The Tower Caves on Free Speech Issue
October 9th, 2008 by Forrest Wilder
Free speech has won out at the University of Texas. UT-Austin just decided to suspend its stupendously dumb rule that students can’t have signs in their dorm windows.
“The students and community raised their collective voice and the president of the university listened,” Jeffery Graves, vice president of legal affairs at UT, told me a few minutes ago.
Graves said an interim rule has gone into effect, allowing signage in dorm windows. Disciplinary actions pending against students who refused to remove their political posters have been dropped.
Really, UT didn’t have much of a choice. The media was hammering the university administration. The blogs were lighting up. The University Democrats and College Republicans had even joined forces. More important, some alumni were threatening to stop making financial donations. Here’s what one alumna wrote in an email to UT:
I will find it very difficult in the future to make financial contributions to an educational institution that suppresses political speech in such a broad brush manner. You certainly are teaching the students (and the rest of us) one thing - that we need a new legal department at the University if students want to enjoy their Constitutional rights. Congratulations on embarrassing UT in front of the entire country.
If there’s one thing the Tower fears, it’s a good old fashioned alumni boycott.
