Enough is Enough

In today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News, there is a front page story about how WSU College Republicans feel their free speech rights are being violated, particularly in the College of Liberal Arts. "The faculty in Liberal Arts preach free speech until they get to something don't agree with," said (Jeffrey) Kromm, treasurer of the Republican club. "They're all for open-mindedness until you disagree with them...if you speak up in class, the faculty are likely to be the ones who jump all over you and rant and rant."

It's not just on campus either. T.V. Reed, the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Chair of the Department of American Studies, Chris Lupke, Assistant Professor of Chinese, Birgita Ingemanson, Associate Professor of Russian, Ray Sacchi, Psychology Graduate Student Supervisor, and Richard King, Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies are all in the College of Liberal Arts, and all have publically attacked Wal-Mart supporters (mostly Chuck Millham and myself).

The members of the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development comprise a virtual Who's Who of the College of Liberal Arts, including Reed, Lupke and Chair of the Sociology Department, Greg Hooks.

A quote from the Daily News article:

The College Republicans report that some faculty feel free to "preach" their views on local political matters, such as the possible building of a Wal-Mart store in Pullman.

"And one of my profs showed an anti-Wal-Mart movie in class, then didn't have any discussion of it," said club president Daniel Ryder. "If you ask to discuss something like that, then you're being 'disruptive'."

PARD members have also felt free to use WSU computer resources and theaters to screen the anti-Wal-Mart movie and to use the CUB to campaign both for public office and against Wal-Mart. And the Daily Evergreen is essentially the PARD official newsletter.

But all of these taxpayer-funded shenanigans have been lost amongst the other left-wing stenches that have arisen from WSU this year, including:

An alleged incident of "racism" and subsequent virulent student protests that the Washington State Human Rights Commission concluded showed “...an undergraduate penchant for revolutionary drama more than anything else...” The report went further in its indictment of the protesters, "Some students and apparently some of their mentors ... acted in fairly extreme fashion, sometimes with a significant failure of civility..."

A performance last April of WSU student playwright Chris Lee's satire "Passion of the Musical" was disrupted by a group of about 40 students whose tickets were paid for by WSU. Members of the WSU administration took exception with Lee's (an African-American) use of the N-word. There were even threats of physical violence directed at the cast. Campus security officers refused to remove the hecklers, so the performance had to be stopped. President V. Lane Rawlins later defended the heckler's actions as "free speech". The incident was reported to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which now has a whole page devoted to WSU and has given the university a Speech Code Rating of "Red".

Conservative Christian student-teacher Ed Swan nearly was flunked out of the College of Education after he shared his politically incorrect views on a written "disposition". WSU drew national criticism and scorn after Dean Judy Mitchell stated in an interview with the Daily News that she didn’t know if conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia could pass the “dispositions” evaluation.

Enough is enough. Provost Robert Bates said in the Daily News that without formal complaints, the university is limited in how it can respond. He stated, "...if faculty are discussing personal views not relevant to the class, that's not appropriate". It's time the people of Pullman let President Rawlins and Provost Bates know that if WSU wants to drag down its reputation with Politically Correct Stalinism and leftist moonbattery, that's one thing. But keep it up on the hill and off of Main Street. We're sick and tired of seeing our tax dollars funding the anti-Wal-Mart campaign being waged by PARD. So, I'm going to file a formal complaint with Bates. I hope the CRs do also.

Of course, as CR vice-president Joshua Urness put it, "Most Republicans have jobs. We don't have time to do all that." That goes for us Pullman residents as well. We just don't seem to have the time to protest that the liberal faculty and students do.