In case you haven't been following the recent drama in The Vista, our student government has decided to succumb to university administrators and vote to curb students' rights to assemble. I mean, it's not that USD students are particularly known as take-to-the-streets French revolutionaries, but there have been a few gatherings over the years, and let's be frank: The last thing USD donors want to be reminded of during a campus visit is the Berkeley free speech movement. Right? Trust me, they aren't going to be.
But let's not get hysterical. If campus czars like Mary Lyons and Carmen Vazquez really wanted to put down freedom of speech, wouldn't they have gone after pipsqueak columnists such as myself? Absolutely.
In fact, I'm tickled that out of every controversial topic I've ever written about for The Vista-Israel's heavy-handed policy on the West Bank, USD's money-making intersession scam, even the fact that our liberal arts students are paying $34,264 a year to get trained for jobs that no longer exist-my most objectionable piece took place in a light-hearted barbershop where I professed to my "crew-cut audience, who would be likely targets for a Viagra commercial… 'Well, fine, if you don't like gay marriage… then don't marry a dude.'"
That's right: my Prop 8 article prompted our school administrators to send a liaison not only to rework my humorous piece-which landed me on our local Fox News station and has been republished in various papers-but to use intimidation tactics to scare The Vista staff into running a counterpiece that labeled homosexuality "a perversion." What country are we in?
These politically and religiously motivated dictators have somehow bought off our elected student government and have maintained a functionary to cleanse our student newspaper in a way that no other comparable Catholic university would dream of. It's time to ask, "If not the press, if not our student government, what avenues of free expression do we have left?"
I always imagined the last column I would write for The Vista would focus on giving thanks to all the hard-working people at USD who have helped me, a category 5 dyslexic, beat the odds and graduate from college. Yet, sitting here I feel that the biggest thanks I can give is to help expose this clandestine campaign to oppress students' freedom.
Dear returning USD students: Education also means embracing your rights of free expression. And as of right now, all you have to lose are your own chains.
