University of Utah Scrubs ‘Anti-Racist Code of Conduct’ After FIRE Sends Them a Letter
“impermissibly compels faculty to voice and commit to prescribed views on contested questions of politics and morality, implicating faculty members’ most essential freedoms of expression and conscience”
Freedom of speech includes being free of compelled speech.
The College Fix reports:
University of Utah scrubs ‘anti-racist code of conduct’ following demand letter
The University of Utah removed an “Anti-Racist Code of Conduct” webpage hosted by one of its departments following a demand letter from a national free speech group.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression told The College Fix that “the Anti-Racist Code of Conduct web page has been taken down.”
“FIRE will continue to monitor the situation to ensure any policy respects students’ and faculty members’ expressive rights,” Haley Gluhanich, FIRE’s program officer, told The Fix via email.
The Department of Communication had created the code of conduct.
“The university responded to our letter affirming its commitment to free speech and academic freedom. Dean of the College of Humanities Hollis Robbins said new leadership is currently evaluating statements on inclusive practices,” Gluhanich group told The Fix.
“We work intentionally to eradicate speech or actions that stereotype, inferentially identify, culturally discriminate against, or harm people of color,” the statement read, according to a copy of the code archived by FIRE.
“We disrupt and dismantle racist learning and work environments created through White normativity and discriminatory actions such as microaggressions, microassaults, and microinsults.”
The department also committed to “interrupt and/or intervene in racist incidents in all university spaces that are utilized and inhabited by Department members, including physical spaces (offices, classrooms, bathrooms, conference rooms, lunch rooms) and online forums.”
FIRE first alerted university leadership to the problems with the code of conduct in a March 23 letter, however the language requirements date back to 2020.
The code of conduct “impermissibly compels faculty to voice and commit to prescribed views on contested questions of politics and morality, implicating faculty members’ most essential freedoms of expression and conscience,” the letter stated. “The ARCC also exceeds the department’s authority in matters of academic freedom and threatens to cast a pall of orthodoxy over the academic environment.”
The Department of Communication document “impos[es] an affirmative obligation on all Departmental members to engage in anti-racist actions and support anti-racist Department institutions and norms,” according to the text on the webpage.
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“an affirmative obligation on all Departmental members to engage in anti-racist actions and support anti-racist Department institutions and norms”
This. They will not be satisfied until YOU are THEIR slaves.