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posted by FatPhil on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the debating-whether-something's-debatable dept.

It looks like anybody can be against academic censorship, as this opinion piece in the Washington Post shows:

Wisconsin's Supreme Court can soon right a flagrant wrong stemming from events set in motion in 2014 at Milwaukee's Marquette University by Cheryl Abbate. Although just a graduate student, she already had a precocious aptitude for academic nastiness.

On Oct. 28, in an undergraduate course she was teaching on ethics, when the subject of same-sex marriage arose, there was no debate, because, a student said, Abbate insisted that there could be no defensible opposition to this. (Marquette is a Jesuit school.) After class, the student told her that he opposed same-sex marriage and her discouraging of debate about it. She replied (he recorded their interaction) that "there are some opinions that are not appropriate that are harmful [...]

[...] McAdams, a tenured professor then in his 41st year at Marquette and a conservative who blogs about the school's news, emailed Abbate seeking her version of the episode. Without responding to him, she immediately forwarded his email to some professors. She has called McAdams "the ringleader" of "extreme white [sic] wing, hateful people," a "moron," "a flaming bigot, sexist and homophobic idiot" and a "creepy homophobic person with bad argumentation skills."

Because there is almost no Wisconsin case law concerning academic freedom that could have guided the circuit court, McAdams is asking the state supreme court to bypass the appeals court and perform its function as the state's "law-developing court." He is also asking the court to be cognizant of the cultural context: Nationwide, colleges and universities "are under pressure" — all of it from within the institutions — "to enact or implement speech codes or otherwise restrict speech in various ways."

[Post-publishing edit: An A/C below helpfully provides the following far more neutral reportage by Inside higher Ed titled Ethics Lesson which explains the situation with more light and less head. Thanks A/C - Ed. (FP)]


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:57PM (#620148)

    The thing which decides my taxes, my rights to residency, my inheritance rights, etc., and how they relate to my chosen life-partner bonding, is *the government*.

    You're from the UK. The person who runs your church also runs your government. She can suspend Parliament, refuse to grant assent to a bill, appoint the Prime Minister, declare war, and much more. You can't even prosecute her. It isn't proper to refer to her as "The thing". Her name is:

    Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth, Baroness Greenwich, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Garter, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Sovereign of the Order of British India, Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Burma, Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.

    Get it right next time.

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:00AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:00AM (#620383) Homepage
    Who's "my government"? Some bunch of jerks overseas in a country I've not lived in for 2 decades, or the ones in country where I have permanent residence, where I pay all my taxes, and where I vote in the local elections?
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves