By Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
California Polytechnic http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4052), Cal Poly has promised that any future CARE-Net program (short for Community Advocating REspect) “will not function to suppress controversial, offensive, or any other kind of protected speech.”
“This program jeopardized students’ and faculty members’ human, legal, and academic rights as members of a public university,” FIRE President Greg http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2224 said. “Cal Poly should be commended for seeing what terrible consequences such inquisitions could have on its campus. We will be watching to make sure this program does not resurface in some other form.”CARE-Net was launched in May for the purpose of “protecting students from biased teachers” and other “biased incidents,” according to a May 3 article in the Mustang Daily, the school’s student newspaper. The program defined a “bias related incident” as “any speech, act, or harassing incident or action taken by a person or group that is perceived to be malicious or discriminatory toward another person or group based on bias or prejudice relating to [various human characteristics.”
The program also featured a dozen student, faculty, and staff “advocates” who would respond to reports of faculty bias. A frighteningly honest comment to the Mustang Daily by one student advocate revealed that one of CARE-Net’s targets is the “teacher who isn’t politically correct or is hurtful in their actions or words.”
After Cal Poly faculty members asked FIRE for help, FIRE’s Lukianoff wrote Cal Poly President Warren J. Baker on May 6, explaining that targeting “biased” speech for investigation is an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech and academic freedom. FIRE’s letter noted that encouraging people to report on one another’s “biased” or “politically incorrect” speech poses a serious threat to the very qualities that make a university a “http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6960 of ideas” and chills expression of controversial ideas across the campus.