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Student of Rhode Island College Sues Over Social Justice Mandate

Student of Rhode Island College Sues Over Social Justice Mandate

Requirement called for all students to work to “advance social change.”

Progressive policies are always so popular that they have to be required. Have you noticed that?

Forbes reports:

Student Sues College Over ‘Social Justice’ Activism Mandate

American college campuses are becoming the main battleground for the First Amendment, usually because faculty or administrators don’t respect the free speech rights of students. In November I wrote about such a case at Iowa State.

Another case showing the authoritarianism that increasingly characterizes the professoriate involves the master’s program in social work at Rhode Island College (RIC). A student who did not believe that lobbying the state legislature for “progressive” causes was properly a part of his education and suffered for it filed suit against the school in state court.

This remarkable case started way back in 2004, when William Felkner, a graduate student in the college’s social work program, objected to its internship requirement that called for all students to work to “advance social change.” To the faculty, that meant advocating the sorts of “progressive” policies they favor, but the conservative Felkner did not care to advocate policies that he found philosophically repugnant. He therefore accepted instead an internship in the administration of then-governor Donald Carcieri, a Republican.

That bit of independence was too much for the Professor James Ryczek who reported his defiance to the chair of the Master’s in Social Work Program, Lenore Olsen. She then informed Felkner that he could no longer pursue his degree at RIC.

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“She then informed Felkner that he could no longer pursue his degree at RIC.”

Excuse me? The president of the college and the board of trustee’s let this happen? To paraphrase Jack Nicholson as The Joker; “This place needs an Enema!