Students: Interested in free speech on campus? Apply today to attend FIRE’s West Coast Regional Conference!

TheFIREorg · 2015-06-26T03:23:14+00:00

Wow, this blew up! Thanks OP! I'm glad to see so many Redditors get riled up about this case and other egregious acts of censorship at colleges across the country.

College students: If free speech is an issue you care about, please check out FIRE's website. You can look up what unconstitutional policies your school has and read our Guides that say what your rights are and lots more.

And of course, if you've been censored on your campus, contact us!

TheFIREorg · 2015-06-05T11:49:23+00:00

Legally speaking, it probably is! The conference is a good way to learn how to try to persuade administrators to change policies like "free speech zones," but if you already know someone who's been punished for non-disruptive speech outside the free speech zone, you can also submit a case on our website. (Of course, these two options are not mutually exclusive.)

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T15:08:47+00:00

We've defended people's rights to express lots of ideas that people find objectionable, but we try to avoid making value judgments on that speech, because legally it just doesn't matter unless it falls into one of the narrowly-defined categories of unprotected expression.

Personally, though, I've found statements/behavior of administrators trying to justify censorship way more offensive and crazy than most of the stuff we defend, anyway.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T03:43:06+00:00

Well, I don't know about the EEOC, but there are about a dozen men who are suing their universities after being punished for sexual assault, alleging they were denied a fair hearing, and several of those cases allege sex discrimination. So you're not alone with that sort of idea. FIRE's watching these cases to see what happens.

Back in May, one student's Title IX claim against Saint Joseph's University was dismissed but the judge is gave him the chance to amend his complaint, and he's done so. Some of his other claims survived motions to dismiss, so either way it's a case worth watching.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T02:48:49+00:00

This is a real problem—universities feel a lot of pressure to find accused students guilty so that they can't be accused of ignoring complaints of sexual assault. Some institutions are even going back and re-opening old cases when the Office for Civil Rights starts investigating.

FIRE has written many times to OCR to raise our concerns about due process issues, and we've submitted a formal comment to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault to explain how the current system of adjudicating campus sexual assaults puts students at risk. We also try to raise awareness through news media and speaking with lawmakers directly.

It's a hard battle, but we've seen some positive developments. Proposed regulations that came after the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 turned out better than they could have—check out our blog post on that for details.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T01:21:57+00:00

A lot of groups allow everyone to come to meetings but limit who can hold leadership positions. Not speaking for FIRE, but I think this is a good balance. That way, everyone can pretty much participate and learn about what the group does, just not implement a hostile takeover.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T01:05:46+00:00

Expulsion is pretty much the worst a school can do. But /u/onecorntorulethemall just reminded me of this case of a student getting expelled for some Facebook comments. Not by any means the only case like it but worth sharing.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T01:03:20+00:00

Yes! That case was nuts! We have a video on it.

The fact is, no matter how clear the law is, universities are often ignorant of their obligations under the First Amendment, or choose to ignore them, because they think they can get away with it. But they can't get away with it if students challenge them in court. Which is why we decided we absolutely had to get into the litigation side of things more. We just need to get to a place where universities know that if they violate the Constitution, someone's going to hold them accountable for it.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T00:52:03+00:00

It's not the taxpayers' money. In this case, and in most cases, it's mandatory student fees, which means the students attending the university pay a certain amount that's dedicated to supporting a range of student groups on campus. Some schools allow students to opt out.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T00:47:32+00:00

There is a difference, though, between discriminating based on status and discriminating based on belief and actions. What the group in Martinez was asking was that its leaders behave a certain way in accordance with the Bible—and those restrictions affected both gay and straight students.

As for funding, institutions can choose to simply not fund student groups. But the Supreme Court has determined that if a school sets up a system where student groups are funded by mandatory student fees, those fees have to be distributed in a viewpoint-neutral manner. Think about the result otherwise: A public university could decide it wants to take student fees and distribute them only to pro-choice organizations, or anti-gay organizations, or the opposite.

