[613] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Dartmouth and Zeta Psi
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sourav K. Mandal)
Sat May 12 15:37:55 2001
Message-Id: <200105121937.PAA03627@dichotomy.dyn.dhs.org>
From: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>
Reply-To: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
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Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 15:37:35 -0400
""Prez H. Cannady" <revprez@MIT.EDU>" wrote:
> The lack of respect for constitutional guarantees
> on private campuses is disheartening and cancerous. [...]
What does the US Constitution have to do with a private university?
The First Amendment exists to protect the _right_ to free speech; free
speech _privileges_ on campuses exist to bolster rational discourse for
the educational benefit of university affiliates.
That said, universities must guard against a slippery slope towards
counter-productive censorship by tolerating the occasional instance of
nonsense -- I agree that political correctness is one of the worst
phenomena to hit America's campuses. However, this little bit of
speech by Zeta Psi @ Dartmouth clearly violated the right to privacy of
fellow students, as well as promoted an act of violence, crossing the
line from tastelessness, annoyance and hurt feelings to objective harm.
Dartmouth acted appropriately in shutting down the frat.
Regards,
Sourav
------------------------------------------------------------
Sourav K. Mandal
Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com
http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/
