This is a press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
MINNEAPOLIS, March 9, 2006″”The uproar over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed may be fading in some places, but not at Century College in Minnesota. After repeatedly encountering censorship of her display of the cartoons on a hallway bulletin board, Professor Karen Murdock finally posted them behind a curtain so that passers-by would not be offended. Yet even after assuring Murdock and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) that free speech is valued at Century, administrators allowed censors to tear down the hidden cartoons and insisted that she not put them back up.
“Karen Murdock bent over backwards to make sure that students who disapproved of the cartoons would not be exposed to them, but this was still not good enough,” remarked FIRE Interim President Greg Lukianoff. “Sadly, the college has sided with the proponents of suppression rather than the advocates of open, meaningful, and informed dialogue.”
At the height of the international controversy surrounding the Mohammed cartoons, adjunct professor of geography Karen Murdock was concerned that most students at Century had not even seen the cartoons and would therefore be unable to evaluate them intelligently. On February 7, she posted the drawings, related newspaper articles, and blank comment sheets on a bulletin board near her office where various faculty members post items of interest. The cartoons were repeatedly and anonymously torn down, and she replaced them each time. Finally, she says, her academic division head, David Lyons, removed the cartoons himself, and Vice President of Student Services Mike Bruner asked that she not repost them. Vice President of Academic Affairs John O”Brien then called a meeting with Murdock…
Murdock has expressed great frustration with the situation. “We are a college. We are supposed to be a forum for the free exchange of ideas,” she said. “If we can’t talk about this controversy at a college, where are we supposed to talk about it?” She continued, “We are supposed to be able not merely to deal with controversy but actually to welcome it!”…