Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Encyclopedia
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a non-profit group founded in 1999 and focused on civil liberties
in academia
in the United States
. Its goal is "to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities," including the rights to "freedom of speech
, legal equality, due process
, religious liberty
, and sanctity of conscience--the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity".
One of FIRE's main activities has been criticism of university administrators whose activities have, in FIRE's view, violated the free speech
or due process rights of college and university students and professors under the First Amendment
and/or Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
. FIRE lists over 170 such instances on its website.
FIRE was founded by Alan Charles Kors
, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania
, and Harvey A. Silverglate
, a civil-liberties lawyer in Cambridge, Massachusetts
. Silverglate remains the chairman of FIRE's board, while Kors is Chairman Emeritus. Since March 23, 2006, FIRE's President has been Greg Lukianoff
, who previously served as interim president.
FIRE has no stated political affiliation, and has represented the causes of parties with varied political viewpoints, ranging from conservative, liberal, and religious student groups to other activists such as members of PETA
and Professor Ward Churchill
.
FIRE often claims to identify "speech codes" within college and university sexual or racial harassment policies. FIRE has taken stances on campus sexual misconduct
policies; for example, it denounced the American Association of University Women
's report on sexual harassment
as "fatally flawed" and sided with the defendants in joining an amicus brief in Lyle v. Warner Brothers Television Productions et al.
Another issue is opposition to campus "security fees" that some campuses impose on organizations hosting controversial or unpopular speakers on the theory that they should pay for extra security the colleges deem necessary due to the likelihood of demonstrations and disruption of the events. FIRE bases its opposition to such fees on the Supreme Court ruling in Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement
; the Supreme Court stated that "speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob."
FIRE has also voiced support for freedom of association by funding and operation of "expressive" student organizations, including campus religious organizations that may discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or religious belief in membership (for example at Tufts University
and at the Milwaukee School of Engineering
) and fraternities that may engage in "off-color" or "misogynistic" speech.
The group also targets situations where students and faculty are adjudicated outside the bounds of due process
afforded to them by Constitutional law or stated university policy.
, The Torch, and a detailed listing of universities in the United States, called Spotlight. The site gathers together each university's various harassment and hate speech policies, as well as any "Advertised Commitments to Freedom of Speech". On the basis of these and media reports, FIRE then assigns each institution a color code: green ("no serious threats to free speech"), yellow ("some policies that could ban or excessively regulate protected speech") or red ("at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech"). In April 2007, Jon B. Gould, an author and George Mason University
faculty member, criticized FIRE's rating methods, claiming that FIRE had grossly exaggerated the prevalence of unconstitutional speech codes.
As of March 2008, FIRE rated most institutions "red"; of the eight universities of the Ivy League
, two were rated "green" (Dartmouth
and the University of Pennsylvania
), four were rated "red" (Brown
, Cornell
, Harvard
and Princeton
) and the final two (Yale
and Columbia
) were rated "yellow".
, who previously served as interim president after the retirement of David French.
FIRE was co-founded by Alan Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate
, who were FIRE's co-directors until 2004. Kors served as FIRE's first president and chairperson. Its first executive director and, later, CEO, was Thor Halvorssen. As of 2008, Silverglate was still active with the organization as chairman and served on the Board of Directors, while Kors was no longer listed as an active board member. Also included among FIRE's directors were molecular biologist Richard Losick
, feminist scholar Daphne Patai
, and libertarian author Virginia Postrel
.
As of 2008, FIRE's Board of Advisors included the following notable people:
in 2000, FIRE defended a Christian group that had been de-recognized by the university for refusing to allow a homosexual student to take a leadership position in the group, although the student was permitted to remain a member of the group. FIRE defended the group on religious freedom grounds, arguing that members of student groups that have an expressive purpose should be allowed to organize and operate religious groups based on that expressive purpose.
FIRE has also criticized Columbia University
's sexual misconduct policy; according to FIRE, the policy "lack[ed] even the most minimal safeguards and fundamental principles of fairness". That controversy led to the resignation of Charlene Allen, Columbia's program coordinator for the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Education, whose policies were at the center of the controversy. Allen's resignation was considered in part due to FIRE's activism.
