VOLuntarilyConservative

Jihad Daniel, a Muslim grad student at William Paterson University, responded to an evite from a Women's Studies professor concerning a film about lesbian relationships by asking that his name be removed from any further mailings dealing with "perversions." The professor claimed discrimination, and the university reprimanded Daniel. An appeal was filed but was denied, and now a lawsuit may be in the works. Focus on the Family has more, with a whole slew of the original e-mails and media coverage by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) here.

Remember the good ole days when students were allowed - even expected - to add their own personal views to the melting pot of ideas that is a university campus? Yeah, maybe it was before my time, too.

This does beg the question, though - how do the liberals who refuse any dissenting voice on their campuses justify affirmative action programs? Those programs were only found constitutional by the Supreme Court because Justice O'Connor was convinced that students from a different background (in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, the difference was racial) have much to offer the free flow of ideas on university campuses and their contributions help all students to understand differing viewpoints. If dissent is truly not allowed at colleges and universities (and judging by how busy FIRE has been over the past five years, it can certainly be argued that the right to dissent is abandoned as one enters campus), then O'Connor's argument fails.