{"id":1899,"date":"2017-02-06T13:23:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T19:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2017-02-06T13:23:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T19:23:30","slug":"student-told-couldnt-get-degree-interned-republican-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/02\/student-told-couldnt-get-degree-interned-republican-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Student told he couldn&#8217;t get a degree after he interned with a Republican governor"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/152599449\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/152599449?et=NP_-5jLURgp6wYuE9mvKhw&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=W0Ddp_WrZ5M7giC3JWkxF7YnAZgYW7B_sbjur1OlSoI=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>American colleges are no longer focused solely on academic success but have become breeding grounds for progressive politics. The Rise of the New Fascists on campus has ushered in an era of extreme political correctness which strips students of their right to free speech for those who disagree with the status quo. The result has put many conservative\u2019s education at risk. Though the problem has worsened over the years, it\u2019s by no means a new phenomenon.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In 2004, William Felkner was a graduate student at Rhode Island College (RIC). He was enrolled in the school\u2019s social work program, and part of the requirement for his major was an internship, but not one of his choice: it must \u201cadvance social change,\u201d it must advocate policies, and must \u201cachieve social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Felkner, as a conservative, couldn\u2019t justify advancing progressive ideas that went against his political philosophy, so he pursued an internship with the then-Republican governor instead. And for that, he was told he couldn\u2019t graduate.<\/p>\n<p>Felkner\u2019s case against RIC began in 2007 and has been in limbo ever since until late last year when a judge dismissed his complaint. This egregious decision was called out by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the Cato Institute, and the National Association of Scholars in an amicus brief defending Felkner\u2019s First Amendment rights:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe entirety of the record shows that Defendants required Felkner to engage in lobbying related to a partisan issue. While RIC social work students could choose among a range of issues to lobby the Rhode Island General Assembly, the Social Work 531 syllabus explicitly required students to engage in \u2018policy advocacy\u2019 in order to \u2018achieve social justice.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A state-run school is not allowed to do that. In court case after court case, judges have declared such politically charged requirements as a violation of students\u2019 constitutional rights. But as professors have gotten more comfortable in their roles as the leaders of this New Fascism, they\u2019re bolder than ever. Their goal is not to churn out well-rounded citizens, but activists. And not just activists \u2014 leftist activists in search of social justice.<\/p>\n<p>As George Leef wrote in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/georgeleef\/2017\/01\/22\/student-sues-college-over-social-justice-activism-mandate\/#31b260a13373\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Forbes<\/em><\/a> about this case:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Imagine the consequences if the case stands with the trial court\u2019s dismissal of the claim that the college has violated Felkner\u2019s rights under the First Amendment. That would embolden professors across the nation to push ahead with their desires to make \u201csocial justice\u201d activism an integral part of the curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>Mandatory student participation in a host of political conduct would get the green light. Aggressive professors would fear no legal difficulties if they say to students, \u201cYou can either work to push our political agenda or go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That illiberal, unscholarly approach should not be acceptable anywhere and shouldn\u2019t be legal in any public educational institution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That\u2019s right \u2014 I\u2019m thankful that people are out there fighting these fights on behalf of freedom.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When social justice is mandated in college, it&#8217;s time to take them to court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":1901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - 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