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July 2, 2009 Since January, FIRE has been exposing the speech codes silencing students at America's most prestigious colleges and universities in our "State of Free Speech on Campus" blog series. Today we come to the final institution in our series: Harvard University. To many, Harvard may be the quintessential liberal arts university. Certainly, the university appears to view itself that way, waxing poetic about the importance of free speech to its core purpose: Because no other community defines itself so much in terms of knowledge, few others place such a high priority on freedom of speech. As a community, we take certain risks by assigning such a high priority to free speech. We assume that the long-term benefits to our community will outweigh the short-term unpleasant effects of sometimes-noxious views. Because we are a community united by a commitment to rational processes, we do not permit censorship of noxious ideas. We are committed to maintaining a climate in which reason and speech provide the correct response to a disagreeable idea. (Emphasis added.)
In light of these strong statements, it is an understatement to call Harvard hypocritical for maintaining policies that would not pass constitutional muster at any of Massachusetts' public colleges or universities—policies that earn Harvard a "red light" rating from FIRE for suppressing student speech. For example, the handbook for students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (the undergraduate liberal arts college) defines racial harassment as "actions on the part of an individual or group that demean or abuse another individual or group because of racial or ethnic background." Potential examples include "making racially derogatory remarks" and "using racial stereotypes." As Torch readers likely know by now, this definition is a far cry from true harassment, and it prohibits speech that, at any public university, would be protected by the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that to fall outside the bounds of constitutional protection, student-on-student harassment must be conduct "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit." Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999). Harvard's racial harassment policy contains no requirement of severity or pervasiveness, and in fact implies that certain types of protected expression (such as the use of racial stereotypes) might automatically be subject to punishment. The handbook's definition of sexual harassment is not much better: "The determination of what constitutes sexual harassment will vary with the particular circumstances, but it may be described generally as unwanted sexual behavior, such as physical contact or verbal comments or suggestions, which adversely affects the working or learning environment of an individual." Although this policy makes a nod to the fact that harassment must actually have an impact on an individual's learning environment, its standard of "adversely affects" is much broader than the Supreme Court's "effectively bars the victim's access" standard. Given that "adversely affects" is not defined, it could mean anything from severe disruption to mere inconvenience or upset. As such, the policy leaves free speech impermissibly vulnerable to punishment. The handbook also contains a statement on religious harassment, defining it as "actions on the part of an individual or group which demean or abuse another individual because of religious beliefs or that continue after the affected individual has requested a termination of that type of discussion." Although this policy at least acknowledges that harassment must be repeated behavior—i.e., behavior that continues after the victim has requested that it stop—it still does not require anywhere near the degree of severity and pervasiveness required by the Court, and as such infringes on protected speech. Even Harvard's Free Speech Guidelines, which extol the university's unique status and its unique commitment to free speech, take with one hand as they give with the other. The Guidelines state that "Behavior evidently intended to dishonor such characteristics as race, gender, ethnic group, religious belief, or sexual orientation is contrary to the pursuit of inquiry and education. Such grave disrespect for the dignity of others can be punished under existing procedures because it violates a balance of rights on which the University is based." Harvard students wishing to express controversial opinions may well wonder what exactly constitutes "grave disrespect for the dignity of others." And they may, in fact, refrain from expressing those opinions to avoid potential punishment under this ridiculously vague proscription. It is truly shameful that Harvard, which claims that "free speech is uniquely important to the University," does not actually provide the free speech that it claims is so crucial. Indeed, it is shameful that so many of America's top colleges and universities, which use their promises of freedom to lure talented students and faculty to study and learn, deny students and faculty the rights they say they will protect. We hope you have enjoyed our blog series, and we hope you will help us keep the pressure on all of these institutions to live up to their promises and obligations.
July 2, 2009  If you click on TheFIRE.org this Monday morning and find that the layout and navigation you've come to recognize have changed, worry not! We've been working hard for over six months to design and develop a new online look for FIRE, and we hope that the result increases functionality while displaying news and issues in a way that's interactive and educational. Help get the word out about FIRE's website by posting a link to the newly designed TheFIRE.org using your Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace account.
July 1, 2009 This Saturday, Americans will celebrate the 233rd anniversary of our declaration of independence. With our nation presently fighting two wars abroad, this year's Independence Day reminds us again that the brave men and women of our armed forces make unimaginable sacrifices every day in defense of our constitutional freedoms. It's fitting, therefore, to inform Torch readers that this Sunday, Sergeant Christian DeJohn of Wyncote, Pennsylvania, will return to active duty for the Army. One day after the Fourth's fireworks, Christian will be heading out on active duty to the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, right smack in the middle of the Mojave Desert. When he arrives, Christian will be greeted by 100-degree heat, 100 pounds of gear and body armor, and several weeks of very intense desert training. But Christian is used to enduring hardships for the constitutional freedoms of both himself and others. Indeed, the name "DeJohn" should be familiar to anyone with an interest in free speech on campus. As FIRE supporters no doubt recall, Christian brought a successful suit against Temple University, where he was and is still a graduate student, which resulted in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit striking down Temple's former sexual harassment policy on First Amendment grounds last fall. The Third Circuit's landmark ruling in DeJohn v. Temple University made clear that the free speech rights of students at public universities in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania cannot be abrogated by poorly-written speech codes. As such, it was a resounding victory for free speech on campus, and we have Christian to thank. Without his courage, unconstitutional policies would still be on the books. Unfortunately, Christian's "reward" for his victory has been bitter indeed. As I described at length back in March, Christian has been in an uncomfortable academic limbo following the Third Circuit's decision. I urge you to read the ugly details in full, but here's the bottom line: Despite obtaining each of the 26 credits necessary for his master's degree and maintaining a GPA of 3.2, Temple's History Department has refused to grant Christian an honest review of his master's thesis. That's right: After filing his lawsuit against Temple, Christian's progress towards his degree has been completely stonewalled by a school with an axe to grind. He's done everything required but finish his master's thesis, and he can't do that because no professor will review it. Obviously, this leaves Christian in an unbelievably frustrating position. And all for standing up for his First Amendment rights. If it sounds unfair, that's because it is. Temple should be ashamed. Since my entry about Christian's dilemma was posted back in March, there has been a small but promising sign that Temple may be coming around. In response to an e-mail query, Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico's office informed Christian last week that they are reviewing his situation, and that they plan on being in touch in the next several weeks. While this small note is far from a guarantee, there's no choice but to hope that Temple decides to proceed in good faith. It goes without saying that Temple should do the right thing and establish a clear path for Christian to complete his degree, free from lingering faculty animus and petty persecution. Christian deserves to be treated fairly, like any other student. To single Christian out and prevent him from obtaining his degree because of his willingness to go to court on behalf of the First Amendment is just plain wrong. So here's hoping that Christian receives good news from the Provost's office while he's in California, sweating it out under the desert sun. Until then, he's still waiting. And so are we. Update: July 2, 2009, Read More About Temple University: Speech Code Litigation »
July 1, 2009 FIRE has written to Santa Rosa Junior College to urge it to lift its overbroad ban on the use of "SRJC" (or even "srjc") in e-mail addresses and Internet domain names. The ban, reported last month by the Press Democrat, goes too far because it bans using the name of the college even in instances where there is no doubt whatsoever that the e-mail address or domain name has no official relationship to the college and where no commercial interest is involved. The college was sending cease-and-desist letters suggesting that the alleged perpetrators were breaking the law: The use of Santa Rosa Junior College or any abbreviation of the college name is protected by Education Code 72000(b)(4). In order to avoid any future legal action we are requesting that you remove any reference to Santa Rosa Junior College in your E-mail address and/or domain name and cease to use it now and in the future.
