FIRE president and Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate author Greg Lukianoff writes for the Friday, May 17 opinion page of the Wall Street Journal about the May 9 letter declaring sexual harassment "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature." What the Departments of Justice and Education have done, as explained by Lukianoff, constitutes a major assault on both free speech and Due Process on virtually every American college campus, public and private. I think it is unlikely that many, if any, colleges and universities will fight back rather than roll-over, hire more administrators, and do the federal government’s bidding. This means more work for those of us out here in civil society to protect what is left of academic freedom and fair disciplinary procedures on our beleaguered campuses.

You can access the piece at the following link:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323582904578485041304763554.html

Want to openly discuss gender discrepancies in the workplace? Want to listen to uncensored rap music? How about put on a comedy show? Not on our campuses! And what if you or a friend or family member has to pursue a defense to an unmeritorious charge of sexual harassment? Forget it!

On May 9^th, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education jointly issued a letter to the University of Montana, which the government called “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,” and which mandates changes to campus sexual harassment policies that will effectively make each of the above actions punishable offenses and will turn hearings into even worse kangaroo courts than exist today. This is a very serious development that everyone who thinks our universities play an important function in society will want to know about.

In my latest column for Minding the Campus, co-authored with my research assistant Juliana DeVries, we argue that the federal government’s unconstitutional mandate will obliterate free speech and fair process on campuses and make every student guilty of “harassment” several times a day. You can read the column on the Minding the Campus website.  

An excerpt after the jump...

As those of you who read my various writing know, our nation’s campuses are far from hubs of free inquiry. Today’s campus culture more accurately resembles a corporation, or, viewed a bit more cynically, a mini-police state. In my most recent piece for Minding the Campus, co-authored with my research assistants, Juliana DeVries and Zachary Bloom, we explain how the Harvard email search scandal is only the latest demonstration of administrators and lawyers’ power over faculty and staff. This latest invasion of academic prerogatives by the overlords should be a wake-up call to spur a rebellion against the unholy trends destroying liberal arts institutions all over the country.