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SC House votes to cut funding to public university for homosexul literature

Henrin said:
That has nothing to do with my question.
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It has everything to do with your question, I picked it for that reason. When your kids go off to college that are near or are 18, which means they are adults, which also means I think they can handle some sex.
 
Carjosse said:
It has everything to do with your question, I picked it for that reason. When your kids go off to college that are near or are 18, which means they are adults, which also means I think they can handle some sex.
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No, my question was why you picked the age eight in one of your earlier posts.
 
Henrin said:
No, my question was why you picked the age eight in one of your earlier posts.
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Like I said it less than 18, when sex in books may not be appropriate because by the age of 18 they should know how to react to it.
 
vash1012 said:
S.C. college’s production highlights political battle between lawmakers, public universities - The Washington Post

My lovely state.

The House has passed a bill that cuts $52,000 in funding to the College of Charleston for having a graphic novel about a family dealing with the suicide of a closeted gay father on the reading list for an introductory course and $17,000 to USC Upstate for having a gay and lesbian awareness week.

These politicians and those who support them seem to think if you just ignore the existence of something it'll go away. Trying to punish public universities for highlighting issues in the LGBT community is nothing short of authoritarian censorship.
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Well that certainly seems like a worthy use of their time.
 
tres borrachos said:
Thank you for the heads up. I wouldn't send my kids to a college to learn about pornography. They can go to the local 7-11 and buy Hustler Magazine with their own money.

I question the sanity of an adult who thinks it's appropriate to pass out pornography to other people's children. Call me old fashioned.
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I got bad news for you: your kids are going to get exposed to a whooooooole lot worse than some class passing out a book on teh gayz.
 
Goshin said:
you clearly have no concept of what censorship is. Spend a few years in Saudi Arabia or Iran, that will clear it right up.
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Just because its not done at gun point or with the threat of jail doesn't mean its not censorship. It may be a backhanded version of it, but its still censorship. National Coalition Against Censorship, the ACLU of South Carolina, the American Association of University Professors, the Modern Language Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the Association of American Publishers, the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Library Association all agree with that view since they wrote a letter to the South Carolina Finance Committee to that effect.

What you're saying is kind of like a gun control proponent saying "Oh, bans on assault rifles isn't an infringement on the right to bear arms. You clearly haven't been to Japan. That's infringement!".
 
tres borrachos said:
When my kids go to college, my husband & I will be paying. We will decide what's appropriate. I have no interest in other adults providing my children with graphic content and pictures. They can provide that to their kids all day long.
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That's all well and good and I support your ability to do that 100%. That's your right. However, I don't support an overbearing State government cutting money from a public school for developing a curriculum that includes LGBT issues or allowing LGBT rights events. As others have said, the "sex scene" in the book is an picture drawn in ink with only a little color. It's less suggestive than a commercial you see on TV. This is an award winning piece of work about identity and the effect of intolerance, not a porno mag. Hell, the State University teaches a class on 50 Shades of Grey here and no one is up in arms over that. This is political grandstanding to hype up the conservative base against the scary "liberal elite" trying to brainwash your kids into being gay and nothing more. What do you think the result of these threats to cut funding will be? I don't want my state's schools scared to let their students express themselves on their campus, display art with non-traditional things, or let their teachers discuss non-traditional topics for fear of having to fire people or raise tuition.
 
Henrin said:
It's a public university, so they can censor anything they please. If you don't want the government censoring what universities do then a good start would be to stop with the nonsense of public universities in the first place.
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No they can't. Just like they can't make public schools not teach evolution which our state most assuredly tried.
 
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/...o-read-award-winning-book/Content?oid=4868174

Here's an article that has a little more accurate information since it was local.

So these students were all given the book, but only a small minority of them enrolled in a certain class had to read it. It was required reading for that one class and if you didn't want to read it you could drop the class and take another one. There is no precedent in college to choose not to do assignments in a class because they offend you. You do them, you don't do them and fail, or you don't take that class. Those are your options in every class. You HAVE to read Beowulf in English 101. You HAVE to cut up a dead cat in Biology 101. You HAVE to read a short graphic novels that has 2 gay characters in this particular class. You don't have to agree with it. You can get mad as hell if you want. You can spew hateful things in the in-class discussion and write about how you think gays are monsters in your essay..but you have to read it to pass that class. That class you signed up for of your own volition in a college you chose of your own volition that you can choose to leave at any time.
 
vash1012 said:
No they can't. Just like they can't make public schools not teach evolution which our state most assuredly tried.
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Public universities are funded and operated by the state. They can very easily dictate what is taught in those halls. The state didn't like the class, and since it is their school, they shut it down. If you support the existence of public universities this is something you better get used to accepting.
 
Cardinal said:
Well that certainly seems like a worthy use of their time.
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Yes and this is all while our poverty rate, high school dropout rate, unemployment rate, and crime rate are all in the top 10 worst in the country.
 
vash1012 said:
Upstate Republican wants to punish CofC for urging students to read award-winning book | Feminism, Y'all | Charleston City Paper

Here's an article that has a little more accurate information since it was local.

So these students were all given the book, but only a small minority of them enrolled in a certain class had to read it. It was required reading for that one class and if you didn't want to read it you could drop the class and take another one. There is no precedent in college to choose not to do assignments in a class because they offend you. You do them, you don't do them and fail, or you don't take that class. Those are your options in every class. You HAVE to read Beowulf in English 101. You HAVE to cut up a dead cat in Biology 101. You HAVE to read a short graphic novels that has 2 gay characters in this particular class. You don't have to agree with it. You can get mad as hell if you want. You can spew hateful things in the in-class discussion and write about how you think gays are monsters in your essay..but you have to read it to pass that class. That class you signed up for of your own volition in a college you chose of your own volition that you can choose to leave at any time.
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depends on the class and if it is a manditory class that all kids have to take at some point. if the book was just for one class then only the students taking the class would need to buy it. there is no reason to waste student money supplying a book to all students if all students didn't need it.

not all students signed up for the class or the class has only so many students in it so why waste money paying for a book that only a small amount are going to use?
couldn't have anything to do with indoctrination now could it?

the only person that made out like a bandit was the author of the book and the thousands of books the college's bought.
 
