Rep. Walter Jones made his annual trip to Duke to honor Jordan Selleck, president of College Republicans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for his efforts fighting liberal bias on campus.
Jones, R-N.C., spoke Monday night at the College Republicans meeting in Von Canon B, where he presented the Walter B. Jones Campus Defender Award. The award, created in 2004, is named after Jones to honor his support for the freedom of speech of conservative groups, said John Plecnik, a third-year Duke law student who developed the award with Jones.
"Congressman Jones is without a doubt the leader of freedom of speech on campuses, both in North Carolina and the nation," Plecnik said. "He so embodied the principles of free speech that we wanted to create a permanent link between him and Duke College Republicans."
Jones said liberal bias in classrooms has been a serious problem.
"For a number of years, at both the state and national level, I've been hearing complaints from students about how certain professors have not been tolerant of their views," Jones said.
He was at the forefront of an investigation into academic freedom at UNC in 2003. There, during a lecture, an English professor asked students to discuss why heterosexual males felt uncomfortable around homosexuals. A student replied that he believed homosexuality was immoral based on the Bible. After the class ended, the professor sent out an e-mail to the class roster publicly rebuking the student for his comments.
"When I heard this had happened, I was outraged," Jones said. "The classroom should be a place where people can share their opinions."
Jones called for a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, which found that the professor's e-mail violated the student's First Amendment rights.
After presenting the award to Selleck, Jones took questions from the audience, one of which touched on the problems within the Republican party.
"We have two or three scandals in Washington right now that could be smaller versions of Watergate," he said. "Afterwards, there will hopefully be a purification of the party, and that is not always a bad thing."
When one student asked why it seems the Republican party is straying away from core conservative values like a balanced budget, he replied that some members of Congress may be abusing their power.
"Absolute power corrupts," he said. "Some people in Congress think they know better than their District [constituents] what their constituents want."
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