Archive | Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities

I’m delighted to report that Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — one of my favorite public policy advocacy groups — will be guest-blogging this week about his new book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate. Here’s the book description:

For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America’s colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about living in a free society. Drawing on a decade of experience battling for freedom of speech on campus, First Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff reveals how higher education fails to teach students to become critical thinkers: by stifling open debate, our campuses are supercharging ideological divisions, promoting groupthink, and encouraging an unscholarly certainty about complex issues.

Lukianoff walks readers through the life of a modern-day college student, from orientation to the end of freshman year. Through this lens, he describes startling violations of free speech rights: a student in Indiana punished for publicly reading a book, a student in Georgia expelled for a pro-environment collage he posted on Facebook, students at Yale banned from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on a T shirt, and students across the country corralled into tiny “free speech zones” when they wanted to express their views.

But Lukianoff goes further, demonstrating how this culture of censorship is bleeding into the larger society. As he explores public controversies involving Juan Williams, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, Larry Summers — even Dave Barry and Jon Stewart — Lukianoff paints a stark picture of our ability as a nation to discuss important issues rationally. Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate illuminates how intolerance for dissent and debate on today’s campus threatens the freedom of every citizen and makes us all just a

From the Code of Conduct ban on “bullying”:

1. Statement of Policy

A student shall not impair, interfere with, or obstruct the orderly conduct, process, or function of the University or any of its students, faculty members, University officials, guests or the surrounding community.

2. Prohibited Activities

Specific violations of this standard include, but are not limited to: …

f. Bullying (Any deliberately hurtful behavior, usually repeated over time, with the desired outcome of frightening, intimidating, excluding or degrading a person. This includes, but is not limited to, physical assault, verbal abuse, teasing, ridiculing and spreading of rumors or private information about a person and may be done by any method of delivery, such as verbal, written or electronic); …

I would have thought that university students — as well as faculty members and university officials — are old enough to deal themselves with “teasing,” “ridiculing,” and attempts at “excluding or degrading,” without the administration’s help; but the University thinks otherwise. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is urging the University to change its policy. [...]

I blogged about Turkish Coalition of America, Inc. v. Bruininks (8th Cir. May 3, 2012) when the district court decision came down, and yesterday the Eighth Circuit agreed with the district court’s bottom line (though disagreed with the district court’s decision about standing). I think the District Court and the Eighth Circuit both got it quite right — the defendant university’s labeling the Turkish Coalition’s site “unreliable” and advising students against relying on the site in their research papers doesn’t violate the Coalition’s First Amendment rights, and is also not actionable libel:

TCA alleges that the defendants defamed it by stating that TCA’s website (1) engages in “denial” of the Armenian genocide in Turkey during World War I, (2) is “unreliable,” (3) presents a “strange mix of fact and opinion,” and (4) is an “illegitimate source of information.” …

With regard to the first challenged statement, TCA argues that the Center’s accusation of “denial” is false because the term “denial,” in the context of genocide studies, is a term of art that implies denial of well-documented underlying facts associated with a genocidal event. TCA points out that its website does not deny certain underlying historical facts about the fate of Armenians in Turkey during World War I, such as that “certainly hundreds of thousands of Armenians died during” what it characterizes as “the Armenian revolt.” Under TCA’s interpretation, however, the term “denial” would merely express a subjective evaluation of the credibility of the historical sources for every assertion on the TCA website, many of which TCA admits are “contested.” Such an evaluation of credibility is essentially an opinion, “not capable of being proven true or false,” and thus not actionable in defamation, because different historians might well come to different conclusions. On the other hand, the “denial” statement reasonably

A Foundation for Individual Rights in Education video, about the now-notorious University of Wisconsin-Stout Firefly poster incident:

Here’s a brief summary of the incident from FIRE:

On September 12, 2011, Professor Miller [UPDATE: who is a professor of theater] posted on his office door an image of Nathan Fillion in Firefly and a line from an episode: “You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.” On September 16, UWS Chief of Police Lisa A. Walter emailed Miller, notifying him that she had removed the poster and that “it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing.”

Amazed that UWS could be so shockingly heavy-handed, Miller replied by email, “Respect liberty and respect my first amendment rights.” Walter responded that “the poster can be interpreted as a threat by others and/or could cause those that view it to believe that you are willing/able to carry out actions similar to what is listed.” Walter also threatened Miller with criminal charges: “If you choose to repost the article or something similar to it, it will be removed and you could face charges of disorderly conduct.”

Later on September 16, Miller placed a new poster on his office door in response to Walter’s censorship. The poster read “Warning: Fascism” and included a cartoon image of a silhouetted police officer striking a civilian. The poster mocked, “Fascism can cause blunt head trauma and/or violent death. Keep fascism away from children and pets.”

Astoundingly, Walter escalated the absurdity. On September 20, Walter emailed Miller again, stating that her office had removed the poster because it “depicts violence and mentions violence and death.” She added that UWS’s “threat assessment team,” in

From today’s L.A. Times:

Campus police said they asked the Rev. Terry Jones not to come on campus after receiving information about suspicious activity associated with the visit that raised safety concerns. Several areas on campus, including Aldrich Hall where the university’s administration is housed, were closed.

Jones, who threatened to burn the Koran on the anniversary of of the September 11 terrorist attacks and eventually did so in March, had applied for a permit to speak at an area near the campus flagpoles but was denied permission because another organization had already applied for the same time slot….

School officials said that arresting Jones would have been an option had he come on campus.

It’s hard to be sure, based on the story, exactly what happened. If Jones had been denied a permit on the content-neutral grounds that the spot was already taken, the University would be able to insist that Jones not show up. (University campuses are generally treated as limited public fora from which the university may generally exclude outsiders; and if the university allows outsiders to speak, it may impose content-neutral rules limiting their speech. See, e.g., Bloedorn v. Grube (11th Cir. 2011).) And beyond this, if the police department had simply warned Jones about the danger, and asked him to stay away while making it clear that this was just advice that he could ignore, there wouldn’t be a First Amendment problem.

On the other hand, if the police generally demanded that Jones stay away, not just on this occasion when his permit was denied for space conflict reasons but also even in the future (when no such conflict would likely exist) that would be much more troubling. If anyone has further information, I’d love to hear it. [...]