Tag: Speech Codes

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure

A new book  authored by by First Amendment Expert Greg Lukianoff  and Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt  is set to be released July 17, 2018.

A timely investigation into the new “safety culture” on campus and the dangers it poses to free speech, mental health, education, and ultimately democracy

The generation now coming of age has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility.  The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations.

This is a book about how we got here. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt take us on a tour of the social trends stretching back to the 1980s that have produced the confusion and conflict on campus today, including the loss of unsupervised play time and the birth of social media, all during a time of rising political polarization.

This is a book about how to fix the mess. The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life, with devastating consequences for them, for their parents, for the companies that will soon hire them, and for a democracy that is already pushed to the brink of violence over its growing political divisions. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity.

This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.

About the Authors

Christopher Hitchens on Free Speech: To whom are you going to award the job of being the censor?

Excerpted from University of Toronto debate “Freedom of Speech includes the Freedom to Hate” held November 2006.

“To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? Or determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the job of being the censor?”

FIRE files lawsuit on behalf of Illinois student detained by police for ‘Shut Down Capitalism’ flyers

Photo: Student Ivette Salazar was detained by campus police for passing out flyers critical of capitalism.

By  January 11, 2018

  • A campus police officer told student Ivette Salazar she has freedom of speech only if Joliet Junior College approves it.

CHICAGO, Jan. 11, 2018 — Joliet Junior College student Ivette Salazar only wanted to do what Americans do every day: exercise her First Amendment right to respond to an opposing viewpoint. For that, campus police detained her, confiscated her political flyers, and told her she has freedom of speech only if JJC gives its approval.

That’s not how the First Amendment works, and that’s why Salazar filed a lawsuit today against JJC. The lawsuit is the latest for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s Million Voices Campaign, which aims to free the voices of one million students by striking down unconstitutional speech codes nationwide.

On Nov. 28, after seeing members of a conservative student group distributing anti-socialism materials on campus, Salazar decided to provide an alternate viewpoint by distributing flyers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation that read “Shut Down Capitalism.” After being reported by campus staff, she was detained by JJC police for approximately 40 minutes, interrogated at the campus police station, and told she could not distribute her flyers because of the “political climate of the country.”

