KGS

This is like listening to Nurse Ratched explaining why you need that lobotomy.

Thanks to Stefan Metzeler for the heads up.

Note: I sit here 7,000 miles away in the Middle East (Israel) and go to my FB site to see this post.  I am a semi-retired Professor in the CSU (California State University system) who returns for 10 weeks each year to teach courses at his former University.  When in country I live south of Modesto in the mountains outside of Yosemite and Fresno-I know the population in this area, I know they support free speech. Please view the video clip-I also know that we all view such pieces through our own lens of beliefs and biases. So, I am disturbed that this young person, a credited student at the Modesto campus, engages in having conversations with his classmates about the US Constitution (on Constitution Day) and is told to cease and desist from said conversations and handing out a document discussing the Constitution. Granted I viewed an edited version of the clip and based upon what I witnessed the student was not allowed to hand out information about the Constitution presumably because he did not "go through the proper channels" or fill out the "necessary paperwork". Huh? Can I assume then that all other paper handouts, those distributed every day on campuses like advertisements for food, entertainment, goods/services of all kinds must also be vetted by the "speech police" on the Modesto campus? Has my beloved USA really come to this? I did not grow up with these restrictions and now the next generation of decision makers impose these un-democratic, limited speech mandates-you are not concerned?  If you are not than I am even more disappointed in you and what you are creating for my grand children-oh, also your grand children. You see, I grew up in NH-Live free or die is our motto-understand this too is on its final legs!
Doc

California College Forbids Passing Out Constitutions…On Constitution DaySeptember 19, 2013

MODESTO, Calif., September 19, 2013—In a stunning illustration of the attitude taken towards free speech by too many colleges across the United States, Modesto Junior College in California told a student that he could not pass out copies of the United States Constitution outside the student center on September 17, 2013—Constitution Day. Captured on video, college police and administrators demanded that Robert Van Tuinen stop passing out Constitution pamphlets and told him that he would only be allowed to pass them out in the college’s tiny free speech zone, and only after scheduling it several days or weeks ahead of time. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has written to Modesto, demanding that the college rescind this policy immediately.

“The video of Modesto Junior College police and administrators stubbornly denying a public college student’s right to freely pass out pamphlets to fellow students—copies of the Constitution, no less!—should send a chill down the spine of every American,” said FIRE Senior Vice President Robert Shibley. “Worse, FIRE’s research shows that Modesto Junior College is hardly alone in its fear of free speech. In fact, one in six of America’s 400 largest and most prestigious colleges have ‘free speech zones’ limiting where speech can take place. This video brings to life the deeply depressing reality of the climate for free speech on campus.”

Van Tuinen began his efforts to pass out the U.S. Constitution to fellow students outside the student center. He reports that after less than 10 minutes, a campus police officer arrived and informed him that any time anything was being passed out on campus it had to be registered with the Student Development office. After unsuccessfully attempting to convince the officer that this would impair his freedom of speech, Van Tuinen went into the student center at the officer’s request.

Once inside, Van Tuinen (who had expected the college to object to the distribution) explains to the officer that he is trying to start a chapter of Young Americans for Liberty on campus and is passing out Constitutions to spark student interest. The officer tells him that “as a student on campus passing out anything whatsoever, you have to have permission through the Student Development office.” An increasingly nervous Van Tuinen’s accurate protestations that this violates his First Amendment rights are repeatedly ignored, and he eventually reports to the Student Development office.

Upon arriving at that office, Van Tuinen talks with administrator Christine Serrano, who tells him that because of “a time, place, and manner,” he can only pass out literature inside the “free speech area,” which she informs him is “in front of the student center, in that little cement area.” She asks him to fill out an application and asks to photocopy his student ID. Hauling out a binder, Serrano says that she has “two people on campus right now, so you’d have to wait until either the 20th, 27th, or you can go into October.” Van Tuinen protests that he wants to pass out the Constitution on Constitution Day, at which point Serrano dismissively tells him “you really don’t need to keep going on.”

Ultimately, Serrano, after a phone call to an unnamed person in which she says that Van Tuinen “just wants to question the authority of why can’t he hand out constitutional-type of papers,” tells him he will have to make an appointment with Vice President of Student Services Brenda Thames so that she can further explain to him “what the time, place, and manner is.” You can see the whole exchange in the video below.

More here.