Monkeys... Help teach college kids the First Amendment

Here's the deal, Monkeys.....

My sister is a college professor, she teaches various communications classes, and she is starting to prep for an "Intro to Public Speaking" class.

She told me that most of her students have trouble understanding the difference between "ethical" speaking and "not offending anyone"..... as if a speaker is not being ethical if anyone is offended by it.

So she wants to introduce this class to the first amendment to our constitution, and have them research interesting events and issues in our nation's history that have something to do with the freedom of speech.

She's heard me rant about the constitution many times, so she came to me for some possible ideas. I told her about Abraham Lincoln having tens of thousands of people imprisoned for speaking out against the war and the administration, and I told her about Lenny Bruce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Question_book-new.svg" class="image"><img alt="Question book-new.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png.

Here's your chance to help educate some horribly misguided and misinformed college students "see the light".

Ideas/Suggestions?

 

Have her read "The shadow university : the betrayal of liberty on America's campuses / Alan Charles Kors, Harvey A. Silverglate". This is one of the best books ever on the subject of college campus' and first amendment rights. Everyone should read this-it really knocks your socks off (if you know what the first amendment is).

 

Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term used to describe language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to gender, racial, cultural, disabled, aged or other identity groups. Conversely, the term "politically incorrect" is used to refer to language or ideas that may cause offense or that are unconstrained by orthodoxy. Ruth Perry traces the term back to Mao's Little Red Book. According to Perry, the term was later adopted by the radical left in the 1960s, initially seriously and later ironically, as a self-criticism of dogmatic attitudes. In the 1990s, because of the term's association with radical politics and communist censorship, it was used by the political right in the United States to discredit the Old and New Left.[1] The term itself and its usage are controversial. The term "political correctness" is used almost exclusively in a pejorative sense,[2][1] while "politically incorrect" is commonly used as an implicitly positive self-description, as in the series of "Politically Incorrect Guides", produced by conservative publisher Regnery[3] and the talk show Politically Incorrect. Some commentators have argued that the term "political correctness" is a straw man invented by conservatives in the 1990s in order to challenge progressive social change, especially with respect to issues of race, religion and gender.[2][4]

 

The shadow university : the betrayal of liberty on America's campuses


Gave her the title and isbn number.... thanks

 

To me teaching them about the 1st would be a bit hard for the same reason as the 2nd, to me the concept seems so simple that breaking it down into simpler terms becomes difficult. Now so far as revealing the problems/dangers of PC speech being pushed, I would suggest a reading of '1984' with attention paid to 'new speak' and the explainations of what it is and why it is being developed. If a full reading would take up to much of the sylibus then to at least excerpt and reference the conversation when it is discussed in the break room and HOW limiting speech and the words that can be used limits the ability not only to comunicate thoughts but in fact even the ability to FORM thoughts in a coherent manner as the words disapear from the individuals vocabulary.