On Tuesday March 20th, Vice President Robert Shibley, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), made a visit to Lake Superior State University.  Without letting the extremely poor turnout stop him, Mr. Shibley gave a speech on First Amendment Rights, and how they are used and misused on college campuses all over the country.  Mr. Shibley told the audience about the organization FIRE, which is a small but growing organization.  FIRE effectively defends American liberties on behalf of thousands of students and faculty on different campuses through out the United States.  There are different code levels to judge a campuss rights alert level, red being the highest, and meaning that that campus has almost no tolerance for individual rights.  Mr. Shibley even looked up Lake Superior State University before coming up, and discovered that Lake State is on red alert.  He went on to explain that Lake State is on red alert because of things that are written in our Student Handbook.  One example is in the definition of what harassment is.  The Student Handbook defines harassment as annoying someone.  According to Mr. Shibley, this, and many other reasons are why Lake Superior State University is on red alert.  Mr. Shibley encourages any student to call FIRE if they feel that their individual rights, including freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience, have been violated.  The only cases that FIRE has been known not to take are those which in reality have nothing to do with individual rights.  You can learn more about FIRE at www.thefire.org.
By Stephanie Rice
