Speech Codes Chill Freedom of Expression on Campuses

University policies, known as speech codes, are rules that prohibit free speech among students and sanction activities that are perfectly legal under the Constitution of the Unites States.

Leading the fight against the effects of speech codes on students is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization based in Philadelphia which was founded in 1999 by University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles Kors and Boston civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate.

According to FIRE at least 60 percent of colleges and universities have “speech codes” that restrict the freedom of expression rights of students which are guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“Universities tend to censor dissenting opinions and criticism of the institution, its leadership, and its policymaking,” said Azhar Majeed, a lawyer who works with FIRE’s Stand Up for Free Speech Litigation Project, which recently sued four universities.

Since it was founded, FIRE has won 283 victories in cases involving individual rights (including students and faculty) and policy changes to protect free speech rights. According to Majeed those victories affect the right of speech of nearly 4.5 million enrolled students.

A contributing factor in the rise of speech codes is that perhaps some colleges do not fully understand the law or choose to ignore it to keep its large number of employees busy regulating student behavior.

“(They) do not appreciate what the First Amendment requires of them in terms of respecting student expression,” said Majeed, “Many colleges have a large bureaucracy of administrators, and all of those administrators must justify their presence on campus (and oftentimes-large salaries) by doing something to regulate student expression and conduct.”

Despite the new ways of transmitting information via the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, censorship and sanctions against students goes in many universities. Chicago State University, for example, instituted “cyber bullying policies” which impact the freedom of speech of students.

“The students are still subject to censorship and punishment for a great deal of constitutionally protected speech, and when they witness other students facing those restrictions, they are themselves likely to self-censor rather than risk disciplinary action,” said Majeed.

That is why FIRE filed simultaneous lawsuits against Chicago State University and three other universities on the same day in July.

At Chicago State University the administration has pressured faculty members to close a blog titled Faculty Voice which posts stories about mismanagement by university administrators.

The demand to close the blog came after the university adopted a “cyber bullying policy” which, according to FIRE, is aimed at squelching criticism of school administrators. The policy, according to FIRE, bans any “electronic speech” that “harms,” “is intended to harm” or “harasses” a member of the university community.

FIRE contends in its lawsuit that the language in the cyber bullying policy is vague and hard to interpret within the context of a university.

Before the policy was drawn, administrators there tried without success to have the blog remove a photograph of the hedges of the university showing the letters CSU which welcomes visitors to this web site. Members of Faculty Voice said it was in retaliation for criticizing the administration.

At Citrus College in Glendora, California, student Vincenzo Sinapi-Riddle was confined to a small space called “a free speech zone” on September 17, 2013 and threatened with removal from campus after he asked a student to sign a petition protesting NSA surveillance of ordinary American citizens.

The “free speech zone” area where Citrus administrators ordered Sinapi-Riddle to move to was 1.37 per cent of the campus. Sinapi-Riddle, 20 years-old and a computer science student, was at the time the president of the Citrus College chapter of Young Americans for Liberty.

Besides having rules against “inappropriate or offensive remarks” in its student policies, Citrus College also makes student organizations that wish to post flyers wait for two weeks until at least four entities or departments give their approval.

Citrus College is also one of the colleges sued in July by FIRE in its efforts to protect free speech within the walls of college campuses.

In a victory for the rights of students, Modesto Junior College in California agreed last February to settle a lawsuit after student Robert Van Tuinen was prevented from distributing free copies of the Constitution on Constitution Day on campus. Tuinen was awarded $50,000.

At Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa, students Paul Gerlich and Erin Furleigh, two members of the university’s student chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML ISU) were prevented from wearing tee-shirts with the ISU mascot.

At first the two students had gotten approval to substitute the letter “O” in NORML with the university’s mascot.

After the ban, in 2013 and 2014 the university drew up more restrictions on using the ISU name to promote “dangerous, illegal or unhealthy products, actions or behaviors.”

Iowa State University was also sued by FIRE in July of this year to protect the right of the students to engage in open debates about issues outside the university.

In the fourth lawsuit filed by the group FIRE, Ohio University prohibited student Isaac Smith, a member of Students Defending Students (SDS) from wearing an SDS tee-shirt that said “We get you off for free”.

This chapter of SDS helps students who are accused of misconduct on campus. The university said the slogan “objectified women” and “promoted prostitution”.

Majeed told elbeisman.com that speech codes on most universities are difficult to interpret and could make almost anything a student says on campus subject to a reprimand from administrators.

“This chilling effect does grave harm to the ‘marketplace of ideas’ that a college campus is meant to be,” Majeed said.

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Antonio Zavala. Journalist, lives in Pilsen. He istudied journalism at University of California, Berkeley, and in Roosevelt University, Chicago.

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