California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) has just agreed to pay a student $40,000 to settle his free speech lawsuit, brought with the assistance of F.I.R.E.
According to a transcript of a university judiciary hearing, the controversy began in November 2002, when Mr. Hinkle attempted to post a flier in a campus building while a group of black students was holding a Bible-study meeting there. The black students told Mr. Hinkle, who is white, that they thought his flier — promoting a speech by the conservative black author C. Mason Weaver — was offensive.
Mr. Hinkle offered to discuss the flier with the students, but they called the police. Although he did not post the flier and left before the police arrived, the students complained to the university.
After a seven-hour judiciary hearing, the university concluded that Mr. Hinkle had violated the campus’s code of conduct by disrupting the Bible-study meeting, and it ordered him to draft a letter of apology to the student group. Mr. Hinkle refused to do so and filed suit.
Cal Poly continues to insist that it did nothing wrong and has refused to change its “disruption” policy.
The day a public or private university acknowledges a mistake we should all duck to avoid being struck by the airborne pork.
The black students that caused the ruckus were holding a Bible study? Why were they not punished for being Christians on a campus? Or is it only white Christians that are always wrong?