Doesn't Jeb have bodyguards? If they bust a few leftie heads, I promise I won't tell...
Posted on 10/21/2002 1:49:06 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Gov. Jeb Bush and Democratic challenger Bill McBride will have to pass through a phalanx of student activists and outside agitators to get to Tuesday's debate at the University of Central Florida.
No one's ready to declare UCF the next Berkeley, but perhaps for the first time a left-wing activist organization is emerging -- and it's planning to use the gubernatorial debate for a coming-out party.
"I definitely think this event will give the Progressive Council the credibility it needs," said co-organizer Michael Tiner, a senior from Fort Lauderdale studying liberal arts.
The Bush and McBride debate will be in the UCF Student Union at 7 p.m. Tuesday, sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel and television station WESH. The UCF Progressive Council booked the grounds outside the entrances for several hours before, during and after the debate for a rally called "We the People 2002."
Union organizers, civil-rights activists, death-penalty foes, feminists, environmentalists and drug-law reform advocates are scheduled to speak and staff booths. They've also invited elected office candidates to take turns on their speakers' stage.
Bush and McBride could hardly have expected this when they agreed to debate in front of a handpicked audience on UCF's notoriously politically apathetic campus.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Recently at the Washington University law school in St. Louis, a group called Law Students Pro-Life - which opposes abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide - applied for official recognition by the Student Bar Association. Without such recognition, a group cannot receive university funding, use campus facilities on a par with other student organizations, get a listing in the student brochure, have a university-affiliated Web site, or advertise its activities on campus bulletin boards.
On Sept. 10, the Student Bar Association voted 27- 10, with one abstention, to deny recognition to the group.
The reason? In a letter to Law Students Pro-Life chairman Jordan Siverd, bar association president Elliott Friedman explained that the panel was concerned about ''the narrowness of your group's interests and goals.'' In particular, there were objections that the group ''was not touching on all possible prolife issues'' because its constitution did not take a stand against the death penalty. The letter also suggested that in order to qualify for recognition, the group could broaden its scope by promoting ''discussion of the issues as a whole, not simply the prolife side'' and by opening its membership to ''students both subscribing to and disagreeing with the political viewpoint.''
The message seemed blatant: Change your moral and political outlook, or forget about university recognition. ''In short,'' observed Alan Charles Kors, a leading critic of the suppression of free speech on college campuses, ''Law Students Pro-Life had the wrong conscience.''
The group applied for recognition a second time, and was rejected yet again on Sept. 23.
I disagree, sometimes vehemently, with the prolife agenda. But it's easy enough to support the free speech rights of those with whom you agree.
The claim that Law Students Pro-Life is hypocritical or intellectually inconsistent in opposing abortion and euthanasia but not the death penalty is rubbish. Right-to-life advocates regard abortion (and euthanasia) as the taking of an innocent human life. Whatever one thinks of the death penalty, taking the life of a person convicted under due process of a capital crime is a very different matter.
What's really hypocritical - and ''narrow'' - is the double standard that the Student Bar Association appeared to apply. While chiding the group for its single-issue focus, it had recognized, as critics pointed out, other organizations with an equally limited agenda: for instance, the Jewish Law Society and the Black Law Students' Association, dedicated to serving the needs, respectively, of Jewish and African-American students, or OUTLAW, a group which describes its mission as promoting a ''supportive, positive, and safe [environment] for individuals of sexual and gender diversity.'' Presumably, OUTLAW was not required to give equal time to conservative traditionalist beliefs about sex and gender in order to be eligible for university funding.
Law Students Pro-Life eventually won its battle, but only after enlisting the support of vocal off-campus allies. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group co-founded by Kors and Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate which defends freedom of speech in academia, championed the group's cause and widely publicized its plight. The Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union got involved as well, joining the foundation in sending an open letter to the Student Bar Association, urging its members to ''reaffirm their commitment to tolerance, openness, and pluralism.''
A national petition circulated by the foundation was signed by more than 200 professors, students, and concerned citizens around the country. Law school dean Joel Seligman was deluged with phone calls and e-mails, prompting him to ask the bar association to have yet another vote on recognizing the prolife group. In his words, ''We appear to have stomped our foot down and said there's only one ideologically and politically appropriate way to behave.''
At a preliminary meeting, most members of the governing body seemed determined to stand their ground. Then, in a surprise ending on Oct. 15, the association voted 27-6, with four abstentions, to recognize Law Students Pro-Life. Maybe they realized that there was no glory in sticking by a decision that was morally and legally indefensible - the decision to bar a student group from campus because its beliefs are political incorrect. Too bad it took public shaming for them to remember the principles that should be self-evident to any student of US law.
Cathy Youngis a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears regularly in the Globe. This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 10/21/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
Bump!
Doesn't Jeb have bodyguards? If they bust a few leftie heads, I promise I won't tell...
Thanks for the post, CW.
Or how about this guy? $:-)
I'm attending a GOP Debate Party at a hotel next to UCF to watch the debate on a wide-screen monitor.
About 20 people will be chartering a bus from Titusville to attend.
Sounds like I'll have to detour the bus to UCF!!
WOW!!! I just came in from being down at the Orange Co. Republican headquarters on Semoran Blvd after helping stamp 50,000 peices of mail and called Gloria to tell her about that party and see if she wanted to meet me there around 6:30, then I was going to call you, too!
She informed me that you had sent us a post on here saying that you already heard about it and were planning to come over! FANTASTIC!
For those who want to go, the hospitality / debate party will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 in the ball room of the Holiday Inn Select at the corner of Alafaya Trail and University Blvd tomorrow evening (Tuesday, 10-22-02).
I have to work at the courthouse in Titusville tomorrow, and will just head straight over to Orlando on route 50 afterwards. That will put me on the east side of town and make it easy to swing by for the party. Gloria is planning on going too. Can't wait to see all you there! Spread the word!!!
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