Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division

Published July 8, 2009 at 11:07 p.m.
New England campuses muzzle free speech
In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors ( Sweezy v. New Hampshire ), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom...

The 12th Annual Muzzle Awards. By Dan Kennedy.

In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors (Sweezy v. New Hampshire), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom. At the time, these professors were resisting their government's proposal to segregate students based on race: "It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment, and creation."

Too bad contemporary American college administrators and faculty don't demonstrate as much support for free-speech rights in academia as did Apartheid-era Afrikaner professors. Perhaps a different definition of the "business of a university" is now the norm. As our New England–campus Muzzle muckraking shows, "speculation, experiment, and creation" couldn't possibly be the goal for administrators at these colleges and universities.

Mark-off the newsstands
In April, 23-year-old Boston University med student Philip Markoff — the so-called Craigslist Killer — made national headlines. The good folks at the BU admissions office were hoping prospective students would somehow not affiliate the alleged murderer with quotidian Terrier life. To that end, as the story unfolded, issues of the student-edited Daily Free Press — usually given prominence in the school's reception center — went mysteriously missing. An anonymous admissions-office employee told the Daily Free Press that the papers were purposely hidden "because of their content, which would reflect negatively on the school." Right. And suppressing the student voice looks great to prospective students.

Shooting the messenger
After MIT police officer Joseph D'Amelio was apprehended with more than 800 tablets containing the painkiller oxycodone, the Tech, MIT's student newspaper, naturally covered the drug-trafficking case. That didn't go over well with some other MIT boys in blue. On March 17, two officer colleagues of D'Amelio dumped 400 copies of The Tech into recycling bins (in 2009, at least we have environmentally conscious censors). In the school's defense, both officers were suspended without pay the next day, and MIT Police fired one of the officers in early April. Kudos to the scientists for protecting free speech against overbearing campus cops.

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