De-Recognition
-
Everett Piper Everett Piper's Blog
- Updated Feb 01, 2011
Note: To listen to
this blog on KWON/KYFM radio go to http://www.bartlesvilleradio.com/caffeine/uploads/files/ON%20Demand/Ideas%20Matter/Ideas%20matter%2040%20complete_1.mp3
Did you realize that some ideas at today's universities have been
officially derecognized?
Just a little over ten years ago the Tufts University Christian
Fellowship (TCF) was charged with bigotry and intolerance and "derecognized" by
the University's administration. To be "derecognized" meant that this Christian
group could no longer reserve rooms or advertise on campus and could no longer
participate in the annual Student Activities Fair. The offense that lead to such derecognition?
A TCF policy that required all its officers to model a biblically moral
lifestyle.
In the same year, similar groups at Middlebury College, Williams
College, Ball State University, Whitman College, and Grinnell College faced
discrimination complaints, administrative sanctions, and even outright bans on
their respective campuses. Christian
morality and ideas were deemed unworthy of formal recognition or of open
discussion and public debate. The students' right to freedom of expression was
impeded and the open advocacy of biblical morality was threatened and in some
cases even curtailed.
Over the past decade similar cases have multiplied several
fold. Just this past year Jennifer
Keeton was denied admission to Augusta State University's counseling program because
of her Christian ideas. Likewise, in 2006 Julea Ward was denied admission to a
graduate program at Eastern Michigan University for almost identical reasons
and in that same year at Missouri State University Emily Brooker was accused of
violating school policy because she refused to sign a statement endorsing
certain behaviors that she found to be unbiblical.
Isn't it
ironic that the very academics who claim to be the most open minded and liberal
are the same folks who then turn around and deny ideological liberty to their
students and derecognize anyone who dares to openly express a contrary idea?