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Re: [OM] University of New Hampshire Bias Free Language Guide

Subject: Re: [OM] University of New Hampshire Bias Free Language Guide
From: "Bill Pearce" <billcpearce@xxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2015 13:57:45 -0500
Actually, the FSM must have been confined to your area. My sister, a retired faculty member at a first tier midwestern university, has sent me over the past 5 years copies of memos that she felt, rightly I think, that the free speech of students and faculty was being restricted. Most recently she sent a copy of a memo outlining the university's new rules regarding "microagression." If a professor is leading a student discussion of something, anything, and a student makes a comment that makes another student "feel uncomfortable," that student is guilty of microagression and should be severely reminded of this failing on their part. I think microagression falls into the category of first world problems, as we have become so coddled in our comfortable lives that we think our constitutional rights extend to the right to always feel comfortable.

Of course I'm sure you all have heard of the actions of our state legislature in their last session that totally eliminate the ability of state college and university staff and faculty to publicly comment on most anything.

-----Original Message----- From: Moose
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2015 1:46 PM
To: Olympus Camera Discussion
Subject: Re: [OM] University of New Hampshire Bias Free Language Guide

On 8/1/2015 7:21 AM, Scott Gomez wrote:
One is as free to say what one likes as one wants, as long as one is
willing to accept the consequences of that speech.

But that was not the case in Berkeley before the early 60s. The whole thing started because campus police were rousting advocates with card tables, even those set up on public sidewalks (wide, not blocking) adjacent to the campus, confiscating materials, destroying property, roughing up and sometimes arresting both those people and soap boxers.

So what you say is a big improvement on the situation before the FSM. One was not then free "to say what one likes as one wants" back then. People who did so on the wrong topics on in the wrong way were silenced and/or carted away. Speech was not free then, and the consequences were more draconian that they are today.

I did not experience it , but understood the situation to be even more oppressive elsewhere. Kent State comes to mind.
(I have a friend who is professor of Video there now.)

It seems that the material posted on the UNH web site that started this thread is an example of free speech not in line
with official University positions.

Mouthy Moose

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