Table of Contents
Video Lesson: Campus Free Speech Zones
First Amendment for College Administrators
Lesson 3: Public Forums and Your Campus
Video 4: Legislative Considerations
Video Transcript
At the time of this recording, over 20 states have enacted some version of a campus speech bill. You can find a list of those states, with links to the bill language and statutes on أغضدمجز’s website and in the resources section of this course.
Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most common provisions in these bills, which are to eliminate so-called “free speech zones,†these tiny, out of the way areas of campus where some colleges relegate protests and the distribution of literature.
Public parks, sidewalks, and the outdoor areas of public university campuses have traditionally been areas available for free expression. We call these areas, and areas like them off-campus, public forums. When analyzing when government restrictions on speech in public forums pass constitutional muster, courts use a test developed by the United States Supreme Court in a case called Ward v. Rock Against Racism, an important case touched on earlier in this course. College campus free speech zones, like any other unreasonable restriction on a public forum, are unconstitutional.
One of أغضدمجز’s legislative priorities is to end the use of free speech zones on campus once and for all. One of the ways we do that is by fighting for state laws that codify the test used in Ward v. Rock Against Racism to instruct institutions — before they violate the First Amendment — that restricting student expression to tiny areas of campus is immoral and unlawful. If a college or university decides to limit expression in defiance of the Constitution, students or student organizations can bring suit against the institution in state or federal court and, if they are successful, these laws can help them recover monetary damages and attorneys fees.
The end-result of a state enacting campus free speech legislation is stark. Universities overwhelmingly comply with statutes, thereby creating an atmosphere more conducive to free expression while simultaneously insulating the institution from constitutional litigation. This is good for students, the marketplace of ideas on campus, and for taxpayers.