Fordham University punishes student for commemorating Tiananmen Square anniversary
Quote:If you heard that a student was punished for commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, you would probably assume the incident happened in China. But you'd be wrong.
Rising senior Austin Tong has been disciplined by Fordham University in New York for violating university regulations on bias and for threats and intimidation. Tong’s offenses were two Instagram posts. The first was a picture of slain retired police Capt. David Dorn with the caption, “Y’all a bunch of hypocrites,” referring to the Black Lives Matter movement. The second was an image of Tong holding a legally acquired firearm and the caption, “Don’t tread on me,” along with a hashtag referencing the Tiananmen Square Massacre, posted on the 31st anniversary of the event.
Tong, who immigrated to the United States from China as a child, is being forced by Fordham to write an apology letter and will be banned from entering campus without university permission for his senior year. He’ll also be forced to finish an implicit bias course. Tong has teamed up with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to fight his punishment.
The letter from Fordham Dean of Students Keith Eldredge didn’t specify anything wrong with the posts other than the possession of a firearm, referring to social media posts “related to the current racial issues in the country and political issues in China.” The refusal to specify what was wrong with them shows even Fordham knows how ridiculous this is, and referring to Tiananmen Square as a “political issue in China” sounds like it’s straight out of a Chinese propaganda handbook.
Fordham is a private university, but they’re required under New York law to adhere to their public commitments to students, as shown when they lost a lawsuit last year after refusing to recognize a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Fordham’s policies repeatedly support free expression, including saying that students have “the right to freely express their positions” whether they “assent to or dissent from existing situations in the University or society.”
An extraordinarily tame criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement is not a “bias incident,” and the constitutional exercise of Second Amendment rights while celebrating American freedom on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square is not a threat. It should not be necessary for students to take their university to court over something like this, and Fordham should be embarrassed that this is its interpretation of free expression.
RE: Fordham University punishes student for commemorating Tiananmen Square anniversary
(07-18-2020 02:28 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: DOJ needs to show up on the Fordham campus and arrest whoever is responsible for this for violating Tong's civil rights.
An entire SWAT team ala Roger Stone
(This post was last modified: 07-18-2020 02:52 PM by BartlettTigerFan.)
RE: Fordham University punishes student for commemorating Tiananmen Square anniversary
(07-18-2020 02:28 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: DOJ needs to show up on the Fordham campus and arrest whoever is responsible for this for violating Tong's civil rights.
Don't know if this is a violation of civil rights, but its a violation of Fordham policies.
And I think it would be a reasonable basis to have a tenative ban on federal grants.
It definitely deserves some presidential tweets. A lot more than some of the other things he has tweeted about.
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[NEWS] Fordham University punishes student for commemorating Tiananmen Square anniversary
