http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/14405879.htm
I encourage anyone reading this to check out this link and read this article, let me know what you personally think of it. To sum it up, for blogging purposes, professor Sally Jacobsen, of Northern Kentucky University, led a group of students outside to a right-to-life display of 400 white crosses memorializing fetuses, and encouraged the students to take down the crosses if they wished. She considered it an act of free speech to dismantle the right to life display, whereas student and Northern Right to Life president Katie Walker considered Jacobsen's actions to be stifling, not expressive of free speech. Professor Hancock, (philosophy), is reported as saying,"It's not clear who is and who isn't allowed to put up certain things on campus" . Many anti-abortion students according to Walker, were dismayed that a professor of a university, " where ideas are supposed to be exchanged, would help destroy a display" .
Obviously the issue spurring the dismantling of the anti-abortion display is one of reproductive rights, but the actual dismantling has become and issue of free speech. Always tricky, free speech can be argued for days, back and forth, because unlike reproductive issues, almost everyone agrees with this right, and there can be no disagreement about it's constitutional entitlements. There can be no religious arguments, it's strictly political.
So, for the sake of argument, if students at NKU had the constitutional right to free speech to put up their "graveyard" display, shouldn't students or professors, even, have that same right to dismantle the display if they wish? If a college campus truly is a place where ideas and philosophies are encouraged to be exchanged, isn't the dismantling of a display an exchange of ideas in itself? Should a professor, such as Jacobsen be inhibited from encouraging students to express themselves in this fashion, and if so, what would be considered an acceptable form of encouragement??
On the other hand, what if the display in question had been one supporting reproductive rights? (See article for example) Would students who support choice even be allowed to put up such a display?? Would the professor who may encourage such an action be suspended as Jacobsen was, and would the defense be one of free speech or one of freedom of religion?
Thoughts??
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