The College Fix

Author Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE–a free speech advocacy group–has written a new book, Unlearning Liberty, which documents numerous cases of free speech violations on US campuses, “The horror stories I talk about in the book are notable in part because they dramatize how real students suffer when administrators don’t recognize or support free speech,” he says.

Lukianoff sat for an interview about his new book with Inside Higher Ed, which begins with this anecdote:

In spring of 2007, Valdosta State University student Hayden Barnes was expelled for posing a “clear and present danger” to campus. To protest an expensive and environmentally unfriendly parking garage, Barnes had created a collage illustrating potential dangers the garage might cause (smog, environmental destruction, etc.) and posted it on Facebook, calling the project the “[Valdosta State President Ronald] Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage. The “memorial” bit referred to Zaccari’s calling the garage part of his legacy, but the president, who had been assured Barnes was harmless, claimed to take it as an “indirect” threat against his life and unilaterally decided Barnes deserved no due process.