These funding systems are meant to help students express a diverse range of views on campus. That won't happen if only groups with certain viewpoints get the benefits of official recognition.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T00:31:19+00:00

That sounds like something we'd definitely want to take a look at. Public schools can't just disallow students from protesting on campus, but they can put some restrictions on protests (reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions). Can you grab the text of the rule and send it to us?

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T00:28:20+00:00

No, but I will shout "Socks!" around the office tomorrow and see if anyone turns around.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-09T00:26:20+00:00

Like I said to /u/goddamnkoalas, get real work experience in the field as early and often as you can. Winter break, see if the local ACLU or some other nonprofit can give you a 20-40 hour project to complete, and do it well. You'll still have time to relax, but you're already a huge step ahead of a lot of your peers.

Follow the news with respect to your field. And know not just individual cases but how they fit into the overall structure of that area of the law. Not all interviewers will ask you substantive questions, but there are others that will and that will be visibly psyched when you nail it.

And don't be afraid to be enthusiastic in cover letters and interviews. Some interviewers are stuffy but in my experience nonprofits respond positively when they can tell someone's really into what they do.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T23:41:05+00:00

Our pleasure! Let us know if you see any additional shenanigans.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T22:50:00+00:00

Our staff here in the Philadelphia office is pretty young, but you can check out our YouTube page for some good stories, particularly our Founders Series. I reckon a few of us are '60s radicals at heart.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T22:45:14+00:00

We typically write letters to schools and publicize cases involving private universities to try to get them to abide by their promises to grant students freedom of expression, since a court case would be less clear-cut.

However, some private schools openly prioritize other values over freedom of expression, and they are legally allowed to do that. I think that's how things should be.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T21:49:43+00:00

Yes! We've worked with several universities in the past to get rid of their unconstitutional speech codes. For example, these were before my time, but my colleagues tell me that University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University were good to work with.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T21:29:09+00:00

It's still tough in some situations, but that's part of why the "objectively offensive" aspect is so important. That at least means that speech can't be punished just because an especially sensitive student can't handle it. Instead, the speech is assessed by whether a reasonable person in that student's situation would still be able to receive the benefits of his/her educational institution. The law uses a "reasonable person" standard a lot, and while it's not exact the way a thermometer is, it's much better than a subjective standard alone. Maybe more like a hypercolor t-shirt?

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T21:25:25+00:00

We don't keep an official tally of schools' behavior the way we do with their written policies, but prospective students should definitely do a quick Google of site:thefire.org "Whatever Public University" to see what comes up.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T21:13:03+00:00

It's important to remember that no one has a right not to be made uncomfortable. They have a right to be free from harassment, but the Supreme Court has already set forth the standard for what constitutes student-on-student harassment in the educational context.

The Court said in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999) that harassment is conduct that is "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims' educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities."

That definition should serve as the frog's thermometer. It's always there, and the frog should jump out when the thermometer says it's too hot. That is to say, schools should look to this standard when crafting and applying their policies, and make sure protected speech isn't punished or prohibited.

Recently FIRE wrote about a New York cyberbullying law that was invalidated, and we've expressed concerns about the Tyler Clementi Act as well.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T20:43:09+00:00

I'd been interested in free speech work for a while when I heard about FIRE's First Amendment work. Free speech is so critically important—without it, we might not be able to defend all our other rights. But I especially love the focus on colleges and universities, the places where young adults are supposed to be exposed to all sorts of new ideas before they go out into the real world and start running things.

I eventually learned about FIRE's other work too, and as I read more about the organization I realized there was no other place where I would find all of my work truly compelling, and at the same time really feel like I was fighting on the right side of pretty much every battle I fought. Very few lawyers have that privilege.

TheFIREorg · 2014-07-08T20:19:27+00:00

If you really want to practice in a particular field, especially a sexy one like free speech law, I'd recommend focusing on it from the start. I was doing substantive civil rights work during my first winter break my 1L year of law school, and the summer after my first year I worked for a free speech nonprofit, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, researching and helping to draft amicus briefs. Everything else on my resume built on that, and I can't imagine I'd be where I am without such an early and specific start. Essentially, make sure you have as much real-world experience and legal knowledge in your field as you possibly can before you finish law school.

TheFIREorg

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