Shouting FIRE in a Crowded University

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has issued a new report on speech codes on campus. It's worth reading as an indicator of how stupid college administrators can be.

“There is a common misconception that ‘speech codes’ are a thing of the past—-a relic of the heyday of political correctness of the 1980s and 90s-—but the public needs to know that speech codes are perhaps more pervasive and restrictive than ever,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. The real question, though, is whether these lousy provisions suppress free speech on campus: in other words, do badly written speech codes make students more vulnerable to censorship, or can any speech code be abused?

FIRE's report, unfortunately, refuses to criticize conservative religious colleges, which have the worst speech codes. I'm not sure why FIRE believes that it's morally okay for a college to be repressive as long as it's openly repressive, but that's the position of FIRE.