Conservative student files rights suit against Fresno State (University) [View all]

[alp227]

A student who says his conservative politics got him in hot water with Fresno State has filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the university.

Senior Neil O'Brien, who has been a vocal critic of undocumented students, says the university has a double standard when it comes to free-speech rights.

The university took disciplinary action against O'Brien after he made two unannounced visits to faculty advisers to a Latino student newspaper and questioned them on video about the use of the term "white savage" in the publication. One of the professors filed a complaint, calling O'Brien "hostile" and "belligerent."

O'Brien, a 29-year-old recreation major, says in his lawsuit that university officials barred him from participating in student government during the spring semester and from being president of his own campus club, Young Americans for Liberty.

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Since enrolling at Fresno State in 2010, O'Brien has made no secret about his opposition to the DREAM Act and professors in the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department...He said he reached a boiling point in May 2011 when he read a poem that he found offensive in the student-run newspaper, "La Voz De Aztlan." The poem begins: "America, the land robbed by the white savage." He said if the poem had said "brown savages" or "black savages," heads would have rolled, but because it targeted white people, no one got in trouble.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/16/5057358/conservative-student-files-rights.html

A conservative friend who goes to my college (and also is part of the student secular/atheist org with me) posted this on facebook. I've been thinking about this, and all these "conservative student persecuted by evul librul colluge" stories are suckering Joe and Jane Middle/Working Class into voting Republican. These stories (usually may be downplayed or omitting crucial details) convince them that the LEFT! WING! is the root of EVERYTHING against True Heartland American Values(TM), thus distracting from issues that we the left fight for i.e. workers' rights, Social Security, health care, etc. because of divisive cultural issues i.e. COMMIES IN COLLEGE, abortion, gay marriage, etc.

As for the poem too bad the first line is one of those horrid truths about America that the right wing would rather leave out of textbooks if they had their way. (ETA: My friend concedes that O'Brien behaved badly but is against the university's punishment.)