Censorship: Is it happening at MSU? – Standard Online

Columnist Ali Spies revealed last week in The Standard that her COM 115: Fundamentals of Public Speaking instructor, purportedly acting on instructions of the Department of Communication, rejected her proposal to research, compose and deliver a brief speech about Planned Parenthood in the United States. The instructor asserted that the topic has ... too much controversy ... and implied that, while some controversy might be acceptable, too much controversy is off-limits. Spiess Department of Communication instructor censored Spies. Dr. Shawn T. Wahl heads the MSU Department of Communication.

George Anastaplo, a professor of law at Loyola University in Chicago, wrote that censorship is ... the changing or the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing that is deemed subversive of the common good. In other words, our universitys Department of Communication determined before Spies had begun to research her topic that mere mention of the topic would subvert the well-being of our academic community. Without further explanation, we can only speculate in our collective bafflement how the history of Planned Parenthood could possibly subvert the moral or physical welfare of our academic community.

The Department of Communications intellectual tyranny is not unique. A member of the Department of English censored me several semesters ago. In a fiction writing class, I submitted a story that included horrific violence to be discussed and evaluated by my classmates and instructor during our next class.

The instructor inexplicably failed to read the entire piece until just before class, although all of my classmates had read it. Rather than proceed, the instructor blindsided me and told the class that my story was inappropriate for class discussion.

The instructors censorship struck me as particularly hypocritical, given not only the graphic sex and violence in some of the published short stories the instructor had assigned the class to read, but also the instructors reading aloud to the class a lengthy and particularly graphic episode of deviant sex excerpted from one of those assigned short stories. The smug instructors hypocrisy is now part of a successful, if mediocre, academic career.

Given the Department of Communications irrational fear of controversy, its rewriting of Emma Lazaruss sentiment on the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, might well read:

Give me your apathetic, your indolent,

Your texting masses yearning to shop,

The benighted spawn of your vacuous world.

Send these, the complacent, directionless to me,

I lift my middle finger to their delusive dreams!

Censorship at a university is an abuse of power and a corruption of authority; it is a tool of bullies and despots whose victims are never the same. This toxic silencing stunts the intellectual growth of students and abuses them to such a degree that, out of paranoia, they self-correct whenever they feel theyve entered uncharted territory. They fear rocking the boat; their souls are crippled and their respect for instructors of all ranks becomes wary and stressful.

If Einstein had been intimidated effectively by mediocre instructors, would it have delayed special relativity or general relativity? If incompetent, self-hating instructors had strong-armed Lincoln, would he have authored the Emancipation Proclamation? Is it unreasonable to hope that theres a special place in Hell for I darent eat a peach instructors who hog-tie youths exuberant and yeasty passions for learning?

Whether the above incidents of censorship are anomalies or part and parcel of university dry-rot and mediocrity needs to be investigated, but first, Missouri State President Clif Smart and Wahl each needs to apologize to Spies for permitting censorship to exist on their collective watch. Since Spiess experience is now quite public, both Smarts and Wahls apologies should also be public; our academic community demands redress.

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Censorship: Is it happening at MSU? - Standard Online