In 2003 and 2004, FIRE acted on behalf of Cal Poly student Steve Hinkle, who was punished for posting a flier on a public bulletin board announcing a College Republicans-sponsored speech by a black social critic. Some students at the campus Multicultural Center found the flier offensive. Hinkle politely offered to discuss the flier, but to no avail. After he left, a student called the university police, whose official report stated that officers had responded to complaints about "a suspicious white male passing out literature of an offensive racial nature." The Cal Poly Judicial Affairs Office, after a seven-hour hearing in February 2003, found Hinkle guilty of "disruption of a campus event," as several students in the Multicultural Center public area claimed that they were having a meeting at the time, although no sign, announcement, or record of that event existed. Despite repeated attempts by FIRE to get Cal Poly's admin to correct the problem, FIRE brought suit in Hinkle's name. Eventually, Cal Poly settled out of court. The sequence of events is fully detailed in a FIRE press release, issued May 6, 2004.
FIRE supported Linda McCarriston
, a poet
, professor
and self-described socialist at the University of Alaska Anchorage
, in a case in which the University was investigating her for a poem she had published on sexual abuse involving Native Alaskans. In explicit response to FIRE's intervention, University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton ordered that the investigation cease on constitutional grounds, stating that "there was nothing to investigate"; he was formally commended for defending academic freedom by Democratic governor Tony Knowles
and by unanimous vote of both houses of the Alaska legislature.
FIRE joined with a number of other civil liberties groups in the case of Hosty v. Carter
, involving suppression of a student newspaper at Governors State University
in Illinois, and has been involved in a case at Arizona State University
where it condemned the listing of a class as open only to Native American
students.
FIRE sparred with the University of New Hampshire
in 2004 over its treatment of student Timothy Garneau, who was expelled from student housing after he wrote and distributed a flier joking that female classmates could lose the "Freshman fifteen
" by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. After FIRE publicly criticized the decision, Garneau was reinstated. He had been living in his car for three weeks.
In 2007, FIRE took issue with a document from a Resident Assistant training session at the University of Delaware
's Office of Residence Life Diversity Facilitation Training. The brief handout, compiled and presented by Dr. Shakti Butler, included a controversial definition of the word "racist". The author noted that it "applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality". About this event, Walter E. Williams
wrote, "This gem of wisdom suggests that by virtue of birth alone, not conduct, if you're white, you're a racist."
FIRE
sent a letter to the President of University of Florida
on November 29, 2007, expressing outrage that the Vice-Chancellor had sent a mass email which condemned a showing of the movie Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West
and called for an apology from those responsible. The state Attorney General had threatened legal action due to possible freedom of speech violations. Two weeks later, the Vice-Chancellor and President signed a follow-up statement retracting the call for apology.
FIRE criticized Brandeis University
on both free speech and due process grounds in early 2008 over its treatment of veteran politics professor Donald Hindley. Provost Marty Krauss informed Hindley in October 2007 that comments he made in his Latin American politics class violated the school's anti-harassment policy. Kruass placed a monitor in Hindley's class and ordered him to attend racial sensitivity training. FIRE, along with Brandeis' own Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities, has criticized Krauss for never explicitly telling Hindley what specific in-class comments constituted harassing speech and for not granting Hindley a process by which to appeal the decision. According to Brandeis' student press, Hindley is rumored to have used the epithet "wetback." An anonymous student-witness, quoted in the Brandeis Hoot, called Hindley's remarks "inappropriate." Other students praised Hindley's pedagogical approach as encouraging "students to face racist narratives head on" and that any disagreement "is a dispute for students and faculty to solve through rational dialogue, not one for the administration to settle in secret inquisitions."
In 2007, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) disciplined a university employee, who also was a student, for reading "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan". This book was available in the university library. FIRE took its criticism of IUPUI public. The chancellor finally apologized to the employee-student after mounting criticism from FIRE, the ACLU
, and other free speech groups.
In May 2007 Valdosta State University
expelled T. Hayden Barnes, who had protested against the construction of two new parking garages on the campus which he saw as encouraging the use of private transportation. University President Ronald Zaccari misconstrued a caption of the proposed garages as the "Ronald Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage" as a threat to himself. With FIRE support, the expulsion was overturned and a court found VSU to have violated Barnes's due process rights.
In 2008, college professor Kerry Laird was ordered by Temple College to remove a cartoon with the quote, "Gott ist tot" (God is Dead), a famous quote from Nietzsche, from his office door. FIRE wrote a letter to the Temple administration hinting at the possibility of legal action and stated, "Please spare Temple College the embarrassment of fighting against the Bill of Rights, by which it is legally and morally bound." Temple has since lifted the ban.
In 2010, FIRE criticized DePaul University
for denying recognition to a group advocating for Decriminalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States stating that student groups must "be congruent with our institutional goals regarding the health and well-being of our students."
Boasting over 3,000 members, FIRE's Campus Freedom Network consists of students dedicated to FIRE's mission and to establish a social network for supporters of free speech rights on college campuses. Under the direction of Luke Sheahan, the FIRE's CFN continues to grow and is hosting its second annual Campus Freedom Network Conference in June 2009, inviting fifty students to Philadelphia to learn and debate about free speech issues on the college campus.
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
in academia
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Its goal is "to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities," including the rights to "freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, legal equality, due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
, religious liberty
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
, and sanctity of conscience--the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity".
One of FIRE's main activities has been criticism of university administrators whose activities have, in FIRE's view, violated the free speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
or due process rights of college and university students and professors under the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
and/or Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
. FIRE lists over 170 such instances on its website.
FIRE was founded by Alan Charles Kors
Alan Charles Kors
Alan Charles Kors is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches the intellectual history of the 17th and 18th centuries. He has received both the Lindback Foundation Award and the Ira Abrams Memorial Award for distinguished college teaching. Dr. Kors graduated summa...
, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, and Harvey A. Silverglate
Harvey A. Silverglate
Harvey A. Silverglate is an attorney based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the co-founder, with Alan Charles Kors, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , for which he also serves as the current Chairman of the Board of Directors.He holds degrees from Princeton University ...
, a civil-liberties lawyer in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. Silverglate remains the chairman of FIRE's board, while Kors is Chairman Emeritus. Since March 23, 2006, FIRE's President has been Greg Lukianoff
Greg Lukianoff
Greg Lukianoff is the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education . He previously served as FIRE's first Director of Legal and Public Advocacy until he was appointed President in 2006...
, who previously served as interim president.
FIRE has no stated political affiliation, and has represented the causes of parties with varied political viewpoints, ranging from conservative, liberal, and religious student groups to other activists such as members of PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and two million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights...
and Professor Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
.
Issues
One of FIRE's primary focuses is opposition to campus "speech codes." "FIRE defines a 'speech code' as any university regulation or policy that prohibits expression that would be protected by the First Amendment in society at large."FIRE often claims to identify "speech codes" within college and university sexual or racial harassment policies. FIRE has taken stances on campus sexual misconduct
Sexual misconduct
Sexual misconduct is misconduct of a sexual nature. The term may be used to condemn an act, but in some jurisdictions it has also a legal meaning....
policies; for example, it denounced the American Association of University Women
American Association of University Women
The American Association of University Women advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. It was founded in 1882 by Ellen Swallow Richards and Marion Talbot...
's report on sexual harassment
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
as "fatally flawed" and sided with the defendants in joining an amicus brief in Lyle v. Warner Brothers Television Productions et al.
Another issue is opposition to campus "security fees" that some campuses impose on organizations hosting controversial or unpopular speakers on the theory that they should pay for extra security the colleges deem necessary due to the likelihood of demonstrations and disruption of the events. FIRE bases its opposition to such fees on the Supreme Court ruling in Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement
Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement
Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court limited the ability of local governments to charge fees for the use of public places for private activities...
; the Supreme Court stated that "speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob."
FIRE has also voiced support for freedom of association by funding and operation of "expressive" student organizations, including campus religious organizations that may discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or religious belief in membership (for example at Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
and at the Milwaukee School of Engineering
Milwaukee School of Engineering
The Milwaukee School of Engineering is a private university located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. MSOE is best known for its applications-oriented curriculum, close association with business and industry, and extremely high placement rate...
) and fraternities that may engage in "off-color" or "misogynistic" speech.
The group also targets situations where students and faculty are adjudicated outside the bounds of due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
afforded to them by Constitutional law or stated university policy.
University ratings
FIRE maintains a blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, The Torch, and a detailed listing of universities in the United States, called Spotlight. The site gathers together each university's various harassment and hate speech policies, as well as any "Advertised Commitments to Freedom of Speech". On the basis of these and media reports, FIRE then assigns each institution a color code: green ("no serious threats to free speech"), yellow ("some policies that could ban or excessively regulate protected speech") or red ("at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech"). In April 2007, Jon B. Gould, an author and George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
faculty member, criticized FIRE's rating methods, claiming that FIRE had grossly exaggerated the prevalence of unconstitutional speech codes.
As of March 2008, FIRE rated most institutions "red"; of the eight universities of the Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
, two were rated "green" (Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
and the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
), four were rated "red" (Brown
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
) and the final two (Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
) were rated "yellow".
Leadership
FIRE's president since March 2006 is Greg LukianoffGreg Lukianoff
Greg Lukianoff is the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education . He previously served as FIRE's first Director of Legal and Public Advocacy until he was appointed President in 2006...
, who previously served as interim president after the retirement of David French.
FIRE was co-founded by Alan Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate
Harvey A. Silverglate
Harvey A. Silverglate is an attorney based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the co-founder, with Alan Charles Kors, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , for which he also serves as the current Chairman of the Board of Directors.He holds degrees from Princeton University ...
, who were FIRE's co-directors until 2004. Kors served as FIRE's first president and chairperson. Its first executive director and, later, CEO, was Thor Halvorssen. As of 2008, Silverglate was still active with the organization as chairman and served on the Board of Directors, while Kors was no longer listed as an active board member. Also included among FIRE's directors were molecular biologist Richard Losick
Richard Losick
Richard Losick is an American molecular biologist whose research interests include RNA polymerase, sigma factors, regulation of gene transcription, and bacterial development, being especially noted for his investigations of endospore formation in Gram positive organisms such as Bacillus subtilis...
, feminist scholar Daphne Patai
Daphne Patai
Daphne Patai is a feminist scholar and author. She is a professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her PhD is in Brazilian literature, but her early work also focused on utopian and dystopian fiction...
, and libertarian author Virginia Postrel
Virginia Postrel
Virginia I. Postrel is an American political and cultural writer of broadly libertarian, or classical liberal, views. She is best known for her two non-fiction books, The Future and Its Enemies and The Substance of Style...
.
As of 2008, FIRE's Board of Advisors included the following notable people:
- T. Kenneth Cribb, former Reagan official and current president of the Intercollegiate Studies InstituteIntercollegiate Studies InstituteThe Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Inc., or ', is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1953 as the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists...
. - Nat HentoffNat HentoffNathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
, author and columnist. - Roy InnisRoy InnisRoy Emile Alfredo Innis is an African American civil rights activist. He has been National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality since his election to the position in 1968....
, National Chairman of the Congress of Racial EqualityCongress of Racial EqualityThe Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
. - Wendy KaminerWendy KaminerWendy Kaminer is a lawyer and writer. She has written several books on contemporary social issues, including A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight From Equality, about the conflict between egalitarian and protectionist feminism; I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other...
, lawyer, feminist, and social critic. - Leonard LiggioLeonard LiggioLeonard Liggio is a classical liberal author, research professor of law at George Mason University, and executive vice president of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.-Present positions:...
, author, law professor, and board member of several libertarian think tanks. - Herbert LondonHerbert London-Early life:He was born in Brooklyn, New York circa 1939 and attended Columbia University, graduating in 1960. Standing 6'5", he was drafted by the Syracuse Nationals of the National Basketball League, but did not play for them because of injuries. He was a social studies secondary school teacher...
, president of the Hudson InstituteHudson InstituteThe Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
. - John SearleJohn SearleJohn Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
, Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley. - Christina Hoff SommersChristina Hoff SommersChristina Hoff Sommers is an American author and former philosophy professor who is known for her critique of late 20th century feminism, and her writings about feminism in contemporary American culture...
