Update: I have decided to begin giving occasional “First Amendment Bad Ass” awards to counterbalance the Ass Hat awards.
Mr. Nichol is hereby (retroactively) named as the first FABA.
College of William & Mary president Gene Nichol announced to students Monday that they will be allowed to host the Sex Workers’ Art Show on campus next month, according to the Daily Press.
Nichol initially urged organizers to find an off-campus venue for the event. Ultimately, Nichol decided that the First Amendment and the “defining traditions of openness that sustain universities” mandated that he allow the show to open on campus.
“My views and the views of others in the community about the worth or offensiveness of the program can provide no basis for censoring it,” Nichol said in his statement.
Precisely…
If only Deborah Taylor Tate, Sam Brownback, and a certain uptight trademark examiner (who will not be named during ongoing litigation) understood this basic principle.