In fact, however, this letter goes far beyond the California Education Code—as well as the First Amendment and the California Constitution. As we wrote: By misinterpreting the restrictions of the California Education Code, SRJC has unconstitutionally restricted the freedom of expression of members of the SRJC community. SRJC may reasonably restrict the use of its name when a reasonable person might mistake the private expression at issue as institutional expression. Further, SRJC may reasonably restrict the commercial use of its name. SRJC may not, however, categorically ban individual e-mail addresses and domain names simply because they use the name of the school or the district. Even if the California Education Code did permit such a ban, which it does not, such a ban would be unconstitutionally overbroad. Indeed, the ban as promulgated by [Vice President of Academic Affairs/Assistant Superintendent Mary Kay] Rudolph prohibits expression that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
This is not the first time a California college has misrepresented the California Education Code. In 2005, the University of California–Santa Barbara similarly tried to force the independently hosted website "www.thedarksideofucsb.com" to remove the letters "ucsb" from its website URL—alleging that the website owner was "guilty of a misdemeanor" for using the letters. FIRE successfully intervened to protect the owner's rights.
June 30, 2009 One of the most important lawsuits ever coordinated by FIRE's Speech Code Litigation Project was filed six years ago this June against Texas Tech University. The lawsuit challenged the university's policies, which were "overbroad, vague, involve[d] content-based and viewpoint discrimination, and unconstitutionally restrict[ed] student speech." Specifically, it challenged Texas Tech's unconstitutional speech code and free speech zone. Texas Tech's speech code banned "communications [that] humiliate any person." The university's examples of such punishable expression included "sexual innuendoes," "referring to an adult as 'girl,' 'boy,' or 'honey,'" or "sexual stories." As bad as the speech code was, Texas Tech cemented its infamous place in FIRE's history with its free speech gazebo, seen here: 
This 20 foot wide area was, in 2003, the only place where the 28,000 students were able to exercise what the university was willing to recognize as free speech. FIRE first learned of Texas Tech's speech code from Trevor Smith, a member of Students for Social Justice. Several months before, the university attempted to enforce its unconstitutional policies against his group, which had planned a protest against the Bush administration's policies towards Iraq. The university told the group that it would be restricted to the free speech gazebo. After FIRE intervened, Students for Social Justice held their planned protest outside of the gazebo without interference from the administration. Though Texas Tech allowed the protest and the school subsequently greatly expanded the campus "free speech area" beyond the gazebo, the school refused to change the unconstitutional policies until they were struck down by a federal judge in September of 2004. Even now, though it has removed the offending policies from its handbook, Texas Tech still maintains policies which clearly and substantially restrict speech. As Greg Lukianoff said at the time, "The court decision against Texas Tech is cause for all friends of liberty to celebrate. FIRE's speech code lawsuits are winning everywhere they are filed and university administrations are beginning to realize that draconian limitations on speech are not just constitutionally but also morally unacceptable at any institution that wishes to be taken seriously as a 'marketplace of ideas.'" FIRE's Legal Network has also helped plaintiffs take Shippensburg University, Citrus College, the State University of New York College at Brockport, San Francisco State University, and Temple University to court, and all have either had their policies declared unconstitutional or settled the lawsuit by rescinding the policies themselves. Update: December 17, 2005, Read More About Texas Tech University: Speech Code Litigation »
June 30, 2009 As Torch readers know, two weeks ago we concluded our second annual Campus Freedom Network conference. Over fifty students from around the country heard from a variety of free speech experts on what ails the contemporary university and what they can do to restore free speech to campus. Dozens more tuned in online via live stream. The conference was an inspiring success. On the second night of the event, noted civil libertarian, author, and FIRE Board of Advisors member Wendy Kaminer gave a stirring and incisive speech on the historical context of campus repression, what its modern causes may be, and how to fight it. She concludes: In combating these efforts to restrict offensive speech or subject fundamental associational rights to discrimination policies, it's important, I think to stand up for the moral right to think, speak and associate freely - especially when the majority considers the speech and associations at issue reprehensible. Advocates of free speech and association often speak as if the value of these rights is primarily instrumental: they oppose censoring what they might agree is "bad" speech because of the impossibility of fairly drawing lines between good speech and bad and because of the danger inherent in giving anyone the power to try. But they tend not to focus on the moral value of the rights being attacked. It's not politic to point out that bigots have a moral right to indulge in what many of us might agree is hate speech, but they do; the saints and sinners among us have the same moral rights to individual autonomy, to the freedom of conscience that is at the heart of a free society. So this battle asks a lot of us. It asks us to sympathize with the some of the concerns of those who want to regulate human nature - and the inevitable, occasional ugliness of human relations - while, at the same time standing up for the moral rights of the ugliest among us, the moral rights of everyone one to liberty.
Wendy delivered a terrific speech, and you can read it in its entirety here.
June 29, 2009 In a setback for religious liberty and freedom of association on campus, the Supreme Court of the United States today declined to hear an appeal of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Truth v. Kent. The Supreme Court's decision not to hear the appeal means that the Ninth Circuit's deeply flawed ruling in Truth will stand. As a result, the rights of student groups at public campuses in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Washington to define themselves in accordance with their shared beliefs may be threatened. FIRE submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in late April urging the Court to hear the appeal. In our press release announcing the filing of our brief, we described the facts of the case: The controversy surrounding Truth began in the fall of 2001, when two students at Kentridge High School first applied for official recognition of Truth from the Associated Student Body Council (ASB). Despite consulting with the school's counsel and principal, the ASB did not take any action on the application for the entire 2001-2002 school year. In January 2003, Truth submitted a second application, stating that while general membership would be open for all Kentridge students, voting membership and leadership positions would only be open to students who shared Truth's faith-based beliefs. This application was also denied, prompting Truth to file suit in federal district court, alleging a violation of the group's right to free speech and expressive association, among other claims. A third application submitted in April 2003 was also denied.
The ASB cited the group's name, mission, and the fact that it was "segregating" as reasons for the rejections, despite the fact that each of the 30 student groups recognized by the school maintain "Membership Criteria" requiring that students be, for example, committed to certain causes (EarthCorps) or even of a specific sex (the Men's Honor Club and the Girl's Honor Club). Both the district court and the Ninth Circuit found against Truth, holding that its First Amendment right to freedom of expressive association had not been violated.
