Tag: Free Speech Codes

Report: 9 in 10 American colleges restrict free speech

 

By FIRE December 11, 2018

  • In 11 states, at least half of colleges rated earn FIRE’s worst rating for “clearly and substantially” restricting free speech rights.
  • Almost 800,000 students at top U.S. colleges must find a “free speech zone” to exercise their expressive rights.

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 11, 2018 — The vast majority of students at America’s top colleges and universities surrender their free speech rights the moment they step onto campus, according to a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Released today, Spotlight on Speech Codes 2019: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses analyzes the written policies at 466 of America’s top colleges and universities for their protection of free speech. The report finds that 89.7 percent of American colleges maintain policies that restrict — or too easily could restrict — student and faculty expression. All of the analyzed policies are accessible in FIRE’s Spotlight Database. FIRE rates schools as “red light,” “yellow light,” or “green light” based on how much, if any, speech protected by the First Amendment their policies restrict.

“Most colleges impose burdensome conditions on expression by maintaining policies that restrict students’ free speech rights,” said FIRE Senior Program Officer Laura Beltz, lead author of the study. “Colleges should be a place for open debate and intellectual inquiry, but today, almost all colleges silence expression through policies that are often illiberal and, at public institutions, unconstitutional.” 

More than a quarter of institutions in the report (28.5 percent) received FIRE’s poorest, red light rating for maintaining speech codes that both “clearly and substantially” restrict freedom of speech.

Alarmingly, red light schools still make up at least half of FIRE-rated institutions in the District of Columbia and 11 states: Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming.

Only 9 percent of institutions (42 schools) do not maintain any policies that compromise student expression, earning FIRE’s highest, green light rating. This total is up from only 2 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, the number of institutions earning a yellow light rating is swelling: from 21 percent in 2009 to 61 percent today. While less restrictive than red light policies, yellow light policies still prohibit or have an impermissible chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech.

“Many states have made incredible strides toward eliminating speech codes — whether that’s through collaboration with FIRE, legislative action, or nudging from peer institutions,” said Beltz. “In other states, too many students are left to fend for themselves to protect their rights against policies that — whether explicitly or covertly — erode student expression.”

Neither public nor private colleges have a monopoly on silencing students and faculty members. Just over 90 percent of public colleges maintain policies that don’t live up to their free speech obligations under the First Amendment.

Private institutions are generally not bound by the First Amendment but are responsible for living up to their institutional commitments to free speech. More than 88 percent of private institutions fall short of those promises. Only 6 percent live up to their pledged speech protections, earning a green light rating. Another 6 percent earn a “warning” rating for promoting other principles, such as religious values, over free speech.

Other findings:

  • Almost 800,000 college students attend an institution that maintains a “free speech zone” policy, through which student demonstrations and other expressive activities are quarantined to small or out-of-the-way areas of campus. Free speech zones have repeatedly been struck down by courts or voluntarily revised as part of lawsuit settlements.
  • For the first time, the percentage of private universities earning FIRE’s worst, red light rating dropped below 50 percent, coming in at 47 percent.
  • More than 50 administrations or faculty bodies have adopted statements in support of free speech modeled after the one adopted by the University of Chicago in January 2015. That’s up 15 from one year ago.

Spotlight on Speech Codes 2019: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses can be read in full on FIRE’s website, along with previous speech code reports since 2006.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of students and faculty members at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience — the essential qualities of liberty.

 

Florida becomes ninth state to ban restrictive campus free speech zones

Florida’s Old Capitol building in Tallahassee, courtesy FIRE.

By  March 12, 2018

  • Florida State, University of West Florida, Florida Atlantic, and other schools must change speech policies

TALLAHASSEE, Mar. 12, 2018 — Yesterday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed into law SB 4, a broad higher education bill, which was amended to include free speech protections at the state’s public colleges and universities.

The new law prohibits Florida public colleges and universities from quarantining student expression into small, misleadingly labeled “free speech zones.” The campus free speech provisions are based on the CAFE Act model legislation from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

“Students at public colleges and universities in Florida should not have their free speech quarantined by overly restrictive policies,” said FIRE Legislative and Policy Director Joe Cohn. “Now that Florida’s Campus Free Expression Act is law, these egregious policies of censorship must be rescinded immediately.”

The bipartisan CAFE provision of the bill was sponsored by Reps. Chuck Clemons, Sr., Bob Rommel, and John Cortes, and Sen. Dennis Baxley, among others. SB 4 passed the Florida House of Representatives by a vote of 84-28 and the Florida Senate by a vote of 33-5. The law also provides a right to bring a lawsuit in state court against a public institution of higher education if the institution violates the expressive rights guaranteed by the bill.

Examples of Florida policies that must be revised now that the CAFE Act has been enacted include Florida State University’s policy that limits the distribution of literature to a small stretch of campus, Florida Atlantic University’s policy that requires students to submit materials to the Office of Student Development and Activities for approval before they can be displayed or distributed, and the University of West Florida’s policy that restricts speech to one area of campus and problematically declares, “The University does not contain any traditional public forum areas.”

“Thanks to this legislation, students at Florida’s colleges and universities can much more freely exercise their constitutional right to free speech,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “We’re hopeful that Congress will follow this example and act to uphold the First Amendment rights of America’s students.”

Other states with similar legislation:

Virginia, Missouri, Arizona, Kentucky, Colorado, Utah, North Carolina and Tennessee have also passed legislation banning public colleges and universities from relegating student expression to free speech zones. In addition, last month, United States Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced the federal Free Right to Expression in Education Act, which would prohibit public colleges and universities across the country from maintaining those restrictive zones.

