Campus Reform: Purdue University - Main Campus

Indiana University - Bloomington (IU) was founded in 1820 in Bloomington, Indiana. Today, it is the flagship school of the Indiana University system and enrolls more than 38,000 students. IU is known for its research, its arts program, and also its Division I sports team, the Hoosiers.

Campus Life

At IU, there are 25 liberal student organizations and seven conservative student organizations.

Activists should take note: when you stand up to a university administration for egregiously bad behavior, you get results.

So it is at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Outcry on and off campus arose when Ken Howell, an adjunct professor of religion, was fired for an email that explained Catholic doctrine to students enrolled in his class on Catholic thought. (Click here to read full background on the story.)

Now UIUC administrators are backtracking. They claimed that they never fired Howell; instead, they said "no decisions" had been made. Yet the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has reported that the department chair told Howell someone else would teach his fall classes and a university committee to review the decision would not convene until late next month. And, of course, Howell is convinced his employment with UIUC has ended.

The new decision from UIUC? Administrators are "suspending" the decision to remove Howell until a faculty committee has reviewed the event.

Students at the University of Illinois (UIUC) are organizing in support of Kenneth Howell, an adjunct professor fired for an email about the Catholic doctrine on homosexual acts.

Howell's lengthy email (click here for the full text) was sent to students enrolled in his course on Catholic thought. In it, he explained the rationale behind the Catholic Church's doctrine on homosexuality; previously, in class, he said he was a practicing Catholic who agreed with church teachings. A student not enrolled in the class complained that Howell's email constituted "hate speech," and Howell was removed from his classes last semester and summarily fired.

Students have posted fliers in defense of Howell on campus. More than 7,000 people have joined a group and Facebook page called "Save Dr. Ken" dedicated to Howell's reinstatement at UIUC.

As one UIUC student, Eli Lazar, said,"What upset me about this, and what's upset other people, is we kind of feel students' sensitivity is starting to dictate what is taught at the university."

NEWSFLASH!

You can get an M.A. in Liberty Studies online!  Check out the #1 program here:http://www.libertystudies.org/html/online.html

As a secondary option, you can also design your own degree through Valparaiso's Liberal Studies program.  Just like the flagship program at UIS, you can officially title your major anything, like "Liberty Studies" and it will read that way on your final transcript: http://www.valpo.edu/grad/mals/individ.php

AMAZING THINGS HAPPENED THIS WEEK!  THANK YOU SMELTS FOR ALL OF YOUR EFFORTS!

4/19/2010: Shimer Board relieves Lindsay of his office. Details forthcoming.

Great news everyone,

YAL @ IU was recently awarded $1000 from IUSA. This means that we have well over $4000 to fund our Tom Woods event, and the event is official. Furthermore, all of the necessary rooms have been booked, so get ready to take IU head on with Austrian Economics!

I would also like to thank everyone who donated to this event! Without your generous gifts, this victory would not have been possible.

Spread the word!

In Liberty,

Sam Spaiser

President

Young Americans For Liberty at Indiana University Bloomington

The Star-Spangled Banner was banned at Goshen College, a private, Mennonite school, because of, according to President Jim Brenneman, the college’s value of “compassionate peacemaking seeming to be in conflict with the anthem’s militaristic language” – referring to the “rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air” lyrics.

Last week the Union Board Lectures Committee denied a proposal for a contract covering Tom Woods' $3000 Honorarium to be presented and voted on at last week's Union Board's programming meeting, a group of 16 student programming directors and 4 faculty. However, tonight they were gracious enough to let me have a seven minute open discussion with them in order to help me understand the following statement regarding the feeling of the Lectures Committee toward the Tom Woods event:

They were concerned about the role Union Board would have in the programming aspects of the lecture. Your organization seems to have this planned out very well already and there would little room for Union Board’s help besides the monetary contribution.

In other words, we were too well prepared. The Board members said that the purpose of the Union Board programmers is to help student groups who are unable to plan events have them planned for them. Furthermore, they claimed that YAL had this event "planned to a tee," and that this deemed the Board irrelevant.