Because Truth tried to ensure that its membership consisted of students who shared its core beliefs, both the ASB and the school district refused to grant the group recognition, arguing that Truth was in violation of the district's nondiscrimination policy. And in finding that this refusal did not violate Truth's First Amendment rights, the Ninth Circuit essentially held that the First Amendment right to freedom of association somehow does not apply when the association in question involves high school students seeking to form a group around their shared religious beliefs. But this holding completely misunderstands the concept of freedom of association—because, as the Supreme Court held in Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 623 (1984) "freedom of association plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate." Under the First Amendment, groups like Truth cannot be forced by the government to accept members that do not agree with their mission; nor can they be penalized (here, by denial of recognition) for seeking to exclude those students who disagree with their core purpose. But under the Ninth Circuit's flawed reading of the right to expressive association in Truth, this simple principle has been discarded. Under Truth, for example, College Democrat groups may no longer require that their members be Democrats. Nor may campus pro-life groups require that their members not volunteer for pro-choice groups. As we explain at length in our brief, this interpretation of the First Amendment is not only illogical, but it is also at odds with the rulings of both the Supreme Court and other federal circuits. That the Supreme Court ignored the plain tension between the existing jurisprudence and the Ninth Circuit's cramped understanding of the right to freedom of association does not bode well for civil liberties on campus. Still more troubling is the fact that FIRE's concerns about Truth's impact on college campuses are not hypothetical. In fact, our brief pointed out that the Ninth Circuit's faulty decision in Truth has already been cited as controlling precedent in similar cases in the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction involving collegiate, religious student groups. We wrote: The Ninth Circuit's holding in Truth has already negatively impacted expressive association on college campuses. Despite the fact that Truth arose in the high school context, the Ninth Circuit subsequently applied its decision and reasoning to the university setting. See Christian Legal Society Chapter of University of California v. Kane, No. 06-15956 (9th Cir. Mar. 17, 2009). In Kane, a religious student group at the University of California at Hastings Law School challenged the school's nondiscrimination policy, which required all student groups to "accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group." Kane, No. 06-15956. The student group was denied official recognition because it required all voting members and officers to agree to a Statement of Faith. In a one-paragraph opinion, the Ninth Circuit upheld the law school's nondiscrimination requirement as "viewpoint neutral and reasonable," citing Truth as controlling precedent. Id. Anticipating Kane, a district court in the Ninth Circuit applied the Truth decision to other religious college student groups. Every Nation Campus Ministries v. Achtenberg, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12251 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 6, 2009). Relying almost exclusively on Truth, the district court denied four religious groups at two California State University system schools the right to choose their members or leaders by reference to religious beliefs. Id. Repeating Truth's mistaken application of forum analysis, the district court held that "CSU may restrict access to its recognized student organization forum so long as the restrictions are viewpoint-neutral and reasonable in light of the purposes served." Id. at *48–49. Having determined that CSU's regulations were viewpoint-neutral and reasonable, following Truth, the court concluded that "CSU's nondiscrimination policy burdens Plaintiffs' expressive activity, if at all, only incidentally." Id. at *55.
Unfortunately, today's denial means that these erroneous rulings will stand—and that more such rulings and denials of recognition could very well follow. For example, a federal lawsuit filed recently by the Christian Legal Society at the University of Montana School of Law against the school following the school's refusal to grant the group official recognition is headed to the Ninth Circuit on appeal. The appeal's only chance for success now is the empanelled judges diverging from their colleagues and refusing to apply Truth to colleges wholesale. That's precisely why clarity from the Supreme Court about how Truth does or does not conflict with the Seventh Circuit's ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Walker, 453 F.3d 853 (7th Cir. 2006) (holding that Southern Illinois University's denial of recognition to the Christian Legal Society was likely an infringement of the group's First Amendment right to expressive association) would have been so helpful. The Court's silence means that Truth's negative impact on college campuses in the Ninth Circuit may fester for years. By choosing not to correct the Ninth Circuit's flawed holding in Truth, the Supreme Court has failed to address the use of nondiscrimination policies to discriminate against religious student groups at high schools and colleges across the Ninth Circuit. As such, today's Supreme Court holding is deeply disappointing to FIRE and citizens across the country who recognize that "[h]igh school and college administrators who deny Christian groups official recognition engage in the discriminatory conduct they condemn—excluding people who will not pledge allegiance to official views," as noted civil libertarian and FIRE Board of Advisors member Wendy Kaminer put it last week in a blog entry for The Atlantic. Nevertheless, while we strongly disagree with the Court's decision not to hear Truth's appeal, FIRE's efforts on behalf of religious liberty and freedom of association on campus will continue unabated.
June 29, 2009 Check out FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley's latest column at Pajamas Media, where he takes on Bucknell University's suppression of a conservative student group. As Torch readers know, Bucknell has repeatedly defended its indefensible actions against the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC), but FIRE will keep the pressure on Bucknell until it lives up to its promises of freedom of speech to its students. And, as Robert points out, if Bucknell doesn't see the light, it will likely find itself part of our national campaign against "Red Alert" schools this fall. Bucknell does not want to be on that list. To register your own concerns about Bucknell's commitment to liberty, here is FIRE's Action Alert page for Bucknell. Update: June 30, 2009, Read More About Bucknell University: University Slams Door on Student Satires of Obama Stimulus Plan and Affirmative Action »
June 26, 2009 The Second Annual Campus Freedom Network Conference took place June 18–20 and was a smashing success. Fifty-one students from across the country gathered in Philadelphia for two days of lectures, panels, and workshops on all aspects of free speech on campus. In an effort to maximize the conference's potential, we filmed several interviews with students and speakers, live streamed the conference, and even invited students, FIRE staff, and the general public to join in a public conversation about the conference on Twitter using the #cfn09 hashtag.
The conference kicked off Thursday evening with dinner and a lecture by KC Johnson, professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center and co-author of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. Professor Johnson regaled the conference attendees with the horrifying circumstances of university and prosecutorial misconduct surrounding the Duke lacrosse "rape" case. FIRE supporters need no introduction to the spinelessness of many university administrators, and Duke is no exception. Johnson discussed the actions of the Duke administration, specifically Duke President Richard Brodhead, who declared before a meeting of the Durham Chamber of Commerce, "If our students did what is alleged, it is appalling to the worst degree. If they didn't do it, whatever they did is bad enough." Duke's conduct was a deplorable and irresponsible way for a university administration and its faculty to treat students, and Professor Johnson was essential in bringing these abuses to light. I previously discussed Until Proven Innocent and the Duke lacrosse case in a series of entries here, here, here, and here.
After breakfast Friday morning, FIRE Co-founder and Chairman Harvey Silverglate gave a short talk about founding FIRE, titled "If FIRE Didn't Exist, Why We Would Have to Invent It." He discussed the importance of free and open debate for the advancement of truth. Harvey played an inspirational segment from an old speech by astronomer Carl Sagan which eloquently made Harvey's point.
Harvey then moderated a panel comprised of University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor and FIRE Board of Directors member Daphne Patai, former FIRE president and current Director of the Alliance Defense Fund's Center for Academic Freedom David French, and Executive Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center Derek Shaffer on the philosophical and practical underpinnings of academic liberty. Each participant was uniquely qualified to discuss the topic. Professor Patai has decades of experience as an outspoken advocate of free speech on campus and as a distinguished professor. Her latest book, What Price Utopia?, is a collection of her essays discussing the academic environment. Mr. French authored FIRE's Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus and has litigated on behalf of religious liberty and free speech in a number of cases. He recently successfully litigated DeJohn v. Temple University in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where the court struck down Temple University's unconstitutional speech code. (FIRE had filed an amicus brief in that case.) Professor Shaffer has lectured extensively on constitutional law as Executive Director of Stanford's Constitutional Law Center and has litigated in defense of constitutional rights from his previous work in private practice in our nation's capital.
That afternoon, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff discussed the disturbing trend of students "unlearning liberty." Greg argued that leaders set the tone for those under their tutelage, so as administrators censor student speech under egregious campus codes, students learn how to handle offensive words: they silence them. When students steal copies of a student paper because it publishes an article critical of them and the administration does nothing, students learn that silencing those who disagree or are critical of one's views is acceptable.
