University expels student for opposing garages

Universities used to be known for the free exchange of ideas. But in today's America, many dissidents on the nation's campuses find themselves hamstrung by federal thought control (like the Solomon Amendment), their schools' desire to cozy up to local right-wing panjandrums for donations, or wingnuts looking for a manufactured story. The real stories go unreported.

A few months ago, an environmentally conscious sophomore at Valdosta State University named Hayden Barnes dissented from the campus order by criticizing the construction of 2 new parking garages. Barnes sent letters to the student newspaper and featured pictures of the proposed garages on his Facebook account. He jokingly suggested the garages should be named after VSU president Ronald Zaccari.

The result of all this disagreeing with the Establishment? Expulsion. No hearing, no nothing - so the student didn't even get a chance to defend himself. This - along with the fact that the school failed to charge Barnes with a specific disciplinary infraction - violates VSU's own stated policies on expulsions.

All this at a public university funded by the taxpayers of the state of Georgia. You'd expect an expulsion to result over something like this at Falwell U, but not at a state university.

(Those who remember my struggles with a certain state university in Kentucky are finding a familiar ring to this story.)

Barnes said he got a letter calling him a "clear and present danger" to the school because he dared to oppose the new garages.

Almost everyone except the most faithful purveyors of Bushiganda agrees that Zaccari and VSU were out of line to expel Barnes. Commenters on other blogs say Zaccari was being a thin-skinned baby by kicking Barnes out of school over a difference of opinion.

Now, Hayden Barnes has filed a federal lawsuit against Valdosta State University, Ronald Zaccari, the Georgia university system's Board of Regents, and other educrats.

What's ironic is that the garages, which would have cost $30,000,000, would have been paid for with mandatory student fees. Conservatives cried in their underpants when student fees were used on projects they disagreed with and filed enough lawsuits over it that they'd probably reach all the way to Saturn - yet the conservatives who run VSU had no objection to squandering student fees on garages while refusing to opt for more environmentally friendly alternatives. Southern Georgia is pretty flat, so there's probably no harm in encouraging bicycling to school instead of driving.

It gets worse. It turns out the letter Barnes received warned him that in order to ever return as a student, he'd have to see a psychiatrist and receive "on-going therapy." (Didn't I just post something a few days ago about psychiatric diagnoses being abused to label political dissidents?) A psychiatrist then gave Barnes - a licensed EMT - a clean bill of mental health. But VSU still refused to rescind the expulsion. So VSU lied.

The suppression of dissent at VSU unfortunately isn't limited to that institution or even to that state. By the time I was in college, some public colleges and universities (especially in conservative areas) had already transformed themselves into monarchies where constitutional rights didn't apply or where the classes reflected a right-wing orthodoxy. An example of the latter is the course Newt Gingrich launched in the '90s at Kennesaw State University, also in Georgia.

Ironically, after being expelled from VSU, Barnes enrolled at (drum roll, please) Kennesaw. The fact that another state university accepted him pretty much proves he's not a danger to anyone and that VSU is run by a fascist regime that's full of shit.

If the lawsuit against VSU isn't an airtight case, I don't know what is.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/15159/7889/92/435202;
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/10166201.html;
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/11/valdosta;
http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1635&year=2007)