Posted on 02/03/2008 2:13:40 PM PST by SeekAndFind
If you were to tour DePaul University’s campus asking students about free speech, you would notice the hesitation in their answers. For the past couple of years, the DePaul administration has earned a reputation as a foe of controversial ideas, especially those that offend or challenge the status quo. This has tarnished DePaul’s academic standing as a quality institution. To remedy this problem, President Rev. Dennis Holtschneider created a Free Speech and Expression Task Force and charged it with creating a policy for free speech that would hopefully rebuff any claims that DePaul isn’t a friend of the free marketplace of ideas.
I was appointed to this Task Force as the only conservative, in part because my student organization, the DePaul Conservative Alliance, tested the limits of free speech on this sensitive, politically correct campus, a number of times. Many of the Alliance’s events, such as an Affirmative Action bake sale which was shut down by the administration, provoked questions as to whether the University sufficiently allowed all ideas to be heard.
When the Task Force met, we thankfully opted not to create speech codes. Instead we drafted a document called Guiding Principles of Free Speech and Expression. The language of the draft document seemed to open the doors of the University to all ideas––as it should have. It respected “open discourse and robust debate” and at the same time remained “open to a broad range of ideas and opinions” as a way to “create the best conditions for discovering the truth.” Most importantly, it was not patronizing and it respected the “right of listeners to respond with their own expression, or choose to turn away.”
Before releasing the document to the University community, however, the Task Force wanted to hear preliminary feedback on its work. The President’s Diversity Council––a bureaucracy that oversees racial correctness on campus––jumped at the opportunity to tell us our Principles were worthless because no “person of color” was involved in drafting the document. The bullying worked. We decided to add members to our Task Force who were “of color” so we could head-off any future run-ins with the Diversity Council.
Our new members promptly argued for a serious departure from the model of free speech the Task Force had previously drafted, and just as quickly succeeded in their efforts. I was witness to the undoing of our Principles and the idea of a university itself. I was told that skin color mattered more than ideas in a discussion concerning free speech, and that ideas which offended persons of color “silenced” them and thus curtailed their free speech. I was told that the word “truth” is “offensive” and would “alienate” members of the DePaul community. The idea that human dignity is “God-given” was too “excluding.” Those who are excluded or “marginalized” should be given a “third option” to express their feelings because they may feel uncomfortable “speaking in a public forum or not satisfied with walking away.”
A university, in other words, should make everyone feel as comfortable as possible, perhaps a return to the Haight-Ashbury experience these professors miss dearly––no disagreement, no argument, no reasoning, no thinking, no responsibility. Their concept of “free speech” is meant to “protect those without power.” This model of free speech, of course, is not free at all. It is an ideological weapon which is regularly used to further the diversity agenda. A model of “free speech” which involves controlling speech in order to correct perceived injustices of the past is Orwellian to say the least.
Last week, in an article published here on FrontPageMag, I told this story of how the high priests of diversity rejected truth and God at what is billed as the “Largest Catholic University in America.” My article was published as the Task Force released its Guiding Principles of Free Speech and Expression, now scrubbed clean of anything “offensive.” In a university-wide email, the Task Force told students, faculty, and staff that it was “actively gathering input on the draft Guiding Principles from the broadest possible spectrum of voices within the university community.” I chose to publish my input on FrontPageMag.com.
As soon as my article appeared, the Diversity Council held a meeting with the president of the University and the Task Force. They demanded that something be done about the troublemaker, namely me. I pointed out that there had been no confidentiality agreement and the Guiding Principles had already been released. But they argued that members would no longer feel comfortable participating out of fear that whatever they say may be published. It was apparently inappropriate for me to hold these individuals accountable for their ideas. I could have been given a warning not to publish anything in the future without consent of the Task Force, which would have protected their sensibilities. But just as the race card helped to derail the Guiding Principles themselves, so now it sealed my fate. I ought to be ashamed, they told me, because the members of the Task Force named in my article were people of color. In other words, people of color are above criticism and my concern for free speech and the betrayal of its principles was essentially racist.
