What are your thoughts on "FIRE" (Freedom for Individual Rights in Education)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Someone had a post about how FIRE (Freedom For Individual Rights in Education) was defending student rights.

I am aware that the ACLU is constantly under fire for defending the free speech of even the most despicable members of our society. FIRE defends the rights of individual freedoms, again, even of those whose opinions are unpopular here on DU. For example, they fought for the right of an evangelical group to exclude a lesbian member at Tufts.

I support the ACLU because the erosion of freedom of one's rights is the erosion of all. However, I feel that schools have an obligation to provide an open and safe forum for all students. I don't know students could function well knowing that there is group who fights to exclude them. Now, Tufts was a private university. What about private universities?

Another thing that FIRE works against is "ideological requirements" for professors. Specifically, requiring professors to have an open mind. Again, I question how can a student learn with a biased or hate-filled teacher? It's not fair. This happened at Columbia university.

""The self-described "Professional Commitments and Dispositions" at Columbia's Teachers College sound to us like a Code of Conformity and Disingenuousness. They are especially troublesome, and fraught with intellectual gobbledygook in the guise of a mission of inculcating its students and pre-service teachers with the 'right values'. The College obviously wants to inculcate its students with 'respect for diversity' and with a 'commitment to social justice.' And a private university, of course, has its prerogative of establishing its unique mission, and making its preferences for the admission of its students. However, students at Columbia's Teachers College also have their own rights, including the right not to be indoctrinated, not to be expected to toe some line of political-correctness; these rights of the students are embedded in the very standards of academic freedom."

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/7366.html

What does DU think?


Edit to adjust title

[bluerum]

1. exclusion based on sex, religion, age or race used to be regarded as

discrimination. It was frowned upon - even illegal (how quaint).

Today, your right to discriminate against the group of your choice is protected by law.

[rwheeler31]

2. You answered your question.

Why would anyone want to be part of a group when parts of that group want to exclude members of that group?

[MADem]

4. Didn't Groucho Marx make a joke about that?

"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member."

Of course, that was back in the day, WAY back, when it was 'OK' to exclude blacks and Jews from country clubs, when 'Separate But Equal' was the law of the land.

It's almost like being on a merry-go-round. We've passed this scene already!

[TahitiNut]

3. Any organization with Ricky Silberman on the Board of advisors is fascist.

This is just another in an array of "shadow" reich organizations ranging from the Federalist Society to the Heritage Foundation to the American Enterprise Institute, imho.

[MADem]

5. I think you've hit the nail on the head. nt