FT. PIERCE, FLORIDA, COLLEGE BANS ˜PASSION" BECAUSE OF R-RATING

Florida's Indian River Community College (IRCC) is engaging in a campaign of repression against a Christian student group for attempting to show Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ on campus. The college banned the Christian Student Fellowship (CSF) from showing the film because it was R-rated, despite the fact that the college has hosted a live performance entitled “F**king for Jesus” that describes simulated sex with the risen Christ. CSF students report that after their group wrote President Edwin R. Massey in protest, administrators pulled group leaders out of class and, astoundingly, demanded an apology from them for their actions. Now, CSF is unable even to officially meet because its advisor resigned after IRCC imposed a burdensome new policy requiring that faculty advisors attend all student group meetings.

IRCC's assault on CSF must end immediately," declared David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which wrote to IRCC on behalf of CSF. "Not only has the college adopted a breathtaking double standard for expression, but it has also abused administrative power in the worst way. As a public institution bound by the First Amendment, IRCC has no right to ban either the movie or the play, and it is shameful to demand an apology from students for trying to preserve their constitutional rights. IRCC's arbitrary and authoritarian actions demonstrate that the college has no respect for its students or for the U.S. Constitution."

FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff remarked: "If IRCC has consistently prevented adult students from showing R-rated movies on campus, it has imposed on them an unconstitutional, paternalistic, and patronizing rule. IRCC's recent actions make it more likely that IRCC has singled out The Passion of the Christ for censorship in an astonishing instance of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and abuse of administrative power. Either way, the college has shown extraordinary arrogance and foolishness."

"IRCC has also taken its policy of intrusive monitoring of student organization activities to absurd heights. In early December, one CSF student reported that an administrator and security guard interrupted a private discussion between her and a fellow student and demanded to know what they were doing. IRCC's enforcement of the unlawful new rule prohibiting club meetings without the presence of a faculty advisor makes it impossible for CSF, a group that would normally meet at least three times a week, to function as a recognized student organization, as it is unable to find a new advisor who can attend every group meeting."

"It is absurd that IRCC believes that a government representative must monitor the meetings and control the expressive activity of every student group. This requirement is as insulting as it is Orwellian," stated FIRE's French.

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation's colleges and universities.

COURTESY OF: thefire.org

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