As College try to reduce campus sexual assault, academic freedoms suffer report states. Benjamin Wermund, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Clearly by "experts" the Houston Chronicle has decided that the Vice President at UT-Austin, Texas' flagship university, who is the administrator of the Title IX plan there, and who's professional credibility is being called into question by the reports, is a viable 'national expert' to address the issue.National experts on college sexual assault, however, say such instances are rare. Title IX, they say, is a powerful tool to combat a long-standing problem, and university administrators mostly use it appropriately.At the University of Texas at Austin, for instance, officials carefully weigh complaints to determine whether something was legitimately part of a class discussion or could have been targeted at a student, said LaToya Hill, a UT-Austin vice president who serves as the school's Title IX coordinator.
Since the court ruling that placed "hostile environments" under the auspices of Title XI (an area the Title was never intended to address) a cottage industry, primarily staffed by the aggro-wing of the feminist movement, have used it as a cudgel to beat anyone, and anything over the head that might contain a 'trigger-warning'. The problem with this is that history, and much of life, is a trigger-warning if you're a coddled child with no discernible social skills.
What this has created is a cottage-industry where low-functioning idiots are running around our colleges and universities clamping down on free-speech, the right to free-association and pretty much any and everything that might, at some point, be considered fun.
Don't get me wrong. Rape, and sexual assault, are not fun. In fact, they're horrible acts that should be stamped out which would make the world a better place. On that I (hope) that all of us can agree. But that there are subjects that people consider uncomfortable, and that they feel the need to remove them from the public discourse is a problem.
A huge problem.
An even bigger problem is that the media seems hell-bent on making this a reality by selectively reporting on this and choosing to classify partisans who are for the restriction of liberty as "experts".
Part of the reason for this is that there are a sizable group of media, including a large portion of the editors and staff that work at Houston's middling regional daily, who feel (incorrectly) that the free speech protections in the 1st Amendment apply ONLY to the professional media. To understand why, let's take a look at the Amendment itself:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It's the inclusion of "of the press" that makes many feel this way. It's the same way that many feel the structure of the 2nd Amendment applies only to "a well-regulated militia". It's revisionist thinking from the modern-day equivalent to buggy-whip makers.
The fact is the 1st Amendment is absolute, it doesn't even contain the carve-out for "Fire! in a crowded theater." If you want to know more why go talk to a good 1st Amendment attorney.
Today however ideas such as freedom and autonomy have gone the way of the Dodo. We're rapidly falling down the rabbit hole of security over freedom. It's gotten so bad that (supposed) 'strict Constitutionalist' (and GOP anti-Trump Presidential hope) Ted Cruz has called for the police to 'patrol and secure' Muslim neighborhoods.
If the body politic cannot count of Conservatives to preserve our rights then who do we turn to?
Certainly not the Democrats, and not academia. In fact, the so-called liberal party, and it's followers, who once declared that "dissent is patriotism" are seeking to stamp it out at every turn. One of the problems lie in the misconception that Democrats are liberal. They're not. Today's Democratic party is progressive. They are Statists who believe not only in rule by the enlightened few, but total suppression of the individual and the family unit. There is no longer a classically liberal party in America, just as there is no more classical Conservative party in which to turn.
In addition to being a problem for personal freedom and liberty, this is a very real problem for education as well. If we start deciding that certain areas of thought are "off limits" because they might send today's wilting flowers to the fainting couch, then we will grow a crop of adults who are incapable of operating in polite society. The natural end-game of all of this is the decline of America as a great nation, which is something we are already witnessing today.
Alas, the task of fixing this falls to the tenured professor in Universities, people who can say what they will with very little risk of repercussion. We should also look to a free media, interested in reporting the full truth, to shine a light on the erosion of our freedoms.
In other words, we're doomed.