Samantha Harris, FIRE's Director of Speech Code Research, followed up with a half-hour explanation of speech codes. After that, students split up into four groups, headed respectively by Sam, FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley, Individual Rights Defense Program Director Adam Kissel, and Justice Robert H. Jackson Legal Fellow Azhar Majeed. Each student was alerted to the speech codes at his or her university as documented by each school's Spotlight page. (Spotlight is FIRE's compendium of campus speech codes.) Students went through a worksheet with the FIRE staffer to discuss common speech codes, and they had the opportunity to ask questions about the speech codes on their own campuses. It was an enlightening exercise aimed at giving students a thorough understanding of what is wrong with the specific codes at their own universities.
That evening, noted civil libertarian, lawyer, and FIRE Board of Advisors member Wendy Kaminer lectured over dinner on the historical context for the avid censorship FIRE fights at universities. A lively discussion followed the talk. Kaminer has extensive experience as a defender of free speech rights. She is the author of eight books, most recently Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU. Earlier this week, Will highlighted her recent post at The Atlantic discussing the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Truth v. Kane. The Ninth Circuit's ruling has been appealed to the Supreme Court, and FIRE has filed an amicus brief in the case.
On Saturday morning, attendees listened to a panel on "using new media in the fight for liberty." Campus Freedom Network Program Officer Brandon Stewart discussed ways that FIRE was using new media and how the attendees could help further FIRE's reach through the use of these tools. In addition, he previewed a fall CFN campaign to use wikis to make student handbooks more accessible to students. CFN member Charles Johnson of Claremont McKenna College discussed his successful blog The Claremont Conservative and how students can use blogging to publicize incidents of campus censorship. Independent filmmaker Andrew Marcus wrapped up the panel with a discussion of how to effectively capture incidents of censorship on film. Marcus has extensive experience documenting free speech abuses on campus. He produced Political Correctness vs. Freedom of Thought-The Keith John Sampson Story, documenting FIRE's case at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where student Keith John Sampson was found guilty of racial harassment for reading an anti-Klan book. Marcus also co-produced FIRE on Campus: An Introduction to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and FIRE in Action: Valdosta State University with Evan Coyne Maloney, producer of Indoctrinate U.
The conference wrapped up with a panel of students discussing their experiences with campus censorship. University of Delaware graduate Alyssa Koser discussed the coercive residence life program that FIRE helped dismantle at her campus. She was a resident assistant at the time. Alyssa appeared in FIRE's video on the incident, Think What We Think...Or Else, which has garnered over 50,000 views on YouTube. Alyssa also discussed an episode of press censorship when the university refused to allow a student paper to distribute copies on campus. She was instrumental in helping to remove administrative censorship and restore freedom of the press to campus. Northern Kentucky University student Alex Kindell discussed her experience leading a coalition of politically and ideologically diverse student groups in a successful effort to eliminate campus "free speech zones" and to reform other censorious policies. Finally, Washington State University graduate Chris Lee related his experience as a student playwright who was—how shall I put it?—creatively censored by the WSU administration after he started putting on performances of his play, "Passion of the Musical," a satirical rendition of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. The WSU administration bought forty tickets and organized a cadre of students to attend, heckle, and threaten Chris and his actors. Chris turned to FIRE, and his rights were eventually vindicated. Overall, the student panel offered a moving testimony to the real threats to freedom of speech on campus.
This year's conference was a smash hit with topics focused but wide-ranging enough to provide students with a firm foundation for understanding the origins of their rights, the practical effects of having rights, and how they can defend those rights on campus. These 51 students are now prepared to return to their campuses and reform them for liberty. I invite you to view photos from this year's conference on the CFN's website.
June 26, 2009 FIRE's victories for religious liberty and academic freedom at Wright State University and the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) were in the news this week, while Bucknell University's continuing refusal to acknowledge its wrongful and discriminatory treatment of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club has only intensified the media spotlight it is trying to avoid. As Torch followers read this week, The Wall Street Journal's law blog and The Philadelphia Inquirer both ran in-depth stories on Bucknell's suppression of the political activities of the BUCC. Susan Snyder's article for the Inquirer, since its publication on Tuesday, has been one of the newspaper's most-viewed and most-circulated articles this week. (Indeed, it was so widely read that the Associated Press took notice.) Bucknell alumni Evan Coyne Maloney and Allison Kasic have continued to turn the screws on their alma mater this week via the blogosphere. Maloney (filmmaker of Indoctrinate U) draws attention to Bucknell President Brian Mitchell's sudden decision to retire following the 2010 academic year on his blog 'brain terminal'. Kasic, a member of the grassroots alumni group Alliance for a Better Bucknell, has continued to call attention to Bucknell's misdeeds with her post at Phi Beta Cons. Following Bucknell's latest attempts at justification of its actions, expect the spotlight on them to grow harsher, and for even more concerned citizens and alumni to write President Mitchell and express their discontent. The picture is brighter at UCSB and Wright State, fortunately. Shortly after receiving the news that charges against Professor William Robinson were no longer being pursued, Greg took to his blog at The Huffington Post to express FIRE's satisfaction at the outcome. Inside Higher Ed and the Santa Barbara Independent both call attention to FIRE's efforts as part of a broad coalition of organizations urging Chancellor Henry Yang to bring a speedy and just end to Robinson's investigation. Meanwhile, FIRE's efforts to ensure the recognition of the Campus Bible Fellowship at Wright State finally bore fruit this week, as reported by OneNewsNow and the Dayton Daily News. (For another good take on religious freedom in the academy, be sure also to check out FIRE Board of Advisors member Wendy Kaminer's blog entry for The Atlantic, which mentions FIRE's amicus brief in Truth v. Kane.) Hopefully we'll have better news to report on Bucknell soon. But so long as it keeps feeding this beast of its own creation, Bucknell remains squarely in FIRE's sights.
June 26, 2009 This morning in downtown Manhattan, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral arguments in the case of Holmes v. Poskanzer, et al., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13545 (N.D.N.Y. Feb. 21, 2008). At issue today before the Second Circuit is the question of whether the State University of New York - New Paltz administrators who suspended student plaintiffs Justin Holmes and Richard Partington III should have known that conducting a disciplinary hearing without granting the students' request for counsel to be present during the proceedings would violate the students' right to due process under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. If the Second Circuit decides that the state of the law is such that a reasonable university administrator would have known that SUNY New Paltz's policy of conducting disciplinary hearings without counsel would violate the students' due process rights, then defendants lose qualified immunity and may be subject to personal liability for violating the constitutional rights of Holmes and Partington. Today's argument before the Second Circuit is the latest step in a case that began when Holmes and Partington ran for student government in the spring of 2006. Promising that if elected they would push for increased transparency in institutional decision-making and pressure SUNY New Paltz administrators to reform campus drug policies, Holmes and Partington were elected President and Vice President, respectively. However, shortly after election results were posted, they were involved in an argument with Residence Life Director Corinna Caracci, whom they suspected of attempting to influence the election. Alleging that Holmes and Partington had "terrorized" her and created a "hostile environment" during the incident, Caracci filed harassment charges against the students, both within the school's judicial system and as criminal charges with the New Paltz Police. Shortly after, Holmes and Partington were arrested for "harassment." Video of the allegedly harassing behavior, as well as eyewitness statements, Caracci's deposition, and the police report, are all available for review here. Facing both criminal charges and university sanctions, Holmes and Partington sought to be accompanied by counsel during their campus judicial hearings. Their request was denied, pursuant to SUNY policy, and in June 2006 Holmes and Partington were found guilty of harassment by a New Paltz hearing committee and suspended for a year. In August, Holmes and Partington brought a civil suit against several university officials—New Paltz's President, Vice President for Student Affairs, and the two professors who served on the hearing committee adjudicating the harassment charge—alleging, among other claims, that the denial of counsel constituted a violation of their constitutional right to procedural due process. In January 2007, the federal district court agreed that the denial of counsel was likely a violation of the students' due process rights, particularly because the students here were also facing state criminal charges, and granted Holmes and Partington injunctive relief by ordering them reinstated at New Paltz. In response, defendants filed a motion to dismiss the claim, arguing that it was without merit and that defendants are entitled to qualified immunity as agents of the state. In a further ruling, the district court held that plaintiffs were entitled to qualified immunity on the question of whether the denial of counsel was a violation of plaintiffs' due process rights. In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn wrote: Accordingly, the proper inquiry with regard to the case before this Court is whether the state of the law made it clear to a reasonable university employee that the procedures in place were insufficient to provide Plaintiffs with due process. If officials of reasonable competence could disagree on whether the actions in issue were legal in the specific factual context, then qualified immunity is appropriate. This standard is such that "normally, it is only the `plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law'- those who are not worthy of the mantle of office- who are precluded from claiming the protection of qualified immunity."
