Dixie State University Bans an Alphabet, Tells Women They Can't Use Greek Letters in Club Name
Nineteen female Dixie State University students are being forced to fight their own school for the right to use Greek letters in the name of their organization. Indigo Klabanoff and the members of Phi Beta Pi have repeatedly been denied official recognition because administrators feel that the use of Greek letters in an organization name will give Dixie State a "party school" image.
"I've seen a lot of campus censorship in my time, but telling students their club can't be recognized solely because they wish to use letters from a particular alphabet is a new one to me," said FIRE Senior Vice President Robert Shibley. "I can't believe I actually have to say this, but as a state university, Dixie State simply does not have the power to ban or regulate the use of the Greek alphabet, the Latin alphabet, or any other system of writing."
Dixie State has gone to absurd lengths to deny recognition to Phi Beta Pi as a normal student club. (The group is not asking Dixie State to form a Greek life or residential living apparatus.) For instance, in the video, Klabanoff relates how the rule against Greek letters in club names was simply made up in response to Klabanoff's request. The club believes that the use of Greek letters in its name is important to communicate the values of sisterhood and service to which it aspires.
Megan McArdle's keynote address at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's 2013 Campus Freedom Network conference.
Megan McArdle is a Washington-based journalist who writes about economics, business, and public policy. She works as a full-time blogger for Bloomberg View. Her work has appeared in The Economist, The Atlantic, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and numerous other outlets. McArdle has written extensively about the rising cost of higher education and the shifting value and meaning of a college degree in our society.
One week ago, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia signed into law the Student Group Protection Act, an important piece of legislation spearheaded by state senator Mark Obenshain. If the last name sounds familiar it's because he is the brother of Kate Obenshain, an author, blogger, speaker and regular guest on Fox News. The new law guarantees freedom of association for religious and ideological belief-based student organizations and protects the right of those campus groups to choose leaders who share those beliefs.
"FIRE commends Governor McDonnell, Senator Obenshain, and all of the Virginia Delegates and Senators who worked to pass the Act," said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. "College campuses have long hosted religious and ideological student groups of all types so that students would have the opportunity to be part of a group that satisfies their faith, their passion, or their politics. Guaranteeing those groups the right to hold their leaders to belief-based standards is a vital part of ensuring that a pluralistic and diverse culture can exist on campus."
The law will prevent Virginia's public colleges and universities from adopting so-called "all-comers" policies that require student groups to accept all students as members and leaders, regardless of whether or not they agree with the group's mission, and even if they are only there to undermine or even destroy the group. Most infamously, an all-comers policy now enforced at Vanderbilt University (with exceptions for fraternities and sororities) led to the forced departure from campus of no fewer than 13 religious groups.
Regarding the law's passage, Senator Obenshain remarked, "By ensuring that organizations continue to be able to define themselves by their own particular views, goals, and affiliations, my legislation will ensure that a diversity of viewpoints will continue to have expression on campuses across Virginia."
For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America's
colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about
living in a free society. This video explains how higher education fails
to teach its students to become critical thinkers by supercharging
ideological divisions, promoting groupthink, and encouraging an
unscholarly certainty about complex issues.
The video is drawn (no pun intended) from Unlearning Liberty, a book by Greg Lukianoff of FIRE. In it, Lukianoff walks readers through the life of a modern-day college
student, from orientation to the end of freshman year. Through this
lens, he describes startling violations of free speech rights:
- a student
in Indiana punished for publicly reading a book
- a student in Georgia
expelled for a pro-environment collage he posted on Facebook
- students
at Yale banned from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on a t-shirt
- students across the country banished to tiny “free speech zones.”
But Lukianoff goes further, demonstrating how this culture of censorship
is bleeding into the larger society. As he explores public
controversies involving Juan Williams, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher,
Richard Dawkins, and Larry Summers, along with campus uproars in which
Dave Barry and Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show played a role, Lukianoff paints a stark picture of our ability as a nation to rationally discuss important issues. Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate
reveals how the intolerance for dissent and debate on today’s campus
threatens the freedom of every citizen—and makes us all just a little
bit dumber.
