Sunday, January 4, 2009
Monday, December 15, 2008
Campus evangelism - a crime?
Here is a link to the following free speech story.
The so-called "free-speech code" of Yuba Community College District is under federal court scrutiny.
"A campus police officer came over and told him that if he continued to do so without a permit that he would be possibly expelled or arrested, and so Ryan stopped immediately," she explains.
Hacker says Dozier thought the case was closed, but he was apparently mistaken. "Three weeks later he got a certified letter from the president of the college stating that his actions were the subject of a campus crime report," she adds. "Last time I checked, sharing your faith on a public college campus was not a crime."
But the letter informed him he could face expulsion if he shared his faith on campus again. ADF filed suit, and a federal judge has ordered the college to suspend enforcement of its highly restricted free speech policies until the lawsuit is resolved
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Campus crime headlines
Police are investigating what officials at Kutztown University have said may have been a hit-and-run that seriously injured a student on a parking lot of the school's South Campus in Berks County early this morning. We're told a university police officer found Christine McGhee, 20, lying in a parking lot.
Court to decide if campus evangelism is a crime
California student, Ryan Dozier, decided to spend some time on campus sharing his faith and handing out tracts to fellow students, generating conversations about Christianity. Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Heather Hacker comments on the situation.
“A campus police officer came over and told him that if he continued to do so without a permit that he would be possibly expelled or arrested, and so Ryan stopped immediately,” she explains.
Hacker says Dozier thought the case was closed, but he was apparently mistaken. “Three weeks later he got a certified letter from the president of the college stating that his actions were the subject of a campus crime report,” she adds. “Last time I checked, sharing your faith on a public college campus was not a crime.”
The Daily Campus has a new police blotter policy: questionable timing
As of last Sunday, The Daily Campus has enacted a new policy regarding its weekly police blotter. The policy, which has not been announced to the paper’s readers, dictates that the popular weekly feature will be removed from the paper’s website after it has been up for a week (previous policy dictated that the story stay up indefinitely).
In theory, the move, which was approved by the paper’s editors, is okay. Proponents of the change would argue that having arrest information online can haunt someone years down the road, when potential employers google their names. Opponents would say that the blotter is simply a factual record of an arrest, and it is not a newspaper’s responsibility to babysit people’s reputations.
However, that argument does not interest me. What does interest me is that the DC made the decision to take the blotter off the web the week after a close friend of its editor-in-chief was arrested. More after the jump.
Sexual assault more prevalent than reported
Sexual assault is three times more common at Yale than the University’s official crime statistics reflect, according to a new report issued by the campus sexual offense resource center.
The report from the Sexual Harassment Assault Resources & Education Center records the number of calls to the center’s response line in the 2007-’08 school year. By that count, there were 24 reported incidents of sexual assault at Yale last year.
The University Report on Campus Security, however, lists just eight alleged forcible sex offenses in 2007.
In response to allegations that Yale was underreporting sexual offenses, the U.S. Department of Education began investigating the University for its compliance with federal reporting requirements in 2004. Since then, the University has reviewed and reformed its protocols for handling reports of sexual crimes.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Missing person - ask for help
She was last seen in Emporia, Ks and was with a guy named Christopher Eagen, seemingly a little older than she is. He is approximately 5'9". olive coplexion , dark hair and thin moustache. He has friends in Emporia apparently, and perhaps has ties in Colorado, New Mexico...Midwest to Southwest perhaps.
Please contact your local police immediatly if you have any info and the Emporia Campus State police at
602-341-5337
Follow this link for a photo and info to post, Please!!!
Please help us look for her and pray for her safe return and prayers to her family, especially her mom.
No to lower drinking age
From the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission:
The Sept. 22 TEXAN noted the Amethyst Initiative, an effort by 100 college and university presidents to lower the legal drinking age to 18. Saying the current law leads to a “culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking,’” the educators suggest that lowering the drinking age to a point where most kids have even less wisdom will result in more responsible drinking habits.
These guys never went to high school, I guess. They don’t remember the culture of dangerous, clandestine (because it was illegal) binge-drinking that I remember. I didn’t hang out in risky places or with wild kids and my parents didn’t keep booze in the house, but I was offered alcohol regularly by the time I was 17—a few times at college parties. I didn’t inhale but I didn’t lack opportunities. Lower the age to 18, and 16-year-olds will be clandestine when they drink, except at college parties where there’ll be little need. And nothing about the change will make anything less dangerous.
Here’s another interpretation of the Amethyst Initiative. As it is, most undergraduates are not legal drinkers. Colleges and universities have a real problem with student alcohol abuse. Some of those problems would go away if nearly all students came to college legal to drink. Sure, some kids would still drink too much but it wouldn’t be illegal. The crime rate on campus would go down and campus security wouldn’t have to card anyone on campus. The proposal is to do away with an unpleasant, difficult task because it’s unpleasant and difficult. Any actual benefit to the students or society is strictly blue sky thinking. If nothing changes except for the end of the campus’ responsibility to enforce the drinking age, it’s a winner to the administration.
The college presidents also trot out the old, “old enough to fight, vote, serve on a jury, etc.” argument. It still doesn’t fly. Just because an 18-year-old can serve on a jury, for example, doesn’t mean he should. It seems unlikely that recent high school grads are often appointed to criminal juries. Officers of the court would not trust their judgment in the way they might trust that of a 21-year-old.
Perhaps the presidents are making a better argument for raising the age of majority in general. Is their intent to argue for fairness, legal practicality, an easier time for the administration, or for the good of the students? The last reason seems the least likely.
Of course, there’s an educational aspect to the Amethyst Initiative. One idea has students who want to drink while enrolled in the university taking an alcohol education course before they could get their “beer card.” So I guess campus security is back to carding people. Certainly the wise young people only drink too much because they haven’t been given the facts. The education course just might solve all the problems, right? Another idea offered at the initiative’s website is that students between 18 and 20 would be allowed to drink only 3 percent alcohol beer and no stronger drinks.
OK, just so we understand—students might have to take a course, get a license, and can only drink lower alcohol beer. This isn’t treating the younger students as though they are less responsible than other adults, it’s not prohibition, and it’s not going to be an absurd enforcement problem? Our academic brain trust is undermining their own argument by trying to make it more palatable to those of us who see nothing but bad news in lowering the legal drinking age. I also think they’re trying to push their problems off on those who try to educate younger students.
It’s a bad idea from every direction at the same time. I don’t believe the best interests of the students enter into it at all.