Friday, January 12, 2007

Another Act of Suppresion of Free Speech on Campus -- One Student/Journalist Responds

Early last month the Students' Association at Carleton University (Ottawa, the college attended by Dan Aykroyd) voted 25 to 6 to ban from using the Association's resources and space any group that seeks to "limit or remove a woman's right to choose." Hmm. Doesn't seem too tolerant, does it? It certainly is not the kind of open-minded willingness to think about, study and discuss ideas that academia constantly pontificates about.

Well, at least one university in Canada does hold to the concept of the open forum and as proof I suggest a reading of this editorial in the Gauntlet, the student paper from the University of Calgary.

The editorial was written, by the way, by the newspaper's sports editor, John Roe. As I said in a quick e-mail message, "Thanks, Mr. Roe, for standing up for common sense, the rights of free speech and the ideal of the genuine university. Your argument was well founded and well expressed." Because the comments are publicly posted at the end of the article, you would do a good thing by sending a similar note along.