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Via Bitch PhD and Inside Higher Ed comes word of new directives on political speech sent out by the ethics office of the University of Illinois system to all university employees.
According to the directives, university employees are not permitted to engage in the following activities “while working, when on University property, while using University resources … or when acting as a representative of the University”:
- Preparing for or participating in any rally or event related to a specific political candidate, party, or referendum – this includes preparation and circulation of campaign materials, petitions, or literature
- Soliciting contributions or votes on behalf of a particular political party or candidate
- Assisting at the polls on behalf of any political party, candidate, or organization
- Surveying or conducting an opinion poll related to anticipating an election outcome, or participating in a recount challenge related to an electionoutcome
- Running for political office
The message goes on to say that wearing pins or t-shirts that support specific candidates or parties, “distributing, producing, or posting flyers or other campaign literature on campus,” conducting voter registration work that is identified with a particular candidate, displaying partisan bumper sticker’s on one’s car, and attending on-campus political rallies, even on one’s own time, are all prohibited activities.
Discussion of these regulations has so far focused on their effect on faculty free speech, but they are explicitly identified as applying to all university employees, including professional and non-professional staff. On their face, the rules would appear to apply to student employees of the university as well — did the university really mean to suggest that if you work as an RA or in a dining hall or staffing the check-out desk in the library a few hours a week, you’re not allowed to wear an Obama pin to class or attend a rally for a local candidate?
We’ll be following this story.
Via the blog Bitch PhD comes a link to an online Student Voting Rights Guide from the Brennan Center for Justice.
It’s an interactive guide — you specify whether you’re voting on campus or from your pre-college hometown, and it shows you the regulations on registration, residency, identification, and absentee voting for all fifty states. The rules show up as a color-coded map, and you can click through for specific information.
It’s a great resource for activists planning GOTV campaigns. Spread the word!
According to the folks at FairVote, student governments at more than half of the thirty highest-ranked colleges and universities in the US News & World Report poll use instant-runoff voting (IRV) in their elections.
With IRV, voters rank candidates by preference, and when the candidate in last place is eliminated, the second-place choice votes from that candidate’s ballots are distributed among those remaining. The process is repeated until one candidate receives majority support. IRV eliminates the need for runoff elections while allowing supporters of candidates who finish behind the leaders to have a say in the final outcome.
FairVote claims that campuses switching to IRV tend to see significant increases in turnout in student government elections.
A new analysis of Barack Obama and John McCain’s campaign stops shows that Obama has made more than two dozen campaign stops in college towns since the beginning of February. John McCain? Just one.
The report tracked the candidates’ visits to eleven different kinds of communities, but did not measure campus visits specifically. It did not analyze Hillary Clinton’s campaign schedule.
WireTap magazine has a fascinating interview up on youth electoral organizing. The interviewee is blogger Michael Connery, whose new book Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority is at the top of our reading list.
We’ve added Connery’s blog, Future Majority, to our blogroll.
studentactivism.net 
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