Henrin said:
Public universities are funded and operated by the state. They can very easily dictate what is taught in those halls. The state didn't like the class, and since it is their school, they shut it down. If you support the existence of public universities this is something you better get used to accepting.
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The State can influence what is taught in the schools, sure, so long as it is secular. The State government, being a secular institution that is bound by separation of church and state, can't force schools to teach intelligent design and creationism because that is promoting a particular religion. This was upheld in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District in 2005 in federal court. It can't bar schools from teaching evolution as was found unconstitutional in Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968. These decisions were all based on the first amendment. There is already a precedent that States have limitations on what they can direct a school to teach or not teach so NO they cannot very easily dictate was is taught in those schools. The difference here is that they aren't making it illegal. They are just discouraging it by cutting funds and it is not with an express intent to favor one religion over another, but there is an argument that what the State is doing here is possibly unconstitutional.
 
vash1012 said:
The State can influence what is taught in the schools, sure, so long as it is secular. The State government, being a secular institution that is bound by separation of church and state, can't force schools to teach intelligent design and creationism because that is promoting a particular religion. This was upheld in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District in 2005 in federal court. It can't bar schools from teaching evolution as was found unconstitutional in Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968. These decisions were all based on the first amendment. There is already a precedent that States have limitations on what they can direct a school to teach or not teach so NO they cannot very easily dictate was is taught in those schools. The difference here is that they aren't making it illegal. They are just discouraging it by cutting funds and it is not with an express intent to favor one religion over another, but there is an argument that what the State is doing here is possibly unconstitutional.
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Well, make an argument as to why the Constitution prohibits the government from cutting the funding of the class. I can't see how you are going to do that.
 
ludin said:
depends on the class and if it is a manditory class that all kids have to take at some point. if the book was just for one class then only the students taking the class would need to buy it. there is no reason to waste student money supplying a book to all students if all students didn't need it.

not all students signed up for the class or the class has only so many students in it so why waste money paying for a book that only a small amount are going to use?
couldn't have anything to do with indoctrination now could it?

the only person that made out like a bandit was the author of the book and the thousands of books the college's bought.
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The merit of the program itself isn't really the issue here. The State isn't pulling funding because the idea of buying everyone in the freshman class one book is wasteful. They've been doing it for years with no complaints until they picked a book that a few people didn't like.

It is a mandatory class for some majors I believe, but not one you have to take that semester and it would have been a different book each semester if I understand it right.
 
Henrin said:
Well, make an argument as to why the Constitution prohibits the government from cutting the funding of the class. I can't see how you are going to do that.
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Because they are cutting funding with the very public intent of discouraging an institution for teaching a particular issue that has civil rights implications.

This may violate the university's right to academic freedom, which is typically considered to exist at an institutional level.

"Attempts at external control of expression on college campuses have resurfaced in the past decade, as interest groups use educational institutions as forums to promote their ideological viewpoints and agendas. Challenges brought by community members and students against the content of first-year student orientation reading assignments and student plays performed as course assignments have generally failed."

Academic Freedom
 
Henrin said:
Well, make an argument as to why the Constitution prohibits the government from cutting the funding of the class. I can't see how you are going to do that.
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I'll put the same question to you. Can you find a precedent where it IS constitutional to target an institution for teaching about the defining civil rights issue of the time?
 
Goshin said:
you clearly have no concept of what censorship is. Spend a few years in Saudi Arabia or Iran, that will clear it right up.
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Really? The 'we're not as bad as those guys' argument?
The state needs to cut all funding to all universities or butt out of their business. Legislators aren't elected to make decisions about college curricula. They're not qualified and not mandated.
 
tres borrachos said:
When my kids go to college, my husband & I will be paying. We will decide what's appropriate. I have no interest in other adults providing my children with graphic content and pictures. They can provide that to their kids all day long.
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College should be partly about seeing a broader world than the one your helicopter parents depicted for you. If you want a sheltered education for your kids, send them to a religious school. The rest of world want to deal with, you know, reality?
 
Dezaad said:
College should be partly about seeing a broader world than the one your helicopter parents depicted for you. If you want a sheltered education for your kids, send them to a religious school. The rest of world want to deal with, you know, reality?
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If she is paying for the education then she gets to decide what she will agree to pay for. That is something liberals like you can't stand sadly.
 
Henrin said:
If she is paying for the education then she gets to decide what she will agree to pay for. That is something liberals like you can't stand sadly.
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Sure and she can go to another college or a religious college like the guy said. That's an individual right, not the right of the State.
 
Henrin said:
If she is paying for the education then she gets to decide what she will agree to pay for. That is something liberals like you can't stand sadly.
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I am not denying that she gets to decide that. I am just saying that it is incredibly small minded. That is something that conservatives like you can't even comprehend, sadly.
 
Dezaad said:
I am not denying that she gets to decide that. I am just saying that it is incredibly small minded. That is something that conservatives like you can't even comprehend, sadly.
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How is it small minded to say I will only pay for classes teaching subjects that I agree should be taught? One of the main problems with the government being involved in education is that it ignores what parents want their kids to learn in favor of what the government wants kids to learn.
 
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