As the Court's previous analysis makes clear, the requirement that counsel be present in a consultative role for individuals in Plaintiffs' position is far from clearly established. Indeed, there is no case law in the Second Circuit holding that a specific situation required the presence of counsel at a school disciplinary proceeding to satisfy due process. Accordingly, it would not be clear to a reasonable university employee that the procedures in place were insufficient and Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity with regard to this issue. [Citations omitted.]
The qualified immunity question is now before the Second Circuit on appeal. Ironically, insofar as the case revolves around access to counsel, Holmes and Partington will be making their case pro se—i.e., they are representing themselves. FIRE will be watching the outcome and will keep Torch readers posted.
June 26, 2009 University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) has notified Professor William Robinson that it is no longer pursuing charges against him for sending an e-mail to his Sociology of Globalization class which offended students and critics both within and outside the university. Exactly two weeks after FIRE wrote UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang, the university's Charges Committee reported that it "did not find probable cause to undertake disciplinary action." Executive Vice Chancellor Gene Lucas informed Robinson that "this matter is now terminated." This is a victory for all faculty members at UCSB, who now are less likely to self-censor in fear that complaints about their relevant class communications might be transformed into unconstitutional months-long investigations. As Greg summed up the case in The Huffington Post: Stripped of the jargon of sociology and the politicization of the issue by both sides, the question becomes whether or not the professor in what essentially amounts to a global politics class can give his opinions about global politics. While many of his critics would prefer to see the Professor Robinsons of the world denied this right, in the end, we all benefit from classroom and academic discussions in which the exchange of ideas is as free as possible.
Several major national organizations that pay close attention to academic freedom agreed with us. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) wrote Yang in May with concerns about the principles of academic freedom and academic due process implicated in the case. The ACLU of Southern California also was just about to get involved on Robinson's side. The National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles chapter, also wrote Yang on June 18, stating that "the clarity of the law and reason ... dictate [that] the charges against Prof. Robinson should be dismissed, indeed, [should] never [have been] accepted for investigation in the first place." Oddly, as Wednesday's press release from the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB (SB4AF) reports, the faculty's Ad Hoc Charges Committee had decided the matter on May 15, nearly six weeks before a final decision was made and Robinson was notified. Why? The answer is simple: the UCSB faculty does not have the only say in whether charges against a faculty member will be carried forward to the next stage in the process. According to UCSB's Campus Procedures for Enforcement of the Faculty Code of Conduct, section 6(a): The Charges Committee shall determine whether any of the allegations in the complaint, if true, would constitute a violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct. If it determines that none of them would, it shall transmit the complaint, with its findings, to the Chancellor. If the Chancellor also concludes that none of them would, the matter is terminated.
This means that for nearly six weeks, if SB4AF is correct, the official faculty opinion was in Robinson's favor but the Chancellor's office continued to deliberate. Why? UCSB's response to FIRE's letter says nothing of the administration's role in pressing charges against faculty members. In fact, UCSB's one defense of the months-long investigation was that The charges process at UCSB is designed to provide the Academic Senate, through its designated representatives, the opportunity to determine whether the actions at issue in this case were conducted in a manner that meets professional standards, or, instead, constitute a breach of the duties of professional care set forth in the Faculty Code of Conduct. ... I [David Birnbaum, Deputy General Counsel-Educational Affairs and Campus Services] do not believe that having the charges in this case considered by representatives of the Academic Senate, in accord with these established procedures, violates Professor Robinson's rights.
The trouble here is that if SB4AF is right, UCSB's letter to us of June 16 was written an entire month after the Academic Senate's representatives had already decided the matter. Even if not, at some point the question was whether the Chancellor's office was going to agree with the Charges Committee about dropping the charges, yet this step was completely hidden in Birnbaum's letter. What was Chancellor Yang waiting for? On June 10, we wrote Chancellor Yang urging him to end the investigation: Faculty members report that a chilling effect is being felt across the campus, and every day that the investigation continues deepens the violation of their academic freedom and constitutional rights. I urge you to protect UCSB from further embarrassment and restore freedom of expression to your campus by immediately calling an end to the investigation.
It took two more weeks before Robinson was notified that the investigation was concluded—two more weeks that did not need to transpire. FIRE is, of course, not saying that UCSB should not be taking up genuine questions of professionalism or pedagogy and having them adjudicated by the faculty and/or administration in whatever fair process UCSB chooses. But in a case where a professor is clearly engaging in discourse relevant to his own field (in this case critical globalization studies), and when the faculty's own representatives agree that there is nothing to further investigate, it is deeply problematic that Chancellor Yang would keep the investigation going anyway. In such cases, presidents should take the lead of University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton, who wrote in one of FIRE's earliest cases: What I want to make clear and unambiguous is that responses to complaints or demands for action regarding constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech CANNOT BE QUALIFIED. Attempts to assuage anger or to demonstrate concern by qualifying our support for free speech serve to cloud what must be a clear message. Noting that, for example, "The University supports the right to free speech, but we intend to check into this matter," or "The University supports the right of free speech, but I have asked Dean X or Provost Y to investigate the circumstances," is unacceptable. There is nothing to "check into," nothing "to investigate." Opinions expressed by our employees, students, faculty or administrators don't have to be politic or polite. However personally offended we might be, however unfair the association of the University to the opinion might be, I insist that we remain a certain trumpet on this most precious of Constitutional rights.
This is the kind of ennobling statement that could have made UCSB proud. Update: June 25, 2009, Read More About University of California at Santa Barbara: Professor Investigated for Sending E-Mail to Class »
June 25, 2009 Maybe someone is feeding false information to Bucknell University General Counsel Wayne A. Bromfield, because his latest response to Bucknell's free speech meltdown repeats the lies we already have heard from him and Bucknell. The truth is, Bucknell shut down a student group's protests against President Obama's stimulus plan and against affirmative action policies, using inapplicable university policies as pretexts. The distribution of "Obama stimulus dollars" by the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC) was shut down under an inapplicable solicitation policy, and the administrator who shut it down gleefully said that the students were "busted." (Here's the evidence.) Later, the group's affirmative action bake sale was shut down by a different administrator who also gleefully used a price discrepancy as a pretext, noting that the discrepancy gave him the "opportunity" to shut it down. (Here's video evidence.) The administrator, Associate Dean of Students Gerald W. Commerford, told the students that they would be able to hold the bake sale at a future date, but when the students applied to do so, he said no (actually, "no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no")—even with non-discriminatory pricing and a sign that merely suggested satirical, optional pricing. (Here's audio evidence.) Even worse, Commerford basically said that the students could never hold any sort of protest on affirmative action out in the public areas of campus, proclaiming that Bucknell would wield the authority to decide what kinds of forum and venue were appropriate for the discussion of affirmative action. (In addition to the audio, here's more evidence of this truly oppressive policy, which actually appears nowhere in Bucknell policy or in the policy of any college that actually values freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas.) After FIRE publicized the case, Bucknell responded with false and misleading information about what actually happened, flatly contradicting the documentary evidence of the case. FIRE's Vice President, Robert Shibley, immediately responded with the easy takedown that the false information warranted. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Associated Press, and Wall Street Journal Law Blog reported on the case, and yesterday President Brian Mitchell announced his resignation effective June 30, 2010. For some unfathomable reason, instead of admitting and correcting its errors, Bucknell is back for more. Here is a point-by-point analysis of Bromfield's latest lies on behalf of Bucknell: Dear [REDACTED]: The president has shared with me your recent email regarding the statements made by Fire [sic] about Bucknell and asked me to respond on behalf of the University. We appreciate the opportunity to correct misinformation you have received. Fire has conveniently failed to note a few facts.