For President Holtschneider this was all he needed to hear. Each and every time an incident like this occurs, the administration buckles to the pressure of the diversity agenda; this time was no exception. Under apparent duress from the Diversity Council, I was informed that I would no longer be welcome on the Free Speech and Expression Task Force. So much for free speech.
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Nicholas G. Hahn III is the President of the DePaul Conservative Alliance and a student of Political Science and Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Nicholas is a Phillips Foundation Ronald Reagan College Leaders Scholar and has been named among the 2006-2007 Top Ten Campus Conservative Activists by Young America’s Foundation.
DePaul University: Catholic in name only. Sad to see a onetime great school fall.
Regards,
The liberal idea of “free speech”: You can disagree with anyone, just as long as they’re either Christian, white, and/or Republican. Everyone else is sacrosanct.
President Rev. Dennis Holtschneider created a Free Speech and Expression Task Force and charged it with creating a policy for free speech”
Wouldn’t a free speech policy be “You’re free to say anything you want, but if you say the wrong thing to some people you might get punched in the nose”?
Free Speech for me, not for thee. We have truly reached an abyss, where truth is not allowed as part of free speech. Selfish individualism has taken over. Everyone who wants to be offended for anything at anytime, is, and it's all about them. There is no more "for the good of civilization, or for the common good.
My daughter is a sophomore there. She hates it and will be transferring out after this year.
She says the campus is filled with homosexuals and in her classes, nobody can say or do anything in their work that is “un-pc”...
Diversity is ruining our society, our country our world. Everything is based on your color, your heritage, your gender, your sexual preference. Tolerance means accepting and approval of the evil around us while silencing Christians. Every white child that is born to a moral and decent family is the object of hate by leftist, liberals, the liberal black coalition and sadly many black churches and every homosexual group. In times like this, where evil is called good, moral and Christian people are a light to the dark.
I think you missed male (heterosexual, that is).
The thing is, there have to be Catholic officials who know Plato, St. Augustine, St. Aquinas and the many philosophers in between and since. They can argue the truth to these new age secular barbarians who hope to undo 2,000 years of philosophical Christianity.
It is a crime that these people get away with polluting young minds.
It was once...now it’s a PC dominated community college.
Regards,
Those types are no longer on the faculty. I didn’t attend DePaul, but know friends who did. My alma mater, Marquette University, began the slide long before DePaul. Jesuit in name only...lot’s of Dorthy Day and Ceasar Chavez type Catholics then. Now, it is a PC maze.
Sad.
The real problem is that our universities are behavioral incubators. Its only a matter of time before this stuff spreads to the rest of society. It is happening already, but in more watered down ways. The assertion that free speech only belongs to “the powerless” is very dangerous indeed.
Don’t you think that Roman Catholicism has become as big a tent as possible? The opinions and practices of various RC people and institutions are all over the place. Honestly, it seems one can call oneself RC and believe just about anything, at least on political issues and social concerns.
Just an observation. Maybe it’s not what it appears to a non-Catholic.
All they want is the tuition money. That’s it...period.
The policy you are looking for is at the beginning of the Bill of Rights. Or at least it was until Sen. McCain got to it.
You are mostly correct, and thanks for saying it. I'm greatful to God that my son, the "Ace" in my screename is a pilot, and is only judged on his flying skills.
So does the Catholic church have any sway over DePaul, or can they act outside of church doctrine without the threat of discipline?
By the year 2028, 20 yrs hence, if not before, college as we know it, will be defunct.
They are out-pricing, under-delivering themselves into oblivion. They will be rendered to the scrap pile, where they belong - as people can now/will moreso every year, get their education at their own pace, on their own time, through a variety of avenues: on-line schools, DVD, home learning, etc.
And people will learn faster, better and at any age - but particularly at a younger age.
Here’s a couple examples:
http://www.komotv.com/news/14848331.html?video=YHI&t=a
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KrYL8zPDINQ
Mark it down.
Point taken. Many thanks.
No, I think you are on the mark. Was hoping the new Pope was going to dragoon all these “liberal” universities back into some semblance of actual control by the church, rather than the private fiefdoms of various and sundry bishops and special interest groups.
I will not send my daughter to a Catholic University just because it labels itself so. Most are neither Catholic, or really universities anymore.
Regards,
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