University president backs speech rights

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The president of a Midwestern university has reversed the decision of residence hall employees who ordered students to remove the American flag and other patriotic images from the door of their dorm room on the grounds that they might be "offensive" to others.

Michael Rao, president of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Mich., stated his position in a letter on Wednesday to University of Pennsylvania historian Alan Charles Kors, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Kors founded FIRE two years ago with Boston civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate "to defend and sustain individual rights at America's increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and universities."

FIRE presented its understanding of the case in a letter to Rao dated Oct. 23. Roa's Nov. 7 reply to Kors did not dispute the facts at issue.

"On Oct. 8, in Emmons Hall, four roommates -- Don Pasco, Jeff Cech, Adam Trumble and Nick Dear -- placed an American Flag, along with various pictures and articles relating to the war on terrorism, on the front of their door," wrote FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy, Greg Lukianoff. "Resident Assistant Kari Buchanan told them they were to remove the items ... because, she felt, the display was 'offensive' to some students.

"Two days later, after an article on the incident ran in the campus newspaper ... Residence Hall Director Albert Nowak and two other administrators visited the four students, telling them they could repost all their images except things they deemed 'hate related items and ... profanity.'

"On Oct. 17, a letter ran in the campus newspaper in which Senior Officer for Residences and Auxiliary Services John Fisher, along with other administrators, defended the policy banning 'profanity or vulgarity.'"

In a telephone interview, Kors explained that in the students' collage was the San Francisco Chronicle headline "Bastards!" an essay by Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts containing some strong language, and a picture of the Statue of Liberty "giving terrorists the finger."

Rao, however, wrote: "The university's removal of any items considered offensive or vulgar by some is not condoned. The university is taking steps to assure students in the residence halls that their right to post materials and express opinion on their room doors is protected."

The First Amendment to the Constitution originally constrained only the federal legislature. "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech," it says.

A series of court decisions has extended that constraint to all government bodies and public officials in America. Western Michigan University is a state school.

Rao ended his letter to Kors on a personal note. "I value everything the American flag stands for," he wrote. "To request its removal from anyplace on our campus would violate my personal standards and the values of the university."