All of the facts are available for the world to see at http://www.thefire.org/index.php/case/794.html—many more facts, to be sure, than the few lies presented as facts below. See above for the video, audio, and other documentary evidence proving each one of FIRE's claims. They claim discrimination and at the same time want the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC) to have special privileges.
Bucknell's pattern of discrimination against BUCC is unmistakable. Yes, we claim and prove that Bucknell has discriminated against BUCC's views. Most of all, as stated above, Commerford told BUCC members that their views are simply not acceptable for display in a public forum of BUCC's choosing and that Bucknell will decide which forum is appropriate. No other student group's issue or display has been subjected to this restriction. As for "special privileges," FIRE has never asked for any such thing. We have asked that Bucknell equally enforce applicable policies. A university is required by law not to discriminate in its policies or practices. These standards disallow activities on campus that discriminate based on race, gender, ethnicity, and other characteristics. Contrary to what Fire implies, there is no "just kidding" defense to discriminatory practices.
It is quite strange that Bromfield still believes this. Many other schools have permitted affirmative action bake sales across the country, as well as equally satirical "pay equity" bake sales, which charge different prices by race and gender based on the relative average wage of the different race and gender groups. In these cases, the student groups' speech is not attributable to the university and thus is not limited by the same laws against discrimination as those which bind the university. But this is beside the point, for these bake sales do not constitute unlawful discrimination. Pay equity bake sales are designed to bring attention to average wage disparities, and bake sales like BUCC's are designed to bring attention in a particularly visceral way to what the protest organizers see as unfair discrimination by others in admissions and employment. Nobody is arguing that these sales are discriminatory but should enjoy some kind of "just kidding" exception. They are not discriminatory. Rather, pay equity bake sales and affirmative action bake sales are protected and widely used examples of political theater, and as such they constitute core political expression. There is an obvious difference between a symbolic piece of political theater and the type of discriminatory activity a university is prevented by law from conducting or allowing. The BUCC wanted to hold a discriminatory sale.
Nope—again, BUCC wanted to hold a satirical "sale" that protested against affirmative action policies that they believed to be discriminatory. Moreover, when Commerford rejected the BUCC's second bake sale, the students very clearly offered to have optional, volunteer payments of different prices, presumably so that other students could participate in the protest by buying items at whatever prices they wanted. Simply put, Commerford rejected a completely non-discriminatory protest bake sale. They filled out an application to use the campus space misrepresenting the sale and not specifying their prices would be discriminatory.
This regards the first sale. The video evidence shows that Commerfield said he was shutting down the bake sale not because the prices were different for different groups, but because the sale price listed on the application, $2.00, was different from the prices at the event. The students offered to change the pricing on the spot in order to conform to the application, but Commerford rejected that option. He did offer, however, to let the students hold the bake sale, with the forms properly filled out, at some later time. This offer turned out to be false. When the University then halted the sale, the BUCC was repeatedly offered venues and fora to announce and debate their positions. They declined the offers.
Here Bromfield admits to Bucknell's discrimination against BUCC's views and Bucknell's suppression of BUCC's freedom of association and expression. The audio recording tells the truth in stark detail, as we relate in our May 21, 2009, letter to President Mitchell: In particular, according to an audio record of the meeting, a BUCC member asked if the event would be approved if the group listed the bake sale prices as "optional," making clear that anyone could pay whatever price they wanted, regardless of race. Commerford completely rejected this option, however, saying, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because it's a discriminatory [pricing] policy." He then added, "It's a political issue, ok; it needs to be debated in its proper forum, ok, and not on the public property on the campus." When a BUCC member then asked, "There is no way we can have an event like this?" Commerford replied, "No." [Emphasis added.]
Commerford himself acknowledged the record when he said to The Bucknellian, "I clearly advised them that I am happy to help them arrange for a proper venue for a campus dialogue to discuss and/or debate affirmative action and related issues." Again, Bucknell is singling out BUCC, BUCC issues, and BUCC events for special mistreatment, censorship, and regulation, and in this instance Commerford admitted to doing so. That Bromfield repeats Commerford's admission only deepens Bucknell's mire of malfeasance. The space the BUCC sought to use for their handout distribution and bake sale is transited every day by some 3,000 students who live on campus, as that space is directly outside the student dining halls. Bucknell only permits campus groups to use the space for distribution of material, after registration of their event. If the BUCC alone can use that space without permission, hand out materials wherever and however they want in a highly trafficked area,
Here's the truth, verified by the administrator who shut them down. BUCC members handed out the fake dollar bills for an hour without causing any disruption or interference at all, standing at Bucknell's Elaine Langone Center. After the trouble-free hour, two members of the Reservation, Information and Conference Services (RICS) staff, including Director Judith L. Mickanis, approached the students. Mickanis said "You're busted!" and put her hand on a female student's arm. The administrators shut down the protest, stating that BUCC had been "soliciting" without prior approval in the form of an approved "Sales and Solicitation" request. BUCC's Vice President for Special Events, Sami Prehn, asked why a Sales and Solicitation form was necessary, since club members were merely handing out free, fake money as a symbolic protest. The RICS administrators said that this was considered solicitation and was the equivalent of handing out Bibles. On May 4, BUCC President Travis Eaione e-mailed his account of the event to Mickanis, and she verified it via e-mail later that day: Yes, I used those words, but I put a hand on the young woman's arm and said that I was teasing [so much for Bromfield's rejection of the "just kidding" defense], but that you need to fill out a sales and solicitation form to give anything out. The group politely questioned this, and the young woman said she didn't know about this policy. The policy is in place to protect the entire BU community and I said that consistently permission was needed to hand out anything from Bibles to other matter. You just can't hand things out without approval. I told them to go to RICS when it reopened at 1pm and fill out a form, that I would approve it, but it had to be done consistently with other groups. However, let me qualify by saying that groups can solicit only from behind tables, not out in the open like they were doing. [Emphasis added.]
Bromfield has it exactly backwards. It is not BUCC that insists on protesting "wherever and however they want." It is Bucknell University that insists on misrepresenting its own policy (here's the actual policy), demanding prior registration for students to hand out anything at all (including Bibles), redefining all distribution of materials falsely as "solicitation," and strictly confining students wherever and however Bucknell wants in order to control students who do manage to get their expressive materials through Bucknell's hostile administration. or carry out discriminatory sales, the university will not have upheld its obligation to be fair,
"To be fair"? Bromfield must be just kidding. let alone to provide a safe environment.
