EEK!
There is a conservative student group at our sacred campus club rush. Remove them immediately!
Such was the attitude of Palm Beach State College administrator Olivia Ford-Morris at the sight of a Young Americans for Freedom table. You can see and hear the extreme urgency in the attitude and voice of Ms Ford-Morris accompanied by campus security guards in this video as she demands the students at the YAF table "Pull it up!" Although Ford-Morris claimed she didn't remember receiving either an e-mail or a phone call from YAF about getting a table for club rush, evidence is now contradicting that claim (below the fold).
So this is obviously a great story of campus censorship that the Palm Beach Post would love to cover since it happened locally? Wrong. The only comment from the Palm Beach Post on this incident is the sound of crickets chirping. To get information on what happened at Palm Beach State College you would need to check sites on the blogosphere such as Orlando Political Press:
(Lake Worth, FL) On Tuesday September 7, 2010 at around 11:00am one Palm Beach State College (PBSC) student and two Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) members, state chairman Daniel P. Diaz and state vice chairman Eddie Shaffer, were shut down and had campus police called on them after tabling and recruiting during club rush at the College. The PBSC student, Christina Beattie, had received prior permission from college administrator Olivia Ford-Morris to promote her organization on campus via telephone and email communication.
On the day of club rush, officials approached the group and after seeing information about the organization and its ideals criticizing Barack Obama’s economic policy. Ms. Ford-Morris was visibly disturbed by the material presented, published by the Heritage Foundation, criticizing President Obama’s administration. College officials then called the campus police to assure the group left campus. Ms. Ford-Morris denied having ever talked to Ms. Beattie about giving permission to the organization to be a part of PBSC club rush.
“I was shocked and offended by her dishonesty. She outright denied giving me permission to table at Club Rush simply because she disagreed with my beliefs! The fact is, she was using her administrative power to silence the conservative opposition.” said Christina Beattie.
And as the Palm Beach Post continues sleeping, more evidence has been revealed that college administrator Morris-Ford was somewhat less than honest (to put it politely) in her claim about receiving no communications from the YAF concerning attendance at campus rush. Here is the Heritage Foundation presenting the evidence contradicting Morris-Ford in this story which the snoozing Palm Beach Post neglects to cover in its own backyard:
A conservative student in Florida says he has the evidence that implicates a public college administrator who last week ordered members of Young Americans for Freedom to leave a campus event after they displayed Heritage Foundation research papers.
Palm Beach State College activities director Olivia Morris-Ford, a Facebook fan of President Barack Obama and filmmaker Michael Moore, booted the conservative students from a rush event. Morris-Ford claimed they didn’t have permission to be on campus.
Her assertion stands in conflict with evidence YAF state chairman Daniel Diaz shared with Heritage. Diaz presented both a June 21 e-mail from student Christina Beattie to Morris-Ford requesting permission to be at the event and Beattie’s phone log from June 23, which shows a call from Morris-Ford. Beattie said Morris-Ford approved the request on that call.
Meanwhile, as this story unfolds, the crickets continue to serenade the Palm Beach Post.
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp
UPDATE: By strange "coincidence," a few hours after this blog was posted on NewsBusters, the Palm Beach Post awoke from its deep sleep and published a story on this incident.
