The Paper Trail

At Brown, Friedman Pie-Thrower Suspended

May 22, 2008 RSS Feed Print
  • Comment (3)

A Tom Friedman pie-in-the-face update: One of the Brown University students who hurled green whipped cream at the New York Times columnist last month has been suspended for the fall semester, the Brown Daily Herald reports.

According to the student, the university found her actions to be in violation of its standards of student conduct, which say that protest is not acceptable "when it obstructs the basic exchange of ideas" and which prohibit "directly or indirectly preventing a speaker from speaking—even for a brief period of time—(and) seizing control of a public forum for one's own purposes."

Tags:
Brown University

Reader Comments Read all comments (3)

Add Your Thoughts
Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.

Not sure about the seriousness of this pie throwing or how big it is. But Brown overreacted. Btw, your beautiful Alison.

Alex Malley 7:30AM May 27, 2008

Hurray for a University finally differentiating between peaceful and respectful disagreement on the one hand and blatant interference with the speaker's freedom of speech on the other. One of the shames of modern so called higher education is the absurd and widespread tolerance of rude and disruptive interference with speakers at school sponsored activities. Freedom of speech does not apply solely to dissidents.

My hat is off to Brown and I offer a hearty "shame on you" to the unthinking critic who presumably thinks that "dissent" and "disruption" are synonyms.

Richard Underwood of IL 5:02PM May 23, 2008

That law must be very useful for the Brown Apparatchiks to punish dissent. I wonder if there is a readmission clause that would allow a student to be left in "Siberia" longer...?

Akcita of MD 7:38AM May 23, 2008

The Paper Trail

Nobody knows a college better than its student newspaper. And nobody knows campus newspapers better than this blog. We sift through thousands of student newspaper headlines every day to bring you the latest, most important, or just plain weirdest news from campuses across the country. Heard bigger news or a crazier story? Send tips to papertrail@usnews.com.

advertisement