Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Southwestern College administrative rat bastards get major "muzzle" prize

Our pal Phil down at Southwestern College turned us on to an AP story about his college’s latest honor: it was chosen for a “Muzzle” award by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression!

Free Speech Group Gives "Muzzle" Awards
Banning the sale of wine because of a nude, bike-riding nymph on the label of the bottle. Confining campus protests to a "free-speech patio" [yep, that’s Southwestern administrators!]. Keeping street performers off the Las Vegas Strip.

Those were some of the actions that the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression cited Tuesday in awarding its dubious "Muzzle" awards. The Charlottesville center awards the Muzzles annually to mark the April 13 birthday of Jefferson – its namesake, the third president and free-speech advocate.

Center director Bob O'Neil said that while the 10 winners of the 2010 awards were geographically diverse, they didn't include any corporations or other private entities as in past years – all are government and school officials.

The Alabama Alcohol Beverage Control Board won its Muzzle for banning the sale and distribution of a California wine because it displays "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner." The questionable image is a replica of a 1895 French poster featuring a nymph flying next to a winged bicycle.

"If you magnify it by three- or four-fold, even then you could barely detect a nipple," O'Neil said.

Southwestern College administrators won a Muzzle for its policy of limiting protests to a "free-speech patio." Faculty members at the Chula Vista, California, college who tried to move to a nearby courtyard when protesting budget cuts were banned from campus. After public outcry, officials lifted the ban, but the free-speech patio remains, O'Neil said…. (continued)
You’ll definitely want to read the rest. Sheesh!

Greg Lukianoff of the Huffington Post was dazzled enough by the news to offer his "Congratulations to the administration, and President Raj K. Chopra, of Southwestern College….”

Lukianoff notes that the TJ Center gives the award to “those who in the preceding year committed some of the more egregious or ridiculous affronts to the First Amendment right of free speech."

He explains how Southwestern earned the honor:
In 2009 Southwestern College … not only banned three professors from campus after they participated in a peaceful protest, but also kept free speech restricted to a single small patio on campus. Yes, you read that correctly: a Free Speech Patio.
Lukianoff provides a handy map of the campus and its "zones."

The Fox version of the story notes that “Southwestern spokesman Chris Bender said Tuesday that [banning the faculty from campus] was an issue of public safety, and that ‘the Jefferson Center has confused protecting free speech with protecting people from getting hurt.’”

Well, there you go.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's Alabama, that also legislated against vibrator sales (yes, true).

They get two senators.

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful wine label. And what sad and pinched puritans those administrators are, to think that "immoral" and "sensuous" are equally to be avoided.

MAH

Anonymous said...

Chopra and company are just your typical ruthless administrator type, playing to a clueless board--probably dominated by conservatives. Free speech? Not so much.

Anonymous said...

So true, MAH. ES

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...