Poor GWB. Now he's gone and honored a Certified Opponent of Free Speech.
According to a White House press release (Update II, below), President Bush has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a woman who did her best to stamp out freedom of speech while chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Donna Shalala
...Shalala was architect of the infamous speech code at Wisconsin which, before it was declared unconstitutional in 1991, was among the most draconian in the nation. She also crafted the "Madison Plan" at UW, through which she mandated quotas for hiring minority professors, doubling the number of minority undergraduates, passed an ethnic studies requirement, and opened a multicultural center
The article then quotes Evans & Novak:
Shalala herself is the epitome of today's wholly politicized educator. In the 1988 presidential campaign, she signed a full-page New York Times advertisement assailing Ronald Reagan's record and affirming 'America's liberal tradition.' In 1991 she opposed the university regents' efforts to consider reinvestment in South Africa in view of racial progress there. In 1991 she personally lobbied the Pentagon to end the military ban on homosexuals, and joined a lawsuit for that purpose. In 1992 she commended gay and lesbian students for requesting their own university housing, while ruling it out as unconstitutional. In 1992 she helped found a new national abortion rights committee after the last Supreme Court decision
Shalala didn't change her spots at U of Miami, either.
At the University of Miami, where Shalala took the helm on June 1, 2001, her administration worked to clamp down on dissent--defined as conservative student groups. In April, 2003, FIRE wrote (PDF) to Shalala objecting to her administration's refusal to recognize a newly formed conservative group, the Advocates for Conservative Thought (ACT). The U's Committee on Student Organizations told the four students who sought to launch ACT that, given that Miami already hosted the College Republicans, a conservative group, and the Council for Democracy, which was politically oriented, that no other conservative or political groups were needed.
In the end, the group was approved, but only after repeated barrages by FIRE and the press. Shalala blamed underlings for not apprising her of the situation.
THIS is the sort of stuff about which McCallum should have complained.
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4 comments:
Shalala was also the one who mandated shipment of donated organs from WI to IL and other states. So much for my 'right to choose.'
I have not been an organ donor since that day.
Oh my stars...didn't hear this one yet. Shalala??? HOW COULD HE??
headless...same here.
Unreal, unbelievable etc... I was at U.W. when she was chancellor and she was not well liked because of her draconian policies. And now Bush gives her the Medal of Freedom? Freedom from what? It's things like this that tick of his base.
This just proves that repub and dems are two sides of the same coing. Disgusting.
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