The handing out of materials proceeded for an hour without any incident or complaint, just like virtually every time people pass out expressive materials in heavily trafficked public places. Has Bromfield never seen a city sidewalk in, say, Philadelphia? The alleged concern for "a safe environment" is a smokescreen that no reasonable person could believe as the source of Bucknell's animus, and Mickanis herself said no such thing. The BUCC is well aware of the requirements for using this space, having followed the requirements before and having been asked if they wished to register the event in order to continue the distribution. They declined that opportunity.
This is not the same as in Mickanis' account. The one student referenced by Mickanis stated that she had no idea about the policy. Moreover, the Sales and Solicitation policy expressly does not cover handing out expressive materials with no actual sales or solicitation component. The policy simply does not apply. Despite Fire's and the BUCC's claims otherwise, these matters were not questions of free speech. Instead, in these matters, one student group expected special privileges above every other student organization and wanted to discriminate against their fellow students based on race in doing so.
This conclusion only follows if you believe Bromfield's and Bucknell's lies. If you actually look at the evidence for yourself, you'll see that these are entirely questions of free speech. Far from looking for special privileges, BUCC's bake sale was protesting against the special treatment that it perceived in affirmative action policies. BUCC is just hoping to have an equal place at Bucknell with every other student group on campus. Sincerely,
This word used to mean "truthfully." Wayne A. Bromfield
* * * * * *
Wayne A. Bromfield
General Counsel
201 Judd House
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, PA 17837
Tel: 570.577.1149
Fax: 570.577.9001
You can register your concerns about Bucknell's misrepresentations or its treatment of BUCC by using FIRE's Action Alert page for Bucknell. Update: June 30, 2009, Read More About Bucknell University: University Slams Door on Student Satires of Obama Stimulus Plan and Affirmative Action »
June 25, 2009 Noted civil libertarian, lawyer, and FIRE Board of Advisors member Wendy Kaminer discusses the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Truth v. Kent in a recent blog entry for The Atlantic. In September 2008, the Ninth Circuit held that Washington's Kentridge High School did not violate the First Amendment rights of Truth, a Christian student group, by repeatedly denying the group's applications for official recognition. The school cited nondiscrimination policies as grounds for denying the applications, claiming that Truth's requirement that all voting members and officers sign a "statement of faith" was in violation of the policies. Kaminer writes that the Ninth Circuit's opinion "managed to finesse" clear legal precedent, indicating that the school's denial of recognition was a violation of Truth's First Amendment right to freedom of association, but relying on a "legal fiction"—namely, that the denial was due to the nondiscrimination policy and not the group's religious viewpoint. Kaminer writes: Maybe in the abstract the court's reasoning makes sense, to lawyers batting arguments around. But as a practical matter, it seems difficult if not impossible to distinguish between the group's right to choose members who share its religious beliefs and the group's right to express and uphold those beliefs. In Truth v Kent, the 9th [C]ircuit trivialized what the 7th [C]ircuit stressed in CLS v Walker—the central role of membership criteria in forging the group's message: the membership is the message, at least in part.
Indeed, Kaminer argues that "discriminating" according to a certain set of shared values is what the First Amendment freedom of association is all about. She writes: Associational rights are contingent on the right to discriminate—to choose the people with whom you wish to associate. Of course Truth was discriminating on the basis of religion—against Christians with different theologies, as well as non-Christians. How else might the group retain its integrity? The court did not explain; but if religious groups can be denied official recognition for practicing religious discrimination against members and leaders, then the Catholic Church could be required to open the priesthood to women and atheists alike—or forfeit its tax exemption.
Interpreting nondiscrimination policies to refuse recognition to religious groups like Truth accomplishes the opposite of the policies' intended effect, Kaminer concludes: High school and college administrators who deny Christian groups official recognition engage in the discriminatory conduct they condemn—excluding people who will not pledge allegiance to official views. The difference is that private religious groups have essential First Amendment rights to exclude heretics; public officials have an obligation to protect them.
We thank Wendy for the attention to this important case. As many will remember, in late April, FIRE filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the Truth case on appeal. As Kelly noted earlier this week, Truth's appeal has been identified as a "petition to watch" by the influential legal blog SCOTUSblog, which provides extensive coverage of the Supreme Court. We'll keep you posted.
June 25, 2009 FIRE President Greg Lukianoff has posted his third, and hopefully last, blog entry on Professor William I. Robinson's case at UC Santa Barbara on The Huffington Post. The controversy began when Professor Robinson sent around an e-mail to the students in his Sociology of Globalization class comparing the Nazi treatment of Jews with Israel's actions towards Palestinians. The three blogs Greg has written document the case, FIRE's involvement, and finally the verdict which was sent to us yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, Professor Robinson is no longer under investigation. As Greg put it: Stripped of the jargon of sociology and the politicization of the issue by both sides, the question becomes whether or not the professor in what essentially amounts to a global politics class can give his opinions about global politics. While many of his critics would prefer to see the Professor Robinsons of the world denied this right, in the end, we all benefit from classroom and academic discussions in which the exchange of ideas is as free as possible.
You can check out all three articles here. Update: June 25, 2009, Read More About University of California at Santa Barbara: Professor Investigated for Sending E-Mail to Class »
June 25, 2009 Student Adam Key sued Regent University for promising students free expression on campus and then failing to abide by that promise. A federal district court in Virginia recently rejected Key's claims, and in the process held that private universities have little legal obligation to abide by their promises. For students attending private universities that make promises of free expression—that is, the vast majority of private institutions—this is a particularly bad decision. Gutting private schools' obligations to abide by their promises undermines students' and faculty's rights of association and free expression. It makes it impossible for students and faculty to knowingly choose the type of private institution they wish to attend. Under such a regime, a student who pays tuition to a theological seminary has no recourse if the institution abruptly abandons all religious instruction. And a student who pays tuition to a college promising a marketplace of ideas has no recourse if the institution suddenly cracks down on speech the administration finds offensive. Adam Key brought two related claims against Regent. The first claim stated that the student handbooks and official school policies constitute a legally binding contract. Even though most courts recognize this, the court here focused solely on the small print. Regent's handbooks contained a disclaimer stating that (despite every appearance to the contrary) the handbooks do not create a contract between the university and the student. The court held that this one-sentence clause was sufficient to negate the existence of a contract. The second claim Key brought was in estoppel. The legal doctrine of promissory estoppel allows judicial enforcement of promises that do not constitute a contract, but nevertheless cause harm to those who rely on the promises made between parties. If such reliance creates an inequitable outcome, the court will issue a remedy. In this case, Key argued that he relied on the promise of free expression in the student handbook, and was harmed by his reliance on that promise when he was expelled from school for speaking his mind. The court dismissed this claim on the basis that "there is simply no evidence in the record that... [Regent University] made any promises." To be clear, the court did not reach this conclusion because Regent is a religious institution that qualifies its promise of free speech. Instead, it ruled that (1) disclaimers void college handbooks and other materials as contracts, period; and (2) that Regent made no promises in its handbook. These two holdings apply to all private colleges within the court's jurisdiction, and they precluded the judge from inquiring into the nature of Regent's handbook and promises or Regent-as-an-institution. So regardless of the qualifications inherent in Regent's promises of free speech—and for the record, we don't think students can reasonably expect free speech at Regent; there are too many qualifications, including a requirement that students conduct themselves in a "Christ-like" manner—the court's holding here affects all private universities in the district, not just Regent. This is important because even if the disclaimer "this is not a contract" suffices to eliminate the existence of an express contract, many private university handbooks explicitly promise students particular rights and obligations. Students no doubt rely on those promises in deciding to attend the universities they choose instead of other schools. As such, courts like the District Court here make a grievous error in refusing to enforce these promises. Further, the "this is not a contract" clauses thrown in at the end of pages of policies and promises might be deemed unconscionable and thus legally unenforceable. Even if they are not, though, the promises can and should be enforced when students relied on them to their detriment. (Such claims can be enforced either as an implied-in-fact contract or under promissory estoppel.) Colleges that advertise themselves widely and clearly as a particular type of institution—whether it be as a marketplace of ideas, a place of religious instruction, or an institution committed to a particular secular morality—benefit by making those representations. Students pay tuition, faculty agree to teach, and donors give money because the school promises it embodies and enforces certain principles. To allow the school to reap those benefits and then arbitrarily abandon those promises when they find it convenient or advantageous to do so is deeply unjust.
