I have long thought that instead of sensitivity training, colleges and universities should be offering--and perhaps requiring--training in First Amendment rights as well as the rights and responsibilities of academic freedom. Everyone on campus needs this knowlege--students, faculty, administrators, trustees, staff. And too few have it. The resulting mess keeps FIRE, ACTA, and a small but critical cluster of similar groups in business--and also seriously undermines the quality of American higher education and scholarship.

Western Oregon University administrators recently revealed their utter ignorance of the First Amendment when they responded to a sensitive article in the student newspaper by firing the faculty advisor, punishing the student editor, and conducting a night-time investigation of the newspaper office that included attempting to secure copies of files on the paper's computers. At issue was the fact that the university had failed to secure private information about student applicants--and that the student journalists were exposing that fact in their story.

Now the College Media Advisers Board of Directors, an advocacy group, is urging Western Oregon officials to undertake some much needed First Amendment training. And while the fur flies and debate rages about who was in the wrong, what's clear is that the situation is immensely complicated by a broad lack of understanding of where First Amendment rights begin and end within a public university setting. More at Inside Higher Ed.