish to flunk unprepared students.
Here’s how Cornell Morton and David Conn spun the Inclusive Excellence discussion in a letter that I could not find on-line and only in the student newspaper hard copy! ( I thought you two would be proud of such a piece?)
Let’s parse one of the bits of illogic used by others in defending this program in the Mustang Daily:
1) …on whether their high schools are wealthy enough to offer AP courses
2) or the advantage of having parents who can afford to pay for SAT coaching.”
These statements border on the absurd. First, many universities ask high schools to send transcripts with the higher grade point averages from AP classes already factored out. Besides, high GPAs are not a problem at culturally disadvantaged schools—quite the opposite. The student with a 4.0 at a poor school might not be as well prepared for college as a student with a 3.0 from a good school. The whole purpose of using a standardized test like the SAT is to control for just that situation. Secondly, SAT coaching does not jump a student’s score from 700 to 1600 and is a much overrated factor, if a factor at all, except to all who are trying to get every last point.
The SAT and the SAT2 (Achievement Tests), like any classroom exams, have been much maligned by those who believe that they are a barrier to entry to whatever they want to do. Sometimes, you have to pass the test to pass the course. The problem, for those who want to ignore their results, is that these tests are excellent predictors for college performance, which is all they were ever supposed to do. The achievement tests (SAT2) measure many basic skills, like competence in math, science, and English, without which any student would have an impossible time of securing a degree in a quality major.
Here are two links that support the value of the SAT and SAT2 in college admission:
I do not suppose that we should be developing majors of lower academic caliber for the new arrivals? Doesn’t Cal Poly have enough of those already?
The California Master Plan of higher education was developed to grant admission based on a multi-tiered system: the best and the brightest would have an opportunity to attend a U.C., the next tier was the C.S.U., and for those who still needed to sharpen their skills before trying for the brass ring, there was the community college. Consequently, opening up Cal Poly to accept students who should learn the elementary skills of reading, math and science by first attending a community college is ill-advised.
Cornel and David, we’re all for fair play and diversity, but your comments about “a retreat from a merit system” are too vague. Please give us your explicit promise that you will not deviate from use of GPA and SAT data to meet your goals.
Tonight Greg Lukianoff is announcing the coming of his new book with F.I.R.E.: ‘Greg’s book will explore how today’s college students are “unlearning liberty,” and discuss what happens to our society when students are taught in a campus environment that is marred by speech codes and censorship. Greg’s book will also cover FIRE’s work on hundreds of cases involving student and faculty rights over the past decade..’
“This brings me to my big project for 2010: I’m working on a book highlighting the literally hundreds of cases I’ve worked on involving crazy abuses of student and faculty rights. I intend to demonstrate how campus censorship, far from being a niche concern applicable only to those on campus, is a threat to the functioning of our democracy as a whole.”
Greg discusses this tonight at his alma mater Stanford!
