FIRE's Guide to First-Year Orientation and Thought Reform on Campus. FIRE's Guides to Student Rights on Campus

Before one can have the freedom to express ideas in open debate, however, one must have freedom of conscience: the right to arrive at one's private beliefs, without being coerced into an artificial unity by those who wield power over him/her. After all, the freedom to speak is a dead letter if one lacks the freedom to think, to believe, or to disbelieve. At the heart of American liberty lies a recognition of individual rights, individual responsibility, and individual dignity. Over one's inner mind, conscience, and self, no one has coercive power. The form of censorship with which this "Guide" is concerned is the affirmative form of censorship that goes beyond prohibiting "bad" speech and ideas. It instead seeks to impose on a student, and coerce the student to adopt, and to believe in, the "approved" point of view advanced by the authorities. The fundamental rights of conscience and belief, the thought-reform programs that threaten those rights at today's universities, and the means by which a decent and free people can challenge such programs are the topics of this "Guide." (Contains 1 footnote.)