Students at Rhode Island College who awoke Wednesday morning under the impression that they were attending a public college must have received a pretty sizable shock.
The Providence Journal ran a story Wednesday about the college’s response to a lawsuit filed by a group of students, in which the students asserted the school had violated their First Amendment rights in 2005 when it took down pro-choice signs they had posted on school property.
The college’s response left many speechless.
Not because it was venomously worded or particularly effective in silencing the students.
Rather, it was completely ridiculous and, more importantly, flat-out wrong.
The school claimed it was not wrong in taking down the signs because, it claimed, it is not a government-funded public college.
“It is fundamental that the First Amendment is concerned with government action only,” Nicholas Trott Long, the college’s lawyer, told the Providence Journal.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the college’s own Web site casts doubt on this claim.
On the site, the college is called “the oldest of the three public institutions of higher education that operate under the aegis of the Board of Governors for Higher Education.”
To make things more confusing, the site also openly acknowledges that appointments to the school’s board are made by various state officials, including the Secretary of State.
The college’s attorney went on to tell the Journal that the school is private because it is considered an “independent corporation.”
It’s unclear how the college and its lawyer expect any of this to hold up in court.
It’s actually sort of impressive that the school is so utterly confident in waving around bogus claims.
Imagine if you got hit by a car while crossing the street.
Now imagine that this entire incident were caught on tape, and the driver’s face and license plate were clearly visible.
This situation is akin to the driver defending himself by simply saying, “Well, it couldn’t have been me, because I don’t even drive a car.”
What makes the situation even more entertaining is Long also says that, as a private school, the college “enjoys neither 11th Amendment nor sovereign immunity.”
Basically, this means that the college is so confident in its already creaky argument that it feels absolutely no need to, in essence, voluntarily protect itself with some silly laws.
It would appear that the college’s only chance of winning this case would be if the judge felt sorry for it and forced it
to plead the Fifth Amendment so it couldn’t do further damage to its own credibility.
Frankly, the college’s claim that it is not a public institution is just about as outrageous a claim as it could possibly make.
The fact that Rhode Island College openly acknowledges its public status on its own Web site, then brazenly claims not to be a public college is entirely beyond the realm of simple logic.
If you’re going to claim you aren’t a public institution, it would help to take contradictory literature off your Web site.