Orrin Hatch Introduces Bill to Protect Free Speech on College Campuses

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality, and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.

FIRE names America’s 10 worst colleges for free speech: 2018
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 12, 2018 — Each year, colleges across the country find dubious ways to silence student and faculty expression. In the last year, administrators became embroiled in litigation for telling a student he couldn’t hand out Spanish-language copies of the U.S. Constitution outside a free speech zone, continued a years-long effort to ban a group from campus due to its political viewpoint, and even investigated a professor for a satirical tweet — eventually driving him to resign.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has identified America’s 10 worst colleges for free speech, published today with detailed descriptions on FIRE’s website.
This year’s list includes the following institutions, in no particular order:
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.)
  • Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pa.)
  • Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)
  • Los Angeles Community College District (Los Angeles, Calif.)
  • Fordham University (New York, N.Y.)
  • Evergreen State College (Olympia, Wash.)
  • Albion College (Albion, Mich.)
  • Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.)
  • University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, Calif.)
  • Texas State University (San Marcos, Texas)
The institutions on FIRE’s annual list of worst colleges include one university that threatened the funding and editorial process of its independent student newspaper, another that erected fences around campus to keep peaceful student demonstrators out of sight of donors, and yet another that put a student through a months-long investigation and a four-hour hearing for a joke. (That student is still waiting to learn his fate!)
“College administrators, and sometimes even students, are going to greater and greater lengths to justify muzzling expression on campus,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “This type of censorship makes for a sterile environment where lively debate and discussion can’t thrive. The public deserves to know which colleges will defend free expression — and which ones will go to seemingly any length to silence it.”
For the first time, FIRE also awarded a Lifetime Censorship Award to one university that threatens the free speech rights of its students and faculty so often that it deserves individual infamy: DePaul University.
DePaul earned the 2018 Lifetime Censorship Award in recognition of its decade-long rap sheet of suppressing speech at every turn. From denying recognition to a student organization criticizing marijuana laws, to forcing the DePaul Socialists, Young Americans for Freedom, and College Republicans to pay for security in order to host speakers at their meetings and events, to forbidding a group from using the slogan “Gay Lives Matter,” DePaul has staked out a leadership position in stifling campus expression.
FIRE’s 2018 list includes both public and private institutions. Public colleges and universities are bound by the First Amendment. Private colleges on this list are not required by the Constitution to respect student and faculty speech rights, but explicitly promise to do so.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality, and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.

Ben Shapiro to Speak at UConn; Intellectual Counter-event to Occur; UConn Bars Public Attendance

UPDATE 1.23.18 UConn has now announced only students can attend. This below article explains that this is not customary–a recent event featuring Anita Hill was free and open to the public:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/01/uconn-bars-public-from-ben-shapiro-speech/

How to watch live:

LIVE TONIGHT: Ben Shapiro Kicks Off 2018 Campus Tour

Ben Shapiro is scheduled to speak at UConn this week, hosted by UConn College Republics.

Event Details Courtesy Facebook:

Come listen to Ben Shapiro lecture about contemporary political issues and then answer questions from the crowd. Ben Shapiro is the voice of the young american conservative movement, this is will be a night of intellectual diversity, that the University of Connecticut has ever seen.

For a refresher, Ben at Berkeley and Ben at University of Utah, Salt Lake City sparked enormously emotional reactions, even accusations of fascism and hate.

Ben Shapiro at Universities: Why Are Students Driven to Seek Counseling?

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In a departure from other universities who have loudly protested Ben Shapiro, sometimes requiring a large and expensive security presence,  an “intellectual alternative”  event will be held by UConn College Democrats. Titled “Ben Shapiro is Not as Insightful as He Thinks He Is,” the event recognizes the value of free speech and a free exchange of ideas.

Event Details Courtesy Facebook:

The UConn College Democrats are pleased to host Nathan Robinson this Wednesday, January 24th at 7:00 in the Dodd Center. His talk will be named, “Ben Shapiro Is Not As Insightful As he Thinks He Is.” The talk will be followed by a Q&A.

Nathan Robinson is the editor in chief of Current Affairs, a Yale Law graduate, current Ph.D. student at Harvard, a prolific author and a public defender in New Orleans. He has written extensively on conservative thought and Ben Shapiro’s arguments throughout his career.

The UConn College Democrats are dedicated to free speech and scholarship on campus. Nathan will offer an intellectual alternative to Ben Shapiro. He will dissect the arguments used by campus conservatives and demonstrate that behind the big names of people like Ben Shapiro, there is little of substance to their arguments. We want to strike a balance between the desire for a free exchange of ideas and the desire for the ideas presented to be factually accurate, respectful in their presentation, and grounded in public policy and politics, not baiting people into the culture war. This event will be happening at the same time as Ben Shapiro’s talk, as we hope that this will be a better space for true discussion of the tough topics we face here at UConn and as a nation. We seek for this to be an event that confronts these tough topics while taking a stand against Shapiro and the UConn College Republicans’ attempts to divide our campus rather than unite us.

FREE tickets can be acquired the day of the event from 1-6pm at the Student Union ticket booth. A valid UConn ID is required. Please note that there will be bag restrictions for the talk and that security will be present to ensure an orderly event. We are excited to host Nathan and this campus for a wonderful night of discussion.

Kudos to UConn!