College President James Freedman, currently on a six-month sabbatical, appeared on a local television show yesterday, offering opinions on issues related to higher education.
Katrina Switt and Betty Tamposi interviewed Freedman on "Beyond Politics," a television show produced by an ABC affiliate in Manchester and probed his views on campus trends, college administration and the transition from academic to political life.
Switt and Tamposi asked Freedman about the Donald Silva legal case, in which Silva won a lawsuit against the University of New Hampshire.
Silva had been fired for "verbal sexual harassment" after comparing writing to sex and belly dancing to "Jello on a plate with a vibrator under the plate."
Freedman said he agreed with the judge's decision that Silva should not have been fired and said the remark is "the kind of speech that must be permitted under the first amendment to the Constitution."
Silva's observation, which Switt and Tamposi likened to hate speech, "is not the kind of speech that everyone feels comfortable with or everyone likes, but the purpose of a college is not to keep people comfortable. It is to acknowledge people and it is to be different," Freedman said.
Asked about political correctness on college campuses, Freedman said the movement "began out of a laudable concern for proper treatment of minorities," but later went awry.
Freedman also described the stresses of being a college president.
"The demands are very great. You must deal with a great many constituencies ... and the range of issues is enormous," he said.
Freedman said the life of a college president is an "interesting, challenging, and demanding life."
Switt and Tamposi asked Freedman what he thinks of the national service program that gives students money for tuition in exchange for volunteer labor, which Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., has earmarked for examination and possible defunding.
Freedman responded that he felt defunding would strike a blow against students' idealism across the country.
"It would be a shame if that were defunded ... The benefits to the country for giving [students] support are great," he said.
"Students are as idealistic as they ever were," he said.
Switt and Tamposi asked Freedman about his opinion of "people from academia holding important reigns of power" in Congress. Gingrich and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, were used as examples of such people.
Freedman responded "different professions bring a certain kind of background and talent. Congressman Gingrich and Armey are in a tradition of academic representation in Congress, and that is probably a very healthy thing."
