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<div class="gmail-pagetitleloading gmail-background-imaged gmail-loading-dark"><div class="gmail-pagetitle gmail-item gmail-imagewrapper gmail-full-image" style="background:rgba(0,0,0,0) none repeat scroll 0% 0%"><div class="gmail-posttitle gmail-slidecaptionwrap"><div class="gmail-slidecaptioncenter gmail-container"><div class="gmail-slidecaption"><div class="gmail-col-md-8"><h1 class="gmail-title entry-title"> Free speech policies under fire</h1></div></div></div></div> <span></span><div class="gmail-date gmail-updated"> <span class="gmail-day"></span><p> <span class="gmail-month"> Apr </span> <br> <span class="gmail-year"> 2018 </span></p></div><div class="gmail-backstretch" style="overflow:hidden;margin:0px;padding:0px;height:898px;width:1349px"><img style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: medium none; width: 1599.76px; height: 898px; max-height: none; max-width: none; z-index: -999999; left: -125.381px; top: 0px;" src="https://i1.wp.com/utdmercury.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_2032.jpg?fit=1500%2C842"></div></div></div><div class="gmail-container"><div class="gmail-rightside"><div class="gmail-postcontentwrap"><div class="gmail-sharingwrap gmail-desktop-share"><div class="gmail-sharing"><div class="gmail-sharing-inner"> <a href="http://utdmercury.com/free-speech-policies-fire/#share-box" class="gmail-open-popup-link gmail-post-share gmail-share gmail-popup-with-move-anim"><div class="gmail-sharecircle gmail-count">0</div><i class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-share-square-o"></i><span class="gmail-sharetitle">Share</span> </a> <a href="http://utdmercury.com/free-speech-policies-fire/#respond" class="gmail-comment"><div class="gmail-sharecircle"> 0</div> <i class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-comment-o"></i> <span class="gmail-sharetitle"> Comment </span> </a> <a href="http://utdmercury.com/free-speech-policies-fire/#" class="gmail-post-like gmail-love"><div class="gmail-sharecircle gmail-count">0</div><i class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-heart-o"></i><span class="gmail-sharetitle">Love</span></a></div></div></div><div class="gmail-rightcontent"><div class="gmail-postcontent gmail-content"><div class="gmail-tagcloud gmail-badge gmail-no-margin"><h5>Cindy Folefack</h5><a>News Editor</a></div><hr class="gmail-full-width-divider"><h2 class="gmail-post-subtitle"> Watchdog organization gives UTD low rating for limiting First Amendment rights</h2><p>UTD’s campus policies may be limiting free speech among students and faculty, according to a watchdog organization.</p><p>The
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education examines free speech
policies at public and private universities nationwide, then rates those
policies on scale from least to most restrictive. The organization
currently has policies from over 450 institutions, and UTD received a
red light rating from FIRE, meaning it has at least one policy that
explicitly limits freedom of speech.</p><p>The rating was given as a
result of the university’s sexual harassment policy, which initially
defines sexual harassment before detailing other forms of sexual
violence and the consequences that follow. FIRE’s Policy Reform Program
Officer Laura Beltz explained the policy is split into two different
locations of the handbook, which may cause confusion among students, so
it’s evaluated as two policies rather than one. The first half of the
policy, which gives a general description of sexual harassment including
“verbal conduct,” was seen as a clear limitation of free speech by the
watchdog organization.</p><p>“This might have what we call a chilling
effect on protected speech, which means that students reading it might
avoid saying anything controversial just to avoid punishment under the
policy,” Beltz said.</p><p>In addition to the sexual harassment policy’s
rating, FIRE also gave the school’s overall harassment policy a yellow
light, meaning vague wording allows the policy to be ambiguous and used
to limit free speech. The website specifically mentions “verbal abuse”
as an example of this type of wording, which is the exact language used
in UTD’s harassment policy. UT Austin and UT Arlington have red and
yellow light ratings, respectively.</p><p>Despite UTD’s rating, the
university’s speech expression and assembly policy received a green
light, meaning student expression and assembly is unrestricted in terms
of policy. College Democrats President Fawaz Anwar agrees with this
sentiment, citing the appearance of conservative comedian Steven Crowder
after being sponsored by the College Republicans in February.</p><p>“UTD
itself is not really home to political clashes or even that much
ideological debate,” Anwar said. “As far as I can tell, most students
here aren’t interested in starting something like that.”</p><p>Anwar
added he would like to see the handbook become more accessible to the
student body. The university’s policies can currently be found on the
UTD president’s website under Policies.</p><p>“A lot of our policies …
are a bit hard to find. UT Dallas itself is a much more low key campus
than that, but this is still a university,” Anwar said. “There’s still
supposed to be a discourse of ideas here.”</p><p>Beltz said FIRE hasn’t
been in contact with UTD after it was added to the database last year,
but Dean of Students Amanda Smith, who serves on the Handbook of
Operating Procedures Committee said the university is open to reviewing
its policies, a process that occurs at minimum every five years.</p><p>“Individuals
who oversee policies are always very open to take a look at those
policies and make necessary changes, so I feel very confident if that is
something that our student body, faculty, staff or administrators felt
was a huge issue on our campus, it would be a discussion that would
happen,” Smith said. “Nobody would put up an argument to not have that
conversation.”</p><p>Smith said she’s currently satisfied with the
policy, as she hasn’t received any student complaints regarding free
speech and attributes this to the school’s diversity.</p><p>“I feel like
our students are very thirsty for knowledge and information, so those
debates are something that they engage in,” Smith said. “But they’re
very open to hearing what other people have to say, and that’s something
that I don’t think you find just anywhere.”</p></div></div></div></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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