WHAT'S NEXT IN WALTHAM?: Elsewhere, the minutes of the Student Senate meeting that took place in the middle of this have been posted. Among suggestions brought up by Senators and guests are:
-That the Justice's funding be reduced/revoked.
-That the Justice be assigned a faculty adviser with final say over the editorial content of the paper.
-That a Union Judiciary case be brought against the Justice (for what reason remains unclear).
It should go without saying that the words "freedom of the press" were not uttered a single time, in the nearly 11-hour meeting.
I guess my concern at this point is that my beloved alma mater is about to turn into the sort of collegiate police state depicted in the book "The Shadow University." Because if this affair had happened at Penn, Berkeley, Brown, or Michigan, not only would the Justice have been immediately defunded and/or dechartered, but Passner and at least some of the editors would've been brought up on charges and possibly even expelled from school. I'm very afraid that the next demands from the BBSO and its backing faculty members will be the imposition of a similar system at Brandeis- and we know President Reinharz will summarily roll over in that event.
I do know that if the day ever comes when Brandeis adopts a speech code, I will never again donate a single dollar, and will try to convince every other alum I know to do the same. To borrow a ubiquitous cliche, it's not what Justice Louis Brandeis would've wanted. To borrow another: "we pay $30,000 a year for this?"