Hundreds of campuses encourage students to turn in fellow students for offensive speech

[rangerrebew]

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Washington Examiner
Washington Examiner
Sunday | March 5, 2017
 
Hundreds of campuses encourage students to turn in fellow students for offensive speech
By Adam Steinbaugh • 2/21/17 7:00 PM
 

Universities are the cradle of free speech, where ideologies and ideas clash, where academics and activists can agree, disagree, or be disagreeable. This is particularly true in the United States, where the First Amendment zealously guards against government surveillance and intrusion into free speech.

Yet at hundreds of campuses across the country, administrators encourage students to report one another, or their professors, for speech protected by the First Amendment, or even mere political disagreements. The so-called "Bias Response Teams" reviewing these (often anonymous) reports typically include police officers, student conduct administrators and public relations staff who scrutinize the speech of activists and academics.

This sounds like the stuff of Orwell, although even he might have found the name "Bias Response Team" to be over-the-top.
 
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/students-rat-each-other-out-over-speech/article/2615405

[mountaineer]

This smacks of 1930s Germany, the USSR, China and North Korea. 

[Gefn]

This is making me seriously think about going back to school in September for a Masters degree,

[GtHawk]

This smacks of 1930s Germany, the USSR, China and North Korea. 

Who knows maybe those campus misadministrators only had to look here for inspiration.

In July 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched the national “If. You See Something, Say SomethingTM” campaign to raise public ...

[sneakypete]

This smacks of 1930s Germany, the USSR, China and North Korea. 

@mountaineer

There is a good reason for that. It is EXACTLY the same thing.

[Free Vulcan]

Who decides what is offensive, and how do you decide that without it being based on some kind of dogma or morality? This sounds more theocratic than anything that should occur in a modern secular state.

At least that's what a liberal would say if it were the other way around.

[Oceander]

This smacks of 1930s Germany, the USSR, China and North Korea. 

And East Germany after WWII.

[Fishrrman]

Perhaps it's time for states governed by Republican administrations to pass state laws that codify and guarantee free speech in all institutions of higher learning in those states.

Such laws should also mandate fines and prison sentences for officials and employees of such institutions who attempt to violate such guarantees, and who discipline students for speaking freely.