From: Professor Frederick Fagal (Assoc. Prof of Economics) April 5, 2006
To: Marywood Students living on campus (commuters count too, but this vote is for campus residents)

SHORT ONE-PAGE VERSION: vote for or against student free speech on campus.
This one-page version will save you reading time, but for a longer presentation please 1)Go to http://woodmary.blogspot.com for the blog MU FREE SPEECH ETCETERA
[SORRY - I must have erased it in process of editing! I will try to find a paper copy and get it posted)
Get your ballot from the ballot taker for your living area. Sign the “I voted” sheet and cast your ballot.

Someone in each dorm/living area will arrange a GROUP “free speech” photograph. The group photo will be posted on the woodmary.blogspot.com website and labeled something like “xxx Dorm Students for Free Speech”. Be in the photo to go public !

The accompanying poster is meant to offend almost everyone. [Not now online, the a link to the Word file may be posted later] That is the point of the poster ! People can make fools of themselves if they want to. Examine the poster. If you support free speech you might hear or see things in the dorm or around campus that make you mad! BUT that is the price of free speech. Fight bad stupid speech with wise speech. Let there be a competition of ideas. The competition of ideas might cause your ideas to change. And you may sway others. Great! That’s called free and open debate. No holds barred… The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has a great website www.thefire.org which discusses legal issues and the reasons why free speech is good. Check it out. Let your ideas be challenged. You will be sharper for it. Justice Douglas’ majority opinion Terminillo v Chicago (1949) noted “The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes.”
THE BALLOT CHOICES ARE:
1. I support free speech for Marywood University Students.I recognize that this may mean that some people may take offense at some speech. I am a Marywood University student who lives in university housing.
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2. I believe speech must be responsible, and that student speech on the Marywood Campus must be limited to what the administration or some other Marywood University designated body allows. I am a Marywood University student who lives in university housing.
THINK BEFORE you vote. You need not vote right away. The ballot box closes on Monday. You may take one ballot, do not lose it. But damaged ballots (“soda spill”) will be replaced.
---- Does Free Speech Mean Anything Goes ? No…
There are constitutional limits to free speech. You can picket an abortion clinic, say, or have an anti-abortion march in the neighborhood of a doctor who does abortions. You can’t camp out in front of the doctor’s house and protest. In the dorm that would mean (I think) that you could have (say) a pro-abortion poster on your door. Someone else down the hall could have a poster saying “Abortion is murder and those who support it are murderers”. But the anti-abortion students could not hang out in front of the pro-abortion person’s door in a vigil seeking the “redemption of a supporter of murder”. See www.thefire.org for legal cases.
Today many private colleges and universities severely limit speech on campus. This is usually done in the name of protecting the feelings of others. You know, political correctness… again, see www.thefire.org . Private universities can legally do things public ones cannot, but private institutions must do what they claim they will do. Note that Marywood’s student handbook says “Free inquiry and free expression are indispensable to the attainment of these goals.”
Recent News:
Last week Borders Bookstores decided not to sell Free Inquiry magazine because it published the Danish Mohammed cartoons; Borders honestly said it feared for the safety of their employees if they carried the magazine! Sadly, threats worked…

One week ago, New York University, whose explicit policies support free speech, forbade the display of the Mohammed cartoons at what was to be an open forum about free speech and the cartoons! NYU was worried about violence … Read the full story at http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/6930.html GOOD NEWS: KATU-TV in Portland, OR showed the cartoons April 1.

Consider what life will be like if those who claim offense (and back up their threats with violence because they are “provoked”) rule the day. Again, Marywood’s student handbook says “Free inquiry and free expression are indispensable to the attainment of these goals.” To me that sounds good. Many universities (wrongly I think) impose all sorts of limits. But you must exercise your rights of free inquiry and free expression to make sure that those rights are, in fact, respected and available. Do you want the most easily offended to set the rules of discussion and speech ? Without free speech that is where we will be taken…

Do NOT rely on the faculty to protect your rights! I sadly report the free speech survey results from the Marywood faculty :
I received only 22 responses from roughly 150 surveys. Each faculty member received a stamped addressed return envelope!
9 professors (3 willing to go public) support free speech for students on campus
4 professors (3 willing to go public) would limit student speech on campus , 8 professors had an in-between position or no opinion
~118 professors did not care enough about the free speech issue to respond one way or the other!
Finally, due to opposition by Harvard’s undergraduate liberal arts faculty , Harvard University’s brilliant (economist J ) president Larry Summers recently resigned over a political correctness flap(s). But 80% of Harvard undergraduate students said that Summers should stay! Student opinion need NOT reflect faculty opinion; never forget you students are the paying customers !
THANK YOU for reading, thinking, and voting. Sincere Best Wishes, Frederick Fagal, Assoc. Prof. Economics