![[menu_gallery]](http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/GridIcon-24px.png "[menu_gallery]"){kind=small}
Censorship and “Unlearning Liberty” at College: Q&A with FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff
“The…idea that if you just let people talk, it will be this pit of racist pandemonium…is sort of childish and it oversimplifies. But it is a great justification for having a lot of power over speech,” says Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Lukianoff spoke with Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie about his new book Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, where he details the slow and steady withering of free expression on America’s college campuses.
In some ways, the modern on-campus free-speech movement dates back to 1993′s “water buffalo incident” at the University of Pennsylvania, where a student was brought up on racial harassment charges for using the term “water buffalo” as an insult. That case led directly to the founding of FIRE, which “defends free speech, due process and basic rights on campus.”
A Stanford Law-trained liberal who blogs at the Huffington Post, Lukianoff insists that by restricting controversial or potentially offensive speech, “you’re putting people into echo chambers” where they only interact with people with whom they already agree. That sort of groupthink is dangerous to a free society, says Lukianoff, but it’s particularly appalling to see it instituted at the nation’s colleges and universities, where the free exchange of ideas is supposed to be the whole point of higher education.
GOP Video “Fraudster”: Elizabeth Warren, a.k.a. Martha Coakley 2.0 #MASen
From National Review Online:
The Massachusetts State GOP puts out a web video on Elizabeth Warren, sudden self-proclaimed Native American, entitled “Fraudster.”
I expect to see the footage of Warren claiming, “A picture of my grandfather… had high cheekbones, like all of the Indians do” over and over again this year.
To refresh, Warren was identified as a minority at University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Law School, and by the Association of American Law Schools from 1986 to 1995. She claims she listed herself as a Native American merely to get an invitation to a “luncheon,” even though the Native American Association at Harvard there is no record of her ever participating in their events.
Somewhere Martha Coakley is watching all of this and exclaiming, “wow, what an awful politician.”
#MASen Update: University of Pennsylvania Described Warren as a Minority Faculty Member…
In Massachusetts, that DRIP, DRIP, DRIP sound you hear is the sound of a Democratic Senate campaign that is rapidly losing credibility with voters. Just 72 hours after Warren repeated her claim that she had “no idea” how or why Harvard Law School had listed her as a minority, it turns out the University of Pennsylvania Law School – where she taught before Harvard – also touted her as a minority. And yet, Warren is still flatly refusing to release all of her law school personnel records for public view – there is apparently a reason for that. Here is just a sampling of today’s headlines….
[list type="arrow"] [li]
· Washington Post: University of Pennsylvania also listed Elizabeth Warren as a minority
· New York Times: University of Pennsylvania Described Warren as a Minority Faculty Member
· ABC News: Elizabeth Warren Did Not List as Minority on Law School Application, Was Touted as One by U. Penn
· Politico: Elizabeth Warren listed as minority at U Penn
[/li] [/list]
Meanwhile, even Warren’s fellow Ivy League Law Professors aren’t buying Warren’s story – Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson was a guest on Dan Rea’s NightSide Show on WBZ 1030 – the Boston mega station – where he said Warren’s explanations simply do not add up. Click here to listen.
Did Elizabeth Warren Use Native American Heritage to Advance Legal Career? Professor Gives Conflicting Statements
In Massachusetts, a growing controversy surrounding Elizabeth Warren as the Harvard Professor gives conflicting statements over the last 72 hours over whether or not she used her self-described Native American heritage to advance her legal career. After telling the media on Friday that she did not “recall” ever having cited her “minority” background – while simultaneously being unable to offer any proof of such heritage – new information emerged over the weekend calling that statement into very serious doubt….Politico’s Maggie Haberman writes last night, This weekend, the blog the Volokh Conspiracy has posted on finding Warren listed in the Association of American Law Schools directory of law teachers under the “minority” index for three years she was at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s, just prior to going to Harvard. The AALS directory for the 1986-87 book explains that professors were listed as minorities if they were “educators who stated they were members of a minority group.”
- The Boston Globe has this lead this morning…..US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren – who said Friday she didn’t realize Harvard Law School had been promoting her as a Native American faculty member in the 1990s – was listed as a minority professor in American law school directories for nine years before she landed at Harvard, documents show. The Association of American Law Schools desk book, a directory of law professors from participating schools, includes Warren among the minority law professors listed, beginning in 1986 and continuing through 1995. The years include time she spent teaching at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania, before she joined the faculty at Harvard Law. The listings were based on professors reporting that they were members of a minority group, the directory says.
- Meanwhile the Boston Herald has this headline – Scott Brown calls on Warren camp to ‘come clean’ — Despite claiming she never used her Native American heritage when applying for a job, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign admitted last night the Democrat listed her minority status in professional directories for years when she taught at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania.
- Politico’s James Hohmann astutely notes in Morning Score – FACT OF LIFE: This could hurt Warren with the white working class in South Boston, especially if new information comes out to suggest that she used her heritage to get a leg up.
- From National Review – “Dances With Hogwash” – and from the American Thinker – “Elizabeth Warren, poster girl for liberal hypocrisy”
- Finally, Boston Herald Howie Carr writes, The fact is, you can’t get much lower than being accused of being a fake Indian. It puts you in the same category as that pony-tailed fraud from the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill. You remember, the fake Indian who said all the people murdered in the World Trade Center on 9/11 were “little Eichmanns.” Now she claims she doesn’t “recall” if she played the race card when she applied for her big-wampum $350,000-a-year job at Harvard Law. You see, it was so many moons — I mean years, ago. Sounds like a lot of bull — Sitting Bull.
