This is a portion of Nan Miller’s speech to the John Locke Foundation Monday. Miller discussed a recent study examining college writing courses to a crowd of 40 people. This excerpt shows typical conversations one may have about college writing programs.

Imagine for a minute that you have a daughter who is a freshman at Carolina. That�s the question I put to you. What if� (when the ink is barely dry on the tuition check) you had this conversation with your daughter. I�ll call her Page, and let�s say that she has been at Carolina for about a month and has left Chapel Hill for her very first weekend at home. She might be bursting with the details about her social life, but you are impatient to hear about the courses you just wrote the big check for. So you interrupt�

RALEIGH � Postmodern theorists have changed the way composition courses in college are taught, eliminating literature and grammar instruction by imposing group discussions with little involvement from the teachers, according to a new study released Monday by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

The study, written by Nan Miller, a former English professor at North Carolina State University and Meredith College, discusses several fallacies that she believes have severely lowered the quality of writing among college students.

While University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill is infamous and controversial for his assertion that the people killed in the World Trade Center attacks shouldn’t be mourned because they were just “little Eichmanns,” that moronic statement is not at issue in the university’s investigation of him. A professor is just as entitled to say stupid things out of class as a retail clerk is entitled to say stupid things on her free time.

The University of Colorado appointed a team of scholars to investigate allegations that Churchill was guilty of plagiarism and academic fraud. Their findings were very clear: Churchill had indeed committed numerous, flagrant violations of the canons of scholarship. Later this year, the university will decide what penalty to impose.

In July of 2004, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) wrote to UNC-Chapel Hill, explaining for the second time in less than two years that constitutionally protected freedom of association is meaningless if a group cannot exclude people who do not share the beliefs of the group. This is both basic common sense and clearly established law. The College Democrats can exclude Republicans, the college environmental club can exclude students who hate environmentalism, and the college chess club can exclude members who hate the game and wish to see it abolished. In other words, if you form a group in order to express commonly held ideas or ideals, of course you can exclude those who disagree.