No Dissent Accepted At Regent University

Regent University, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, has had over 150 of its alumni serve in the Bush administration. The right-wing fundamentalist school fits right in with Bush's desire to inject religion into government. But now they have made the national news for a different reason.

The school recently banned one of their law students from their campus. According to the Associated Press:

A Regent University law student...has been banned from campus and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation before he can return to classes.

Adam M. Key, 23, also was ordered to undergo counseling if a mental health provider that is acceptable to the university deems it appropriate, and to provide a report showing that he has completed any treatment plan required. He also must agree to allow the mental health provider to provide regular updates on his treatment to the school.

Those are some pretty serious actions. He must be a dangerous person who has done something pretty bad, for the university to take this kind of action -- right? Wrong! These right-wing fundamentalist schools are not known for accepting criticism or promoting academic freedom, and Regent seems especially sensitive to criticisms of Pat Robertson.

Key's big crime was posting a picture of Pat Robertson on his internet Facebook page. The picture was taken from a video of Robertson scratching his face with his middle finger, and looks as though he was making an obscene gesture. The school thinks any student who would post such a picture on their personal web page must be a dangerous maniac in need of psychiatric care.

Key says, "It's rather entertaining to me that I've been there a year and a half now and only now are they concerned about my mental state...At the time we start labeling people who have dissenting voices as dangerous, we start losing the freedom that makes us Americans".

Pat Robertson spoke out on the controversy, and almost sounded reasonable at first. He said, "...in general, no action should be taken against anyone who exercises their freedom of speech and expression, and that includes criticism or satire of the chancellor (Robertson)", but then he added that changing a TV image to "turn it into something obscene" was not included in that freedom.

But Regent is not any different from any of the other right-wing fundamentalist schools. There is little, if any, academic freedom, and they are unable to take any differing opinion on their policies or politics. There is only one viewpoint that is acceptable for a student to have on these campuses -- the school's viewpoint.

This whole thing was over a funny picture of Robertson posted on a personal web page. Frankly, it's kind of scary to think there are so many graduates of this school in positions of importance in our current administration.