June 24, 2009 Maybe it's related, maybe not. But we know that just one day after the national media picked up Bucknell University's pattern of mistreatment of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club, Bucknell President Brian Mitchell announced his resignation. Bucknell had shut down the group's protests against President Obama's stimulus plan and against affirmative action policies, using inapplicable university policies as pretexts. After FIRE publicized the case, Bucknell responded with false and misleading information about what actually happened, contradicting the audio, video, and other documentary evidence of the case. Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Associated Press, and Wall Street Journal Law Blog reported on the case, and today President Mitchell has announced his resignation effective June 30, 2010. Stay tuned for further developments. Update: June 30, 2009, Read More About Bucknell University: University Slams Door on Student Satires of Obama Stimulus Plan and Affirmative Action »
June 24, 2009 Since October, we have been calling on you to donate to FIRE's CFN Gift Fund to support our Campus Freedom Network and to help make this year's student conference possible—and you rose to the occasion. Today, I'm happy to report that thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the CFN Gift Fund has not only reached but surpassed its goal of $25,000! Thank you to everyone who donated to this worthy cause. Because of you, 51 students were able to attend the second annual CFN Conference, where they learned about their rights on campus and acquired valuable skills and resources that they will take back to their campuses with them in the fall. Last year's conference attendees almost immediately began spreading awareness and creating change—lobbying administrators, reforming campus policies, and recruiting even more CFN members to join the fight to restore liberty to campuses nationwide. All of us at FIRE are excited to see what this year's conference attendees will do in the fall, and we look forward to keeping you updated! Your generosity not only made the second annual CFN conference possible, it has also helped the CFN to become an increasingly powerful force for policy reform on campus. With your support, the CFN has grown to 3,000 members on more than 1,000 campuses across the nation—and we're still growing. With each new member, another voice joins the call for liberty on campus, and with each new voice, the demand for change becomes harder and harder to ignore. Thank you!
June 23, 2009 Dave Larsen of the Dayton Daily News discusses FIRE's victory for religious liberty at Wright State University on the paper's "On Campus" blog today. Wright State initially denied re-recognition to the Campus Bible Fellowship for 2008-2009 on the ground that its faith-based requirements for voting members violated university nondiscrimination policies, but Wright State finally relented and recognized the group for both 2008–2009 and (after additional struggle) 2009–2010. The News quotes a senior Wright State administrator regarding the resolution of the dispute: "Wright State advocates for diversity and we have resolved the registration matter with the Campus Bible Fellowship student organization so that they can practice the full expression of their religious beliefs on campus," said Dan Abrahamowicz, university vice president for student affairs, on Monday, June 22.
Of course it took a letter from FIRE, a press release, an ensuing public awareness campaign, and the threat of a civil rights lawsuit from the Alliance Defense Fund to elicit this enlightened response from the administration. Nevertheless, FIRE is glad to see the News report on this happy outcome and that the people of Dayton (home of Wright State) are being made aware of the battles for freedom of association being fought in their backyards. Update: June 25, 2009, Read More About Wright State University: Christian Group Banned from Campus »
June 23, 2009 The Associated Press has picked up Susan Snyder's excellent Philadelphia Inquirer reporting on Bucknell University's pattern of shutting down events run by the Bucknell University Conservatives Club (BUCC). As FIRE's press release points out, Bucknell not only shut down BUCC's satirical affirmative action bake sale but also refused to let BUCC hold any such sale in the future, falsely citing Bucknell's nondiscrimination policy when administrators had to come up with some kind of pretext. Earlier, Bucknell had shut down BUCC's distribution of "Obama stimulus dollars" in protest of President Obama's stimulus plan, in that instance falsely citing the university's solicitation policy. The Wall Street Journal's Ashby Jones also has picked up the story for the Wall Street Journal's law blog: [A] group called FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) got involved, sending off this doozy of a letter to Mitchell last month, protesting not only the bake sale move, but an earlier move in which the same conservative group was prohibited from passing out anti-stimulus handbills in the form of fake dollar-bills that portrayed President Obama.
Wrote Adam Kissel, a director at FIRE: Bucknell is not the only university that has attempted to shut down an affirmative action bake sale protest on the ground that it is "discriminatory." [Others have] attempted to shut down affirmative action bake sale protests or punish their sponsors on similar grounds. FIRE intervened in each of these cases and the institutions relented, realizing that attempting to silence this type of political protest runs afoul of free expression and opens the institution to legal liability for violating the First Amendment, or the university's contractual promises of freedom of expression, or both.
But Bucknell was undeterred. The school's general counsel, Wayne Bromfield, sent back this letter earlier this month, stating that neither "instance is a matter of free speech. To the contrary, they are matters of campus safety and fairness." On the bakesale issue, Bromfield stated: "disparate racial pricing for doughnut sales - was prohibited because we cannot and do not permit facially discriminatory practices." So who, legally, is in the right here? It's tough to say. Sheldon Steinbach, a Washington-based higher education law expert, told the Inquirer that for private universities, such a decision was a "judgment call." We checked in with Kissel, who conceded that the First Amendment probably didn't apply to Bucknell, a private university. That said, Kissel said he was "sure" that he and the group were on the right side of the legal battle. The school's Student Handbook instructs students not only that they have freedom of speech but that "deliberate interference" with this freedom is prohibited. "It could create a contractual issue," said Kissel.
Jones got Bucknell back into the debate via Bucknell spokesman Tom Evelyn: We also checked in with Tom Evelyn, a spokesman for Bucknell, who said "this is not a free speech issue at all." He said that in regard to the Obama dollars, the students hadn't followed the right protocol to distribute leaflets. And the bake-sale "violated the anti-discrimination policy. That much is very clear." The issue could flare up anew in the fall. Travis Eaione, one of the group's members, told the Inquirer the group might try to hold another similar bakesale when students are back. Answered Bucknell's Evelyn: "If it's the same kind of bakesale, we'll have the exact same objections."
And Bucknell will be just as wrong. Bucknell has said that even satirical, "recommended," non-binding pricing violates the anti-discrimination policy, and that's plainly false. As Snyder's article notes, BUCC's problems with Bucknell's abuses of student rights (Bucknell is a private university that promises freedom of expression) date back several years. Just ask the Bucknell alumni who run the Alliance for a Better Bucknell. It seems that Bucknell's repressive habits have been backfiring, as such efforts usually do, with several Bucknell alumni (including filmmaker Evan Maloney and the Independent Women's Forum's Allison Kasic) having become activists for freedom of expression on college campuses. The Boston Herald also has reprinted