, author and fellow at the American Enterprise InstituteAmerican Enterprise InstituteThe American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
.
Cases
At Tufts UniversityTufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
in 2000, FIRE defended a Christian group that had been de-recognized by the university for refusing to allow a homosexual student to take a leadership position in the group, although the student was permitted to remain a member of the group. FIRE defended the group on religious freedom grounds, arguing that members of student groups that have an expressive purpose should be allowed to organize and operate religious groups based on that expressive purpose.
FIRE has also criticized Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
's sexual misconduct policy; according to FIRE, the policy "lack[ed] even the most minimal safeguards and fundamental principles of fairness". That controversy led to the resignation of Charlene Allen, Columbia's program coordinator for the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Education, whose policies were at the center of the controversy. Allen's resignation was considered in part due to FIRE's activism.
In 2003 and 2004, FIRE acted on behalf of Cal Poly student Steve Hinkle, who was punished for posting a flier on a public bulletin board announcing a College Republicans-sponsored speech by a black social critic. Some students at the campus Multicultural Center found the flier offensive. Hinkle politely offered to discuss the flier, but to no avail. After he left, a student called the university police, whose official report stated that officers had responded to complaints about "a suspicious white male passing out literature of an offensive racial nature." The Cal Poly Judicial Affairs Office, after a seven-hour hearing in February 2003, found Hinkle guilty of "disruption of a campus event," as several students in the Multicultural Center public area claimed that they were having a meeting at the time, although no sign, announcement, or record of that event existed. Despite repeated attempts by FIRE to get Cal Poly's admin to correct the problem, FIRE brought suit in Hinkle's name. Eventually, Cal Poly settled out of court. The sequence of events is fully detailed in a FIRE press release, issued May 6, 2004.
FIRE supported Linda McCarriston
Linda McCarriston
Linda McCarriston, and holding dual citizenship of Ireland and the United States, is a poet and Professor in the Department of Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Alaska Anchorage, teaching Creative Writing and Literary Arts since 1994.-Life:McCarriston had completed her Master of...
, a poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
and self-described socialist at the University of Alaska Anchorage
University of Alaska Anchorage
The University of Alaska Anchorage is the largest school of the University of Alaska System, with about 16,500 students, about 14,000 of whom attend classes at Goose Lake, its main campus in Anchorage....
, in a case in which the University was investigating her for a poem she had published on sexual abuse involving Native Alaskans. In explicit response to FIRE's intervention, University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton ordered that the investigation cease on constitutional grounds, stating that "there was nothing to investigate"; he was formally commended for defending academic freedom by Democratic governor Tony Knowles
Tony Knowles (politician)
Anthony Carroll Knowles is an American Democratic politician and businessman who served as the seventh Governor of Alaska from December 1994 to December 2002. Barred from seeking a third consecutive term as governor in 2002, he ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2004 and again for governor in...
and by unanimous vote of both houses of the Alaska legislature.
FIRE joined with a number of other civil liberties groups in the case of Hosty v. Carter
Hosty v. Carter
Hosty v. Carter was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that limited the free press rights of college newspapers.__FORCETOC__-Background of the case:...
, involving suppression of a student newspaper at Governors State University
Governors State University
Governors State University is a public university located in University Park, Illinois. The campus is located south of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1969, GSU is an upper-division university, offering undergraduate courses at the junior and senior levels as well as graduate level coursework at...
in Illinois, and has been involved in a case at Arizona State University
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
where it condemned the listing of a class as open only to Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
students.
FIRE sparred with the University of New Hampshire
University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire is a public university in the University System of New Hampshire , United States. The main campus is in Durham, New Hampshire. An additional campus is located in Manchester. With over 15,000 students, UNH is the largest university in New Hampshire. The university is...
in 2004 over its treatment of student Timothy Garneau, who was expelled from student housing after he wrote and distributed a flier joking that female classmates could lose the "Freshman fifteen
Freshman fifteen
The Freshman fifteen refers to an amount of weight often gained during a student's first year at college.The expression is commonly used in the United States and Canada...
