And good riddance.
[quote]
Colleges shouldn’t use federal regulations barring the harassment of students to trample free speech rights on campus, according to a letter sent to schools from the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. …
“Some colleges and universities have interpreted OCR’s prohibition of ‘harassment’ as encompassing all offensive speech regarding sex, disability, race or other classifications,” said the letter from Gerald Reynolds, an assistant secretary with the Office for Civil Rights.
But harassment, he said, “must include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive.”
Greg Lukianoff, the director of legal and public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education … called the letter an “end to an era” of speech codes.
“This is a generation that has been taught that they have the right not to be offended,” he said. “But if you teach students that they should never have their beliefs challenged, you’re really undoing the process of education.”
…
On the Net:
The Office of Civil Rights for the Department of Education:
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: