Chris Stevens, the Citrus College student who is currently suing the school for violating his First Amendment rights, has posted a comment to my original note on the lawsuit:

Being the sole plaintiff in Stevens v. Citrus Community College District and Louis Zellers, I can shed some like on these idiots method of operation.

Since my goal was to merely have the laws of free speech upheld on a campus that I attend, I spent days discussing the issue with administrators, all the way to the top and then eventually in the form of a public address to the board of trustees.

I was consistently told that the position of the College was that the Free Speech Areas were constitutional permissiable. I then proceeded to write an eight page memorandum of law on the issue which I highlighted in legnth the current jurisprudence on the issue. I essentially pointed out that not only were their policy in violation of the U.S. Supreme Courts consitant examinanation of the reasonability of time, place, and manner restrictions, but that the shcool was engaing in viewpoint discrimination as it allowed certain individual and school funded clubs full access to the campus for free for alls, literally...they had a club that susponser a rap station that blasted music during one of my midterms and they allow the College Democratics to hold "education rallies" while denying indvidual republicans from holding Governor Davis recall petition signing.

Despite my legnthy letter, which included bluntly "please do not force your students to become distracted from their studies in legal battles that the College can neither afford nor win."

They ignored me, that is until I hired a team of attorneys. To which the college has done the same, my guess is these guys bill at least $400 an hour and they are in no hurry to settle this case, despite the fact that its a loser for them and my attorney has already one several identical cases in the very same court room.

To those individuals who have previously posted questioning my motive and what I plan to do when I graduated, well I respond that it doesn't really matter so long as I still have free speech.

Still, Stevens is right to sense skepticism coming from some of the commenters on this site. Last winter, it was Stevens who alerted FIRE to the partisan pedagogical practices of Citrus College professor Rosalyn Kahn, who was offering extra credit to students who wrote and sent anti-war letters to George Bush, but was denying that same credit to students who wanted to write letters supporting the war. Citrus College administrators ignored the complaints of Kahn's students, and it was not until FIRE stepped in that the administration agreed to remove Kahn from the classroom and to write to President Bush rescinding the letters and apologizing for the fact that they had ever been sent. Some readers thought the whole affair was ridiculously overblown, and were particularly hard on one student's description of how deeply Kahn's teaching practices had "scared" her. They voiced their opinions in the comments to this post. Stevens belatedly discovered the thread this weekend, and has posted his rejoinder:

As the primary person involved in attempting to resolve the Khan situation with Citrus College I find it ironic and hypocrtical of those who raise the camparsion of Gina being scared in contrast to that of our brave soilders. Perhaps, those of you who applied this flawed ideological approach are missing the larger picture, both Gina and myself are as well as our solides are fighting to preseve the great traditions of our Nation.

We are proud conservative Republicans, who were being forced to sign our name to documents which content was so appaling to our personal beliefs that we felt it was neccessary to take a stance.

And those of you who fail to realize the power that instituions of higher education hold over their students are sadly nieve and uninformed. A signgle semester of retalation could literally ruin a students life.

So spare me the philisophical rambilings about how Gina couldn't have been scared, in comparison to our troops...she was threatned with explusion as was I, something that would have permentantly blemished our academic careers.

Do you propose that we would have simply worte the letters contrary to our own beliefs? Not a chance, I support Bush and I will countiune to support him...the people of Iraq are liberated!

UPDATE: Some readers have expressed doubt about whether the posts cited above are really those of Chris Stevens. They are--I checked.

Erin,

For consistency's sake, shouldn't you call attention to the solecisms in your correspondent's messages?

FIRE *never* asked that Kahn be removed from the classroom, but that the College restore her students to their constitutional rights and take appropriate action after a process that afforded Kahn her full due process rights.

Ritchie,

For brevity's sake, I assume Critical Mass readers are intelligent enough to notice them on their own. Perhaps I have erred in that assessment, but I doubt it.

Alan,

Thanks for the clarification, and my apologies for any confusion created by my wording.

Erin,

And I think that Critical Mass readers will remember your derisive comments on the Tunnel of Oppression defender's command of orthography and grammar, which probably exceeds that of this more ideologically sympathetic student.

Ritchie,

Welcome back.

No doubt the plaintiff's failings in this regard explain in part why he ended up at Citrus College. Certainly, if he had been smarter he could have gained admission to UNC Wilmington. While at UNCW he could have obtained guidance so that his solecism level would have been lower and his orthography would have been top notch.

For Chris Stevens, here is what I think. I live in the region, and reading some of the media coverage of the recent events, one of my reactions is, "good golly, I KNOW some of these people and have seen their characters in other arenas. They are working at Citrus College and doing what they are doing now because they weren't in Vichy France and didn't have an opportunity to collaborate then."

Unless you've worked something into your lawsuit to give you substantial monetary damages, Citrus College is not worth your time. Your posts indicate that the education you are supposed to be getting there is not keeping up with your interests and initiative.

You should leave the lawsuit to your attorney, and your main goal should be to get the heck out of Citrus College and transfer to a Cal State campus where you have some chance of getting an education. At this point, take careful notes of your impressions and retain all relevant documentation; you may get an excellent project or even a book out of it later -- but for now, get a doggone education, which you will absolutely not get, ever, at Citrus College.

Citrus College is clearly failing Stevens in so many ways including his form. But that shouldn't detract from the real issue here: the failure of Citrus College. Everyone seems to agree that CC's teaching the wrong things. It seems to me that the real surprise then is how Stevens is learning the right things inspite of CC.

Stolypin,

I think your post misses the point rather spectacularly.

I was wondering, and still am, why Erin chose to mock one student's grammar and spelling problems while failing to mock this one's. I ventured that the student's political position might explain it. Perhaps Erin realized that elitist snobbery isn't especially attractive.

I started to comment and it got way, way too long for what I consider to be an appropriate comment so I posted it on my weblog.

The digest version is this: Everyone is more forgiving to those with whom they agree. This person can't write for shit and has no concept of what war and courage really are and what they require.

Two words...spell check.

Ritchie Aprile (4:06am):

As one of the unsympathetic posters on the "Tunnel of Oppression" thread, perhaps I might comment.

Tunneler's grammar emphasized the illogic of his position, and the illiberal nature of the tunneling venture. Perfect spelling, sentence structure, and idiom would still have left him to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Chris Steven's posts are yet more ungrammatical, as you point out. As cringe-worthy as they are on those grounds, his underlying points are hard to miss, and hard to take exception to. Should speech at a public college be beyond the reach of First Amendment protections? Should Stevens agreeably pen and mail letters in support of his professor's politics?

Interested readers can compare this thread to the Tunnel thread (hyperlinked in the body of the post), and agree with Ritchie that unattractive elitist snobbery is the main issue under consideration. Or not.

Amac,

You, like Stolypin, are missing the point. Erin's described the Tunnel of Oppression defender as "disturbingly illiterate," and she passed over the Citrus-plantiff's disturbing illiteracy in silence. Again, if she did this out of moral development, great--if out of political sympathy, shame.

R_A

Oh, I don't think I missed the point at all.

As you no doubt know, Erin was castigated by a poster as follows:

"Prof. O'Connor's "disturbingly illiterate" comment is, I must say, disturbingly and hypocritically snide, considering that she rails against posters here for "ad hominem" attacks and that her own instincts concerning mechanics and usage are not flawless."

So now, a different (perhaps) poster comes along and castigates Erin for her failure to be disturbingly snide now. Seems there may be some hypocrisy on both sides of this little tempest.

The fact that the previous poster had his own disturbingly snide tendencies did not prevent him from attacking Erin's alleged tendencies in that direction. Again, just a tad hypocritical - but that is not meant to be a reflection on you - a different poster.

Paladin (I guess I now know where you roam) your point was well taken. It is a trait we see with great frequency in the political arena.

Here is Stevens as represented on FIRE's website (thefire.org):

"Citrus College believes that it may take away rights that this country has guaranteed for over two hundred years," said Chris Stevens. "On a college campus, speech should provoke more speech--not threats of punishment, expulsion, or arrest. Citrus College may continue to threaten me, but I will defend my constitutional rights."

I now doubt whether Stevens ever actually spoke or wrote those eloquent words. Far from being a smooth-spoken, principled defender of liberty and justice, the real Stevens [and thank you, Erin for verifying that this really *is* Stevens] is an illiterate, morally confused young man with a penchant for adolescent bravado. I support the principles motivating this lawsuit, but I can't endorse FIRE's journalistic ethics here.

Stolypin,

There's a simple question here: is Erin an equal-opportunity snob? Amac attempted, rather unconvincingly, to argue that when she wrote "disturbingly illiterate" she meant "disturbingly illogical."

Your argument, as far as I can tell, is a rather convoluted tu quoque.

A larger question suggested by all of this, and one which is more directly relevant to the issues at stake, is to what degree students' interests are being served by the involvement of FIRE and similar organizations in their cases. In particular, do they care more about the individual welfare of Chris Stevens or the larger ideological battle? Would FIRE had taken this case if Kahn had demanded letters in support of the war in Iraq?

I hope so. Have they taken any similar cases? Not to my knowledge. Is this because only leftist professors threaten students' liberties? I don't believe so. Conservatives and weak, cynical "liberals" are just as prone (more so, in fact) to petty authoritarianism as anyone else in a position of power; and, as a group, they are certainly more widespread in academia than the "tenured radicals" we read so much about.

There are two categories of people who would deny this: the alphas who regard it as a convenient fiction and the betas who believe them because they don't know any better.

The larger issues you raised are good ones.

To what degree students' interests are being served by the involvement of FIRE and similar organizations in their cases. In particular, do they care more about the individual welfare of Chris Stevens or the larger ideological battle?

I suspect they are more intrested in the latter. The question remains as to whether the focus on the big picture (as FIRE sees it) benefits the individual interests of their plaintiffs. FIRE might dispute your (or my own) definition of what the underlying ideological battle entails. Is it pure free speech or is it conservative free speech? They can speak for themselves - but that is the next qustion you raised:

Would FIRE had taken this case if Kahn had demanded letters in support of the war in Iraq?
and
Have they taken any similar cases?

As to the first, I also hope so. the reverse scenario would have been no less offensive to me.

As to the second - I wish they would or will take similar cases if and when they arise. I would welcome their apperance on the Liberty College campus for example. (Tthe issue of state v. private colleges is not unimportant however.) I know they now allow inter-racial dating but there must be something going on there - don't you think?

Conservatives and weak, cynical "liberals" are just as prone (more so, in fact) to petty authoritarianism as anyone else in a position of power.

I do not know what you mean by "weak, cynical 'liberals'". I have my suspicions as to what you mean but that would just get us into an interesting (perhaps) but ultimately pointless diversion. Having said that, I do not dispute the point that petty authoritarianism is a universal trait.

The question becomes - - - where and how are conservative, or "cynical liberal" professors attacking speech on campus? The fact that I have not heard or read about it does not mean it has not ocurred. Can you help me out here? Can anyone else help?

There's a reason that they haven't taken any cases against conservatives, several reasons, in fact. First, the vast majority of the colleges and Universities in this country are run by those who tend to the left. If you happen to be on the left, then you're not likely to object to someone stifling your ideological opponents.

I'm sure we all believe in the image of the crusading individual who fights for his opponents' rights. What's that? We don't? We're too pragmatic and too smart to believe in that idealistic crap? Oh, ok, nevermind then. Since FIRE is a conservative (possibly libertarian depending upon your political taxonomy) organization, it follows that its causes and clients will be conservative.

This doesn't mean that only liberals threaten students rights, but since those on the left already have a higher-profile group to which they can appeal (ACLU), there is no reason for them to contact FIRE. Another thing is that, those schools where conservatives are present in large numbers tend to be private and denominational and people knew what they were getting into when they got there. Not only that, but a liberal student is not as likely to attend that school.

It's often fun, and easy, to demonize one's opponent for looking out for himself or his allies, but to argue that this is wrong or even uncommon is unsupportable. In any case, you might ask yourself, would these actions be more constitutionally permissible if they involved a conservative restricting a liberal point of view. The answer is no, so as a substantive criticism of FIRE's actions in these cases, it falls far short.

By the way, I can point to at least one ostensibly liberal position that FIRE has taken because it affects the school from which I took my undergraduate degree. At issue was a speech restriction on groups that had performed illegal acts (which restriction is constitutionally impermissible). The administration was targeting liberal environmental groups (a member of which had recently said something about the administration: Obviously, I wasn't there to heare the remark). FIRE wasn't the only group to respond, but I belive this sort of behavior does insulate them against the charge of hypocrisy that you insinuated.

As to their interest in the individual student, that's a bogus argument. It's obvious that their loyalty is to the larger principle, much the same way as the ACLU is dedicated to its principles.

Paladin,

As an exercise, I'd like for you to find a president, provost, or member of a board of trustees of any major university in the country who could be considered, in any meaningful sense, leftist. Would some self-identify as liberals, as Democrats? Certainly. Is this the same thing? No. Of course not. What kind of damn fool question is that?

There may be some, but they are a vanishing minority; and their political beliefs' effect on the governance of their universities is minimal (or else they wouldn't have their jobs).

I don't believe in private education, on any level. The entire notion is oxymoronic. Only an obscurantist can coherently argue for private education, and, while I have a lot of sympathy for obscurantists in general, this I cannot accept. It seems to me that FIRE, as an organization putatively committed to educational freedom, should devote its resources to attacking the privatization of education.

President of Miami University: Donna Shalala. That's one, as requested.

And yes, liberals are leftitsts, at least on the modern American political landscape. If we want to use classical labels, then I am a liberal and not a leftist and the modern left would be statists. Don't try to change the terms of the argument because you don't like the ones given. I'll grant that the left-right dichotomy is particularly limited, but unless you'd like to go to a 2 or 3 dimensional political model, it will have to serve.

Do not forget that, to the degree that you yourself are to the left, those also to the left will appear less so. It's sort of like Eric Alterman saying that the media isn't biased toward the left. Of course it isn't, if your vision of the left is Eric Alterman's. None of us like to consider ourselves out of the center because we classify those people as extremists. Because someone is to the right of YOU, doesn't make them on the right or conservative.

Why, pray tell, is the government particularly qualified to engage in education? That's an interesting position to have taken and I'd like to hear the reasons for it. You stake out the position as though it were obvious and those who disagree with you are just ill-educated philistines. So, please, lay out your argument so we unwashed might understand your position.

Ritchie, I'm not completely sure what you mean by "leftist". However, Susan Dentzer, recently retired as Chair of Dartmouth's Board of Trustees, is also the medical correspondent (or some such thing) for the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. In her reporting, she consistently selects examples of people victimized by the status quo in health care or threatened by proposed Republican changes in health care subsidies. Her overall approach is to serve as a cheerleader for extending single-payer models of health care. I believe this is a "leftist" position, particularly as I don't believe all of the Democratic Party supports this approach.

Dentzer was also an advocate of Dartmouth-as-nanny during her tenure, going as far as to require the presence of "healthy, unsalted snacks" during any event that included alcoholic beverages, as well as an elaborate system to prevent any attendee from being served more than five (for a female) or six (male) beers, this to prevent "binge drinking".

So I would say that Dentzer publicly advocates massive additional government expenditure on health care, and when she has an impact on policy, she implements massive authoritarian interference with private lives. I take this to be leftist, and am submitting this on stolypin's behalf.

Sorry, I reread Ritchie's post, and his challenge was to Paladin, not stolypin.

Ritchie Aprile (4:12pm):

>There's a simple question here: is Erin an equal-oppor-
>tunity snob? Amac attempted, rather unconvincingly,
>to argue that when she wrote "disturbingly illiterate"
>she meant "disturbingly illogical."

You have a simple question. I have a simple point to make.

**Once again** at this web-log, a dissenting voice establishes him/her self as intelligent and literate. As time goes by, their posts get uglier. Off-topic accusations accompany obscure, hip references (like to Sopranos characters, Ritchie). Mischaracterizations of other postersí remarks follow. Each time, the prolific and verbose writer has posted under a bogus email account.

Ritchie, youíve earned (presumably again) the presumption that you are posting to this web-log to undermine reasoned debate and discussion. Maybe this is your Hard-Left strategy, or maybe you do it for personal reasons. Either way, a topic for you to cover on your own web-log.

I hope you start to prove me wrong by posting, civilly, under your real name and with a legitimate email address.

Till then, no more feeding the troll for me.

Alastair Mackay
Baltimore, MD

If you think that Donna Shalala, Eric Alterman, and a woman who's reported on the obvious (are you suggesting, John Bruce, that it'd make good news to see Republicans reporting on their health-care satisfaction from the Mayo Clinic?) for the ADM Newshour are leftists, it's going to be very hard for me to have a rational conversation with you because my powers of empathy simply aren't strong enough. I understood how you view the world, but the distinctions in your apparent range of political discourse are so fine--and their relation to reality so elliptical--that I cannot communicate within them.

The U of Miami--an institution that blithely allowed one of its fraternities to terrorize a journalist for the school newspaper and is essentially a semi-professional athletic training facility--this is your example of administrative leftism? Dartmouth? Dartmouth? Salt-free snacks? Only six beers? Animal House? Am I going to have invoke the disembodied head of Ayn Rand? Even more dire thaumaturgy?

Were you planning on being on-topic at all? Or is this just a way for you to vent? What does the fact that Miami has a good football team have to do with the fact that its president is a leftist? Are you unwell? As I feared, you have no argument, no position to take, and nothing meaningful to say.

Your powers of empathy are irrelevant to any discussion. Your powers of logic are apparently inadequate to the task. I had thought that this was an attempt at a serious discussion. It is clear to me, now, that I was in error. Rather than accept the fact that one's view of someone else's political position has a great deal to do with one's own position, you deny other people's positions altogether. My patience for that sort of thing is quite lacking. When, or if, you choose to return to the world of the rational, I'll be around.

Ritchie,

You wrote:
There's a simple question here:
is Erin an equal-opportunity
snob? Amac attempted, rather
unconvincingly,to argue that when
she wrote "disturbingly illiterate"
she meant "disturbingly illogical."

This ain't snobbery. Erin is an English teacher; she was simply expressing, through succinct criticism, an educator's natural concern for the standards of clear, careful communication. And if I remember AMac's comments correctly, he described what he saw as a connection between the illiteracy and the poor logic of the Tunneler's post, rather than trying to deny the undeniable poverty of its grammar and syntax.

Many of us educators sincerely find such poor communication disturbing, for reasons other than snobbery. To ascribe such a motive to someone you don't even know, based on statements containing no prima facie evidence of snobbery, is not only speculative but uncharitable.

Amac,

How do I know that you're not, say, Alasdair MacIntyre? I admire how you've misdirected the conversation from a cogent and relevant lack of charity or hypocrisy on Erin's part to my alleged (and somehow dubious, I presume) anonymity.

The argument that what was sauce for the goose wasn't in fact sauce for the gander is, I confess, too subtle for me to follow. If you disagree with someone, then their spelling and grammar errors affect their persuasiveness--if not, then no? I can't say if that's true for you; but I can say, if it is, you've instantly self-refuted any presumptions you've maintained towards an open-mind.

Again, if I missed a scholastic turn, perhaps Stevens's sensible and well-timed comparison of his ordeal with that of American troops being one of the bits hard to take exception to, please know that it is only my deficiency--not mere disingenuousness.

Paladin,

I sprinkled the appropriate pentagram, was as naked as Howard Roark on the cliff, but the summoning went awry; and I still am not sure how Donna "Welfare" Shalala and Eric "Torture" Alterman are leftists. If you could have cast "Circle of Protection" beforehand or even done some laying of hands afterwards, things would have been a lot less trying, by Cuthbert's Cudgel!

Bob Finegan,

There's a reason why an English teacher won't write "disturbingly illiterate" on a student paper; it's cruel and counterproductive (if your goal is in fact to teach--rather than to score cheap points). And though I'm aware that the Tunneler wasn't Erin's student, I like to think that educators should educate all the time, however old-fashioned that might be.

Ritchie,

Calling disturbingly illiterate writing "disturbingly illiterate" is cruel? Huh? I think that's getting rather melodramatic. I agree it might hurt some students' feelings a bit to have their writing criticized that way. But since they can always work on their writing (as the Tunneler was presumably in college to do) and improve if they want to, since they can always put more effort and care into proofreading, telling them the truth about a piece they've written is arguably kinder than cosseting them with "gentle," partial correction. My hope is that the blunt criticism the Tunneler's writing received from Erin and others on this forum did have the educational value of galvanizing him to put a little more thought and care into his writing.

Mr. Stevens, there is a lesson to be learned here.

Of the 26 pervious comments, how many of them concern the issue of free speech at Citrus college? I believe the answer is none. Instead, most of the posts have focused on the technical quality of your writing. Although enjoyable these posts are in many ways beside your intended point.

I am no pargaon of virtue when it comes to my own writing. I am sometimes rushed and I am sometimes careless in my non-professional communication. Having said that, the blame for this diversion must fall squarely, if not entirely, on your shoulders.

The technical flaws in your posts opened the door for the comments that followed. They may sound rude but once you go public with your writing it is fair game. Form may follow function - but if the form is deficient the function will often fail.

I am sure that Erin asked for your permission before posting your comments and identifying you. If that is the case, I think what you should have done was say - yes but let me review and edit my work product before you go public with it.

Again, I am no paragon of virtue when it comes to writing. I am sure that anyone could comb through my posts and find many technical failings in them. On the other hand - my real name is known to no one and my embarrassment is thus somewhat muted. I do urge you to be more careful when it comes to public writing - even on a medium as informal and not rule-constrained as the internet.

Poor syntax, grammar, etc. detracts from the validity of the points your are trying to make - and also enables others to divert attention away from substance.

Well put, Stolypin. If Mr. Stevens takes advice such as yours to heart, he may yet come away from Citrus College wiser, and better-educated.

In Fairness to Ritchie, I think it's perfectly reasonable to wonder why Erin passed on Stevens' grammar when she obviously didn't do the same with the Tunneler's - even though Erin is no less an English teacher now as she was then. But Erin's inconsistency would only seem hypocritical to readers who do not follow the comments thread: not too much for Ritchie who actively interacts with other readers. He cannot suspect Erin's motives without placing his own under suspicion becuase he no longer has the benefit of innocence. He can no longer honeslty wonder about Erin's motives in treating Stevens and the Tunneler differently because he already knows that the two treatments don't exist side by side within the same time and without any intervening comments on the propriety of mocking grammar. I find Ritchie's insinuation that Erin was trying to protect Stevens by ignoring his grammatical infractions unpersuasive and petty becuase Erin could have better protected Stevens by ignoring his letter altogether, especially since FIRE already has a strong case against CC anyway.

I don't know for sure whether Erin's inconsistency was a direct result of her "moral development" or "political sympathy." It wouldn't be as difficult to determine if the Tunneler and Stevens wrote her at the same time. Bnd while we're on the subject of motives, there is probably more evidence to believe that Erin had a "moral development" after the Tunneler incident than there is to believe that Ritchie is just wondering whether Erin had a "moral development" or she's just having a "political sympathy" for Stevens.

pok (1:04am):

Insightful.

Copy editing and proofing of **Tunnelerís letter to Erin** prior to its 'publication' would have prevented a lot of criticism that had nothing to do with the merits of his case. The analogy with Chris Stevensí letter (this post) is exact.

Erin called Tunnelerís letter ìdisturbingly illiterateî on March 11; she reprinted Stevens on May 26 without comment. Unfortunately, Tunnelerís and Stevensí statements were each ëeloquentí enough to allow readers to gain some insight into these authorsí current abilities regarding logical rigor, rhetoric, style, grammar, and spelling. Posted comments make clear that many readers of this thread make their own judgments, rather than seconding the web mistressí. It would be nice to think that this web-log has evolved to the point where brave if unskilled college students can get the sort of advice that Stolypin offered, immediately above (May 27, 11:44pm).

A deeper difference remains. Tunnelerís letter was in the service of an unworthy cause. Stevensí similarly bollixed prose was an effort to highlight how the administration of a public institution was acting to abridge his, and othersí, First Amendment rights. In my opinion, this context is significant.