Watchdog group ponders college suits

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

An education watchdog group is charging several colleges around the country with silencing free speech after shutting down bake sales and is considering legal action.

The "affirmative action bake sales," held by Republican and libertarian groups are modeled after "wage gap" bake sales held by student feminist groups, have sold cookies and brownies at different prices depending on student's race and sex to protest college policies that determine admissions based on such factors.

The bake sales have been shut down on several college campuses in recent months. At one, two angry students at the University of Washington who were opposed to the bake-sale protest threatened the participating students and had to be restrained by police when they ripped down signs and threw cookies. A school official then told the College Republicans, the group holding the sale, to take down their table and disperse.

"It sets a horrible precedent on campus, that if you want to stop someone's free speech, just get violent," said Jason Chambers, a senior at UW and president of the College Republicans club.

But Jerry Grinstein, president of the University of Washington's Board of Regents, supported shutting down the bake sale and wrote in a letter to the student newspaper: "The 'statements' of the UW College Republicans in putting on a bake sale about affirmative action were tasteless, and hurtful to many members of the university community. ... We pledge our best efforts to foster a welcoming environment for a diverse university community."

These kind of incidents, which have occurred at several other schools across the country, have prompted the civil liberties watchdog the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to begin a public relations drive and consider legal action against the schools.

"We are beginning a campaign to expose their administrations and trustees as being delinquent in their duties to protect the First Amendment, to the extent that they have sanctioned criminal violence to silence political debate," FIRE's chief executive, Thor L. Halvorssen, said.

"We have not ruled out a lawsuit and are in conversations with the students involved as well as members of our legal network," Mr. Halvorssen said.

Similar bake sales have been shut down on the campuses of the University of California at Irvine, Northwestern University, the College of William & Mary and Southern Methodist University.