Although we do not agree with the mainstream of Amerikans on much, we do know that many Amerikans believe that colleges should be the last place censored. While students learn the very definition of various words and the various theories and perspectives in life, it cannot be productive for colleges to censor discussion of capitalism and communism.
Yet, administrations everywhere tend to act like they own their colleges and that their property rights are more important than the students' rights to free information and the taxpayers' right to contact those students and others in college communities. MIM hands out MIM Notes, our newspaper free, but many colleges, probably most colleges in the united $tates prevent MIM Notes distribution one way or another.
Student governments: If your college is listed here, we want to hear from you! We've been to Third World countries with no elections and open dictatorship that have better conditions on campus than many of the below colleges, simply because the student government leaders and the student body don't put up with anything from their administrations. We want you to issue a tough resolution with operational details based on the below on the problem of administration control over what you read. Contact us at mim@mim.org.
Also, if anyone believes his/her college is now better than that, let's collect some information and see if we can get official condemnations of official misdeeds of the past in writing! Let's collect more data and update this page. If you send data for this page, please title your letter: "Notes on college censorship." Thank you.
MIM is looking at a number of factors in judging a college. For an event such as a symphony performance where only people with tickets can enter, MIM is not offering judgement, and neither is U.S. law. However, in any event where the public is invited or public money is spent, MIM does offer its special condemnations of hypocrisy within bourgeois democracy.
1) Total score: MIM's overall judgement of the place ranging from 10=open to 1=sterile.
This score also takes into account that sometimes an implementation is better or worse than the official policy.
2) Does it stop, arrest or harass distributors of literature or music? We believe anyone with something
they can carry should be allowed, and no excuses regarding commercial "soliciting" be allowed to cause repression.
3) Does it actually give more lee-way to American Express to leave credit card brochures or pizza
company menus than free political literature?
The law says commercial speech is less protected than the rest of speech, but in practice many university administrations
do not think so.
4) Does it invite the public to speeches and then attempt to prevent the public from handing out literature
outside? Does it have a public center with restaurant chains or other stores while also posting signs that the property
is private and the university believes it has the right to kick people off property after inviting the public?
5) Does the university administration ask anyone to get permission before leaving free literature?
6) Even if everything else is sterile/fascist, is there at least one place students know they can pick up literature
brought by anybody in the world without administration harassment on campus?
7) Has the university administration ever placed the government's non-existent legal right to free speech above protestors', e.g. CIA recruiters? Can it read the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights unassisted by MIM?
8) Does the student newspaper have most of its own money?
9) Does the university administration reserve the right to edit or censor the student newspaper?
10) Is the surrounding town population supportive of so-called "free speech"?
11) Does the town government issue tickets for postering on public property?
12) Taxpayer money for said university.
13) Notes
| Name | Total score, 10=best | Stops lit/music? | Commercial speech higher than political? | Invites public then muzzles it? | Permission from admin necessary? | At least one free/good place on campus? | Says the CIA has "free speech"? | Student paper mostly financially independent? | Student paper editorially controlled? | Townies support free speech? | City Hall tickets postering? | Notes on taxpayer funding | Other notes |
| CALIFORNIA | |||||||||||||
| University of California, Berkeley | 7 | Y | |||||||||||
| FLORIDA | |||||||||||||
| Florida State | 3 | Y | Y | N | 7 | FSU sold off right to free speech to private company! April 2004 photo | |||||||
| University of Miami | 1 | Y | Y | N | 1 | Free speech a total myth in Miami, FL | |||||||
| MASSACHUSETTS | |||||||||||||
| Boston College | 5 | Y | Censored | Y=tickets | |||||||||
| Boston University | 6 | Y | Y=tickets | ||||||||||
| Brandeis University | 5 | N | Y | 7 | |||||||||
| Harvard | 7 | N | at Lamont Library | Y | Y | N | 8 | Y=tickets | Dorms off-limits mostly | ||||
| MIT | 5 | N | Y | Y | 8 | Y=tickets | Arrests public in its shopping mall. | ||||||
| Northeastern | 4 | Y | Y | 7 | Y=tickets | Admin stops leafletting outside public events. | |||||||
| Smith | 3? | N | 9 | Open but sterile. Students' fault? | |||||||||
| Tufts | 5 | Y | Y | ||||||||||
| University of Massachusetts, Amherst | 7 | N | N | N | Y | 9 | |||||||
| University of Massachusetts, Boston | 5 | N | N | N | N | Y | Y | 7 | Arrests professor, not military recruiter. Staff caught throwing out MIM Notes on arrival, Valentine's Day, 2002. | ||||
| Wellesley College | 3 | Barely. | Hillary Clinton. | ||||||||||
| Williams | 5 | Aloof, secluded, sterile but radical hotbed. Go figure. | |||||||||||
| MICHIGAN | |||||||||||||
| University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | 6 | Y=musicians kicked out | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | N | 9 | Photographed removing demonstrators from in front of network TV cameras. | ||
| NEW HAMPSHIRE | |||||||||||||
| University of New Hampshire, Durham | 2 | N | Tax-funded administrator yahoo wrote to tell us he throws out MIM Notes. | ||||||||||
| QUEBEC | |||||||||||||
| Concordia | 4 | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | 8 | "Temporary" ban on politics renewed. Zionists succeed in banning MIM beyond temporary. Crackdown backfires though. | ||||
| WISCONSIN | |||||||||||||
| University of Wisconsin, Madison | 8 | N | N | N | Y | Y | N | 8 | Student papers should learn from Madison. | ||||
| University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh | 6 | Y | Legally confused bureaucrats living off public dole say taxpayers not welcome. |
