Saudi Arabia: a step in the right direction

When I heard on the news that in Saudi Arabia women would soon gain the right to vote for elected officials in their nation, I was surprised. I had learned of Middle Eastern countries where only men were allowed to express political views; maybe it's a post 9/11 mindset but don't all Middle Eastern men disrespect the women in their lives?
After reading a follow up article I learned how off my opinions once were. What I thought was a country that only allowed men to vote is really a country where the leader's vote is the most significant.
In America's ongoing battle to spread Democracy worldwide, has its people become spoiled with the concept of Democracy and the power of one's voice? I don't think so. I do not believe that Democracy can be viewed as a luxury but more appropriately, a necessity.

As portrayed in the media, I had thought that Saudi Arabia was a country where suppressed women were ignored when it came to anything related to politics and that the men are the only beings with power. Now that's somewhat correct but even more upsetting is the fact that men have far less power than once assessed in this country and that the leader of the nation is ever-powerful.
With the leader taking steps to grant women the right to vote in the 2015 elections, maybe this country is seeing the error of its ways and beginning to get on track with the twenty first century.
My hope is that one day Middle Eastern women and men can not only equally vote in a Democratic format for leaders of their country, but can also have an equal, unbiased opportunity to gain office.

Troy Davis, an innocent victim of the death penalty

"It is better to let nine guilty men free than to convict one innocent man." On Thursday September 23, 2011 Troy Davis was executed in the state of Georgia. I found this event extremely disturbing because for over twenty years Davis had maintained his innocence and had many organizations and influential people backing up his argument.

Besides the faulty process that the case underwent, I believe that this execution speaks mainly to the too often occurring case where innocent people are convicted of crimes they did not commit. My uncle Thomas Breen, one of the leading defense lawyers in Chicago, has fought tirelessly throughout his career to end the death penalty in Illinois and get innocently convicted people out of jail. Growing up in a state that does not currently recognize the death penalty I have always believed that people who have been convicted have a second chance no matter what. However, after researching the Troy Davis case I have learned that as a nation, America does not share that idea.

I think that it is sad that some states still allow the death penalty as a means of punishment, if convicting a person in a case where there are significant amounts of reasonable doubt then putting them to death is not cruel and unusual punishment then what is?

Speech Codes on Campus

In my opinion, I think that behavior such as that characterized in the articles and slideshows from the prompt, should be banned on college campuses. College is a time to learn both in terms of education in the classroom and, possibly more importantly, a time to learn in social contexts. As a society it is our responsibility to make it clear to the college age generation that racism is not a joke, and it's not a means to have fun, this mission can only be accomplished through justifiable punishment of the students who partake in this behavior.
The pictures in the slideshow are disgraceful to not only the university that those students represented, but to our society in general. I understand that it would be nearly impossible to rid our society of hate and racism, but we should at least try to show students that this is not appropriate or justifiable behavior.


All of the colleges that I am looking at are private institutions, and some have religious affiliation. One school that I am interested in is, DePaul University. I was worried about if I would like this school because I was concerned that the religious affiliation would make it very strict and possibly conservative. However, when I went on the tour of the campus the student representative assured me that you could barely notice the religious affiliation on campus. When I looked up DePaul on the database it had a rating of 'red' this concerns me because I do not want to go to a school that is extremely restrictive or strict. I researched a couple other schools and found that the private schools without religious affiliation usually have a 'yellow' rating instead of 'red.' One thing that I noticed that makes me wonder if these ratings can be accurate is that most of the data and cases for each school are from no later than 2007. However, with this rating I believe that DePaul would probably punish students who conduct parties based on racism, and I approve of that.
I think that FIRE has a valid mission and I approve of their definitions for the most part. However, I believe that not all of their data is up to date and that makes it difficult for me to fully believe and justify my beliefs off of the provided information.

Time and Place

I think that preventing or limiting students’ right to free speech, is preventing important conversations and lessons to be facilitated in the classroom setting. However, I do not think that putting expectations into effect is necessarily a bad thing. For example, in terms of the case of Morse v. Frederick, I think that the students knew and fully understood that their expression was inappropriate. The students chose to conduct themselves in a certain way and were well aware that there would be consequences. I do not think that they should have been punished with expulsion, because rather than preventing learning in the classroom they facilitated a lesson with real life application.

Contrary to some of the stories that my classmates shared in class this week, I think that our school is pretty lenient when dealing with controversial incidents relating to freedom of expression among our student body. For example, the other day in the hallway I noticed a group of students discussing their weekend activities which apparently included unappreciated behavior. A teacher overheard these girls and rather than sending them to the dean or simply saying, “You’re not allowed to say that,” the teacher made her presence clear and said, “Remember who your audience is.”

This is an interesting take on the freedom of speech debate. As I think about it, it is a more realistic take on any that we have studied yet. It is true that I am more willing to discuss certain issues and topics with one group of friends while discussing something different with others. It is not like certain people tell me I am not allowed to discuss something with them, but I usually would not do it anyway. I feel like this is the same for students in the school setting. Most students would not blatantly swear or use profanity in front of a teacher but are much more willing to do so with their friends.

Has society bred us to not be ourselves all of the time? If so, I do not think it is necessarily a bad thing.