" by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. After FIRE publicly criticized the decision, Garneau was reinstated. He had been living in his car for three weeks.
In 2007, FIRE took issue with a document from a Resident Assistant training session at the University of Delaware
University of Delaware
The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...
's Office of Residence Life Diversity Facilitation Training. The brief handout, compiled and presented by Dr. Shakti Butler, included a controversial definition of the word "racist". The author noted that it "applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality". About this event, Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams, is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.- Early life and education :Williams family during childhood...
wrote, "This gem of wisdom suggests that by virtue of birth alone, not conduct, if you're white, you're a racist."
FIRE
FIRE
FIRE may stand for:* Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties organization* Fully Integrated Robotised Engine, a model of engine produced by Fiat* Future Internet Research and Experimentation...
sent a letter to the President of University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
on November 29, 2007, expressing outrage that the Vice-Chancellor had sent a mass email which condemned a showing of the movie Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West
Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West
Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, also called Obsession, is a 2005 documentary film about the perceived threat of radical Islam to Western civilization. Using extensive Arab television footage it claims to give an 'insider's view' of the hatred preached by radicals to incite global...
and called for an apology from those responsible. The state Attorney General had threatened legal action due to possible freedom of speech violations. Two weeks later, the Vice-Chancellor and President signed a follow-up statement retracting the call for apology.
FIRE criticized Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
on both free speech and due process grounds in early 2008 over its treatment of veteran politics professor Donald Hindley. Provost Marty Krauss informed Hindley in October 2007 that comments he made in his Latin American politics class violated the school's anti-harassment policy. Kruass placed a monitor in Hindley's class and ordered him to attend racial sensitivity training. FIRE, along with Brandeis' own Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities, has criticized Krauss for never explicitly telling Hindley what specific in-class comments constituted harassing speech and for not granting Hindley a process by which to appeal the decision. According to Brandeis' student press, Hindley is rumored to have used the epithet "wetback." An anonymous student-witness, quoted in the Brandeis Hoot, called Hindley's remarks "inappropriate." Other students praised Hindley's pedagogical approach as encouraging "students to face racist narratives head on" and that any disagreement "is a dispute for students and faculty to solve through rational dialogue, not one for the administration to settle in secret inquisitions."
In 2007, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) disciplined a university employee, who also was a student, for reading "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan". This book was available in the university library. FIRE took its criticism of IUPUI public. The chancellor finally apologized to the employee-student after mounting criticism from FIRE, the ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, and other free speech groups.
In May 2007 Valdosta State University
Valdosta State University
Valdosta State University, also referred to as VSU, or Valdosta State, is an American public university and is one of the two regional universities in the University System of Georgia. Valdosta State is located on a campus at the heart of the city of Valdosta...
expelled T. Hayden Barnes, who had protested against the construction of two new parking garages on the campus which he saw as encouraging the use of private transportation. University President Ronald Zaccari misconstrued a caption of the proposed garages as the "Ronald Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage" as a threat to himself. With FIRE support, the expulsion was overturned and a court found VSU to have violated Barnes's due process rights.
In 2008, college professor Kerry Laird was ordered by Temple College to remove a cartoon with the quote, "Gott ist tot" (God is Dead), a famous quote from Nietzsche, from his office door. FIRE wrote a letter to the Temple administration hinting at the possibility of legal action and stated, "Please spare Temple College the embarrassment of fighting against the Bill of Rights, by which it is legally and morally bound." Temple has since lifted the ban.
In 2010, FIRE criticized DePaul University
DePaul University
DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...
for denying recognition to a group advocating for Decriminalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States stating that student groups must "be congruent with our institutional goals regarding the health and well-being of our students."
Campus Freedom Network
FIRE now has a Campus Freedom Network. (http://www.thecfn.org/)Boasting over 3,000 members, FIRE's Campus Freedom Network consists of students dedicated to FIRE's mission and to establish a social network for supporters of free speech rights on college campuses. Under the direction of Luke Sheahan, the FIRE's CFN continues to grow and is hosting its second annual Campus Freedom Network Conference in June 2009, inviting fifty students to Philadelphia to learn and debate about free speech issues on the college campus.