COLUMBIA, SC A University of South Carolina student who is an activist Libertarian sued the college Tuesday on freedom of speech grounds because it threatened to discipline him for posters used last fall during a free speech event.
Ross Abbott, 21, a USC senior studying business management, filed the federal suit because a university official told Abbott he faced discipline, up to expulsion, over complaints from three students about posters that campus Libertarian organizations displayed at a Nov. 23 “free speech zone” event intended to showcase First Amendment freedoms, according to Catherine Sevcenko, director of litigation for Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
The posters included images of a swastika displayed at another campus and one that alluded to a suspension last year of a USC student over a photo showing a racial slur written in a campus study room. Shortly after the female student’s suspension, FIRE wrote to USC president Harris Pastides and asserted the suspension was improper and that what she wrote is protected speech.
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Private Schools as a Poverty Cure
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Education, Lawsuits, Misconduct, Schools
Public University Mistreats Another Sex Assault Survivor
Second federal complaint against UW-Whitewater in eighteen months:
Raechel Liska, aged 22. Photo from Channel 3000.
“I got assaulted twice,” Liska said. “Once by my attacker, which was the traumatic, horrific part, but again by the school, which was the betrayal.”
Liska said UWW Dean of Students Mary Beth Mackin violated her civil rights by refusing to interview two witnesses and by not accepting either the police report or her medical records stemming from the incident. She also asserts Mackin did not issue a no-contact order against her alleged attacker, even as he retaliated and intimidated her after she spoke to authorities. Further, it was the Army that stepped in and removed her assailant from her classes three months after the incident in question, even after she’d asked the university to do the same multiple times, only to be rebuffed.
“The reason I filed my complaint is because something here needs to change,” she said. “I thought the dean of students would be protecting the students, protecting me. She’s the dean of students. I thought I’d be her priority, but I walked out feeling like protecting the school was her top priority.”
Via Sex assault survivor claims discrimination by university @ WISC-TV Madison, Channel 3000.
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The Chill on Campus
“I once saw an adjunct not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to ‘offensive’ texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain,” he says. “That was enough to get me to comb through my syllabi and cut out anything I could see upsetting a coddled undergrad, texts ranging from Upton…
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Public Officials at Public University Ignore Sexual Assault Victim
When well-paid administrators at a public university, heavily dependent on public money, say they’re public servants, ask them about this: Graduate speaks about filing Title IX complaint against UW-Whitewater @ WISC-TV. UW-Whitewater is the public college in my town of Whitewater, Wisconsin. Here’s what happened to a woman who filed a complaint under Title IX…
Education, Police, Police Brutality, Schools
“Does tear gas belong in schools?”
The answer is supposed to be no. It’s a question now in court because not everyone sees as much: On Jan. 20, a federal court in Birmingham began hearing arguments in a class-action lawsuit alleging that school-based police officers used excessive force in spraying disabling chemicals on teenagers. The eight lead plaintiffs, all former Birmingham…