Attention, Ink-Stained Wretches!
A burgeoning controversy at the UO is spreading across the blogosphere at this very hour, and sounds like something worth following up on locally. The original KEZI report is right here. I heard Glenn Reynolds talking about it on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show just a few minutes ago; he has no idea how to pronounce “Oregon.”
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I don’t think the administration’s beef is with the “content” of the message. The issue is with the time/manner/place of the communication of said message.
In general, state employees are not supposed to promote personal beliefs via state resources.
In this instance, the sticker reads “Support the Troops.”
What if the sticker read “S[p]it on the Troops”? What if it read “Support Al Qaeda”?
That being said, only someone who supports terrorism and/or hates America would complain about someone supporting U.S. troops. Or it could’ve been a GTF.
M-Dog, the key word here is “employees.”
Faculty are employees, too. FIRE protects them.
I’m sure you’re right about the UO’s legal right to ban the employee’s displays — Reynolds said as much on the air. But this need not be reduced to legalities.
What the UO did was simply stupid: bending over backward to appease the ruin-it-for-everybody jerks who claim to see no light between the phrase “support our troops” and the sentiment “support this war.”
(In fact, I thought (most of) the left had made great pains to at least mention their support for the troops — seeing as how spitting on veterans in the 60’s didn’t earn them any accolades.)
The admin. could allow those stickers if they wanted. They should at least be persuaded to reconsider.
“The UO also owns the residence halls and they have Kerry support signs in their windows, as well as the famous “Fuck Bush” sign, and the UO defended that student’s right to free speech against angry community members.”
M-Dog, the key word here is “employees.” The U can’t touch student speech, regardless of what Mason Quiroz tells you. Employees come under an entirely different line of cases.
“The trucks are part of a public institution.
Under state law… public employees can not use state resources to spread political messages.”
The UO also owns the residence halls and they have Kerry support signs in their windows, as well as the famous “Fuck Bush” sign, and the UO defended that student’s right to free speech against angry community members.
“The university determined that some may view the yellow ribbons as a political statement…threfore (sic) they demanded that all those stickers be removed.”
Note to UO: Please try not to ban the American flag from campus. Some view that as a political statement, too.