Totalitarian Pennsylvania Update. (Part 4)

Fyodor's tax dollars are hard at work turning students into bleating sheep-like followers of the political class' line. (Yes, Temple is a private school. But it does receive plenty of public money.)

Centre Daily Times: Free-speech suit targets PSU, Temple

Temple and Penn State universities are suppressing students' free speech rights through vaguely worded behavioral policies that should be abolished, according to a pair of lawsuits filed Wednesday in federal court.

Penn State has "an Orwellian speech code" that stifles discussion of controversial views and encourages students to report acts of "intolerance" to the university, sophomore Alfred Fluehr contends in his suit.

Temple subjected graduate student Christian DeJohn to "a campaign of retribution and retaliation" because his views on the Iraq war clashed with those of his professors, DeJohn's lawsuit says.

The complaints, which also seek unspecified monetary damages, were filed by attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Temple does not comment on pending litigation, said spokesman Ray Betzner.

A Penn State spokesman denied any violation of the Constitution.

"Penn State doesn't have a speech code, and we don't know why someone would claim that we do," said university spokesman Tysen Kendig. "Speech is clearly protected by the First Amendment."

Alliance Defense Fund lawyer David French said Penn State might not call its regulations a "speech code," but the practical effect is to limit expression.

Penn State's student guide forbids any act of "intolerance," which includes "an attitude, feeling, or belief wherein an individual behaves with contempt for other individuals or groups," according to the lawsuit.

Regulating attitudes, feelings, and beliefs? That's Orwellian all right.