When Salazar asked the officers detaining her about her free speech rights, she said one JJC police officer told her, “If you want to go ahead and post your flyers and burn your crosses, you have to get it approved” by the school. Her flyers were confiscated to ensure that she did not distribute them on campus.
“Debating the merits of economic and governmental systems is core political speech,” said FIRE Director of Litigation Marieke Tuthill Beck-Coon. “Campus police got it backward: The current ‘political climate’ is a reason for more speech, not censorship. If tense political times justified restricting political speech, the First Amendment would be pointless.”
FIRE wrote to JJC President Judy Mitchell on Dec. 4 to demand that the college comply with its legal obligations as a public institution bound by the First Amendment. FIRE did not receive a response to its letter.
“I should be able to express my political beliefs on campus without being detained,” said Salazar. “JCC didn’t just threaten my freedom of speech, but the freedom of speech of every student on that campus. If we can’t have political discussions on a college campus, then where can we have them?”
As part of her lawsuit, Salazar challenges the constitutionality of JJC’s “Free Speech Area” policy. The policy restricts expressive activity to one small, indoor area of campus, requires students to request use of the area five business days in advance, requires students to disclose the purpose of their speech, allows for only two people to use the area at a time, and requires students to remain behind a table. If a student wants to distribute literature while in the area, he or she also has to get the materials approved by administrators ahead of time.
Salazar’s lawsuit also alleges that JJC violated her Fourth Amendment rights by unlawfully detaining her.
Today’s lawsuit was filed in partnership with FIRE Legal Network member and former president of the First Amendment Lawyers Association Wayne Giampietro of Poltrock & Giampietro in Chicago. Giampietro serves as co-counsel with FIRE in the case.
“A public college should be teaching its students the existence and value of the freedoms protected by our federal and state constitutions, not violating those freedoms,” said Giampietro. “The First Amendment protects our most cherished right to speak freely on political matters. It is deplorable that public school employees, paid with our tax money, would detain, interrogate, and seize political materials from a student who is attempting to exercise that right.”
If you are a student who has been censored on campus, FIRE and its Legal Network partners stand ready to protect your First Amendment rights in court. Students interested in submitting their case to FIRE’s Million Voices Campaign may do so through FIRE’s online case submission form. Attorneys interested in joining FIRE’s Legal Network should apply on FIRE’s website.
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’s 2017 year in review for student and faculty rights on campus
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 28, 2017 — From students shouting down an invited speaker and injuring a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont to the violent Berkeley protests in California, the campus free speech debate swept the nation in 2017. Throw in the withdrawal of the federal government’s controversial “Dear Colleague” letter that for over six years threatened the due process rights of students and faculty accused of sexual misconduct, and it’s easy to see why the offices at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education were anything but quiet this year.
As 2017 comes to a close, FIRE looks back on a year of challenges and triumphs — a year during which more students and faculty members than ever before approached FIRE to help protect their rights.
“Students and faculty shouldn’t have to appeal to an outside organization like FIRE in order to exercise their speech rights or get a fair shake in campus judicial proceedings, but the sad reality is that they do,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “We worked with policymakers to help inform common-sense legislation and administrators to implement speech-friendly campus policies. And we’ll continue this work until student and faculty rights are secured.”
FIRE’s highlights from 2017 include:
  • FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program received more than 900 requests for help from students and faculty members across the country in 2017 — more requests than any other year in FIRE’s history. FIRE’s defense of student and faculty rights took us to Howard University, Fordham University, Wichita State University, University of New Hampshire, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and many more schools this year.
  • In February, FIRE released the first-ever nationwide report on campus Bias Response Teams. These teams encourage students to formally report on one another and on faculty members whenever they subjectively perceive that someone’s speech is “biased.” The report found that 232 public and private American colleges and universities publicly maintained bias response programs, affecting an estimated 2.8 million students.
  • In another win for FIRE’s Stand Up For Speech Litigation Project, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld FIRE’s victory at Iowa State University. And in March, the project filed a new lawsuit against the Los Angeles Community College District that aims to free over 150,000 students from unconstitutional free speech zones. The litigation project’s 13 total lawsuits have so far restored free speech rights to more than 270,000 students.
  • In May, Tennessee passed bipartisan legislation that FIRE called “the most comprehensive state legislation protecting free speech on college campuses that we’ve seen be passed anywhere in the country.” The legislation requires institutions to adopt policies consistent with the University of Chicago’s Free Speech Policy Statement, prohibits the use of misleadingly labeled “free speech zones,” bars institutions from rescinding invitations to speakers invited by students or faculty, and more. Campus free speech legislation also passed this year in Colorado, Utah, and North Carolina.
  • In September, FIRE released a first-of-its-kind report on due process at America’s top universities, which found that 85 percent of schools rated received a D or F grade for not ensuring due process rights. Shockingly, 74 percent of top universities do not even expressly guarantee accused students the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
  • Just two days after the due process report was released, the Department of Education announced it would rescind the controversial 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened the due process rights of students and faculty accused of sexual misconduct on campus. For six and a half years, FIRE led the fight against the misguided letter.
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions mentioned FIRE’s work in a speech on the importance of free speech at Georgetown University. Sessions highlighted FIRE’s Spotlight database and our lawsuit against the Los Angeles Community College District. The Department of Justice later filed a statement of interest in the lawsuit.
  • In October, FIRE released a groundbreaking survey on free speech that found a majority of students on college campuses self-censor in class, support disinviting some guest speakers with whom they disagree, and don’t know that so-called “hate speech” is usually protected by the First Amendment. The study also found that Republican and Democratic students have different opinions on campus protests, disinvitations, and hate speech protections.
  • FIRE’s So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, launched in Spring 2016, released its 50th episode. The bi-weekly show takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through personal stories and candid conversations. This year the podcast featured Daryl Davis, a black musician who convinces people to leave the Ku Klux Klan through open dialogue; the all-Asian rock band The Slants, who took their free speech fight all the way to the Supreme Court and won; and Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU, on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
  • Earlier this month, Emory University became the 11th institution to earn FIRE’s highest, “green light” rating in 2017, bringing the total number of green light institutions to 37.
  • And just last week, FIRE released its annual Spotlight on Speech Codes report, which found that the number of colleges with FIRE’s poorest, “red light” rating for maintaining speech codes that both clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech is down to 32.3 percent — seven percentage points lower than last year and almost 42 percentage points lower than in FIRE’s 2009 report.
“For the tenth year in a row, the most harmful speech codes are coming off the books throughout the country,” said Shibley. “But the growth of bias response teams, the continued disinvitation of invited speakers and — most alarmingly — the violence on too many campuses show us that we have a lot of work to do in 2018 and beyond.”
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.

Report: Campus speech codes decline for 10th straight year

Free Speech & Free Speech Zones on Campus: DOJ files statement of interest in FIRE lawsuit

Kevin Shaw on the campus of Pierce College (Dawn Bowery/FIRE)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25, 2017 — The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in a California student’s lawsuit against his college’s free speech zone policies.

In March, Los Angeles Pierce College student Kevin Shaw filed a lawsuit challenging Pierce College and Los Angeles Community College District policies that restrict student free speech rights to tiny “free speech zones.” The lawsuit is part of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s Million Voices Campaign.

“The United States has an interest in protecting the individual rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” according to the statement of interest, a brief filed by the attorney general expressing the interests of the United States in a pending lawsuit. “The right to free speech lies at the heart of a free society and is the ‘only effectual guardian of every other right.’”

The statement of interest argues that, based on the facts alleged in Shaw’s lawsuit, Pierce College and the district’s policies and practices violate student First Amendment rights and denied Shaw “his right to engage in expressive activity in a public forum.” Shaw is currently awaiting a Nov. 14 hearing on the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

“I am humbled to have the support of the Department of Justice,” said Shaw. “Their statement affirms what I’ve believed all along — that the First Amendment is essential to American progress, and nowhere more so than on a college campus.”

In November 2016, Shaw attempted to distribute Spanish-language copies of the U.S. Constitution and recruit new members for his student group, Young Americans for Liberty, along a main public walkway through campus. As he prepared, he was approached by an administrator who told him that he could not distribute literature outside the campus free speech zone, a tiny area on campus measuring approximately 616 square feet and comprising about .003 percent of the total area of Pierce College’s 426-acre campus.

Shaw was also told he must fill out a permit application to use the free speech zone. He was informed that he would be asked to leave campus if he refused to comply.

“FIRE is grateful for the Department of Justice’s decision to file a statement of interest in our lawsuit,” said FIRE Director of Litigation Marieke Tuthill Beck-Coon. “As the department rightly recognizes, these policies severely restrict the expressive rights of all students on each of the nine district campuses. We cannot allow the First Amendment rights that Kevin Shaw and his fellow students possess to be taken away by administrative fiat.”

The lawsuit was filed on March 28 in partnership with Arthur Willner, a partner at Leader & Berkon LLP, who is co-counsel with FIRE in the case. In addition to challenging Pierce College’s unconstitutional free speech zone and permit requirement, the lawsuit also challenges an LACCD policy that requires the president of each LACCD college to designate at least one free speech zone on their campus. With approximately 150,000 students, the LACCD is the largest community college district in the country.

“This lawsuit presents Pierce with the opportunity to move to the right side of this issue by ending its unconstitutional violation of its students’ First Amendment rights,” said Willner.

If you are a student who has been censored on campus, FIRE and its Legal Network partners stand ready to protect your First Amendment rights in court. Students interested in submitting their case to FIRE’s Million Voices Campaign can do so through FIRE’s online case submission form. Attorneys interested in joining FIRE’s Legal Network can apply on FIRE’s website. https://www.thefire.org/

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.

Million Voices Campaign