The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity

[lostnotforgotten]

The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity

You can say what you like in the US, just as long as you don't ask awkward questions about America's role in the Middle East

Henry Porter
Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer

Douglas Giles is a recent casualty. He used to teach a class on world religions at Roosevelt University, Chicago, founded in memory of FDR and his liberal-inclined wife, Eleanor. Last year, Giles was ordered by his head of department, art historian Susan Weininger, not to allow students to ask questions about Palestine and Israel; in fact, nothing was to be mentioned in class, textbooks and examinations that could possibly open Judaism to criticism.

Students, being what they are, did not go along with the ban. A young woman, originally from Pakistan, asked a question about Palestinian rights. Someone complained and Professor Giles was promptly fired.

snip ....

'It may be sexy to get on a bus and go to DC and march against war,' he said to me last week. 'It is much less sexy to fight in your own university for the right of free speech. But that is where it begins. That is because they are taking away what you can talk about.' He feels there is a pattern of intolerance in his sacking that has been encouraged by websites such as FrontPageMag.com and Campus Watch.

snip ....

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1843543,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

The reader can draw their own conclusions.

[erik-the-red]

1. What it means to be PC

If we always consider political correctness, then we often times censor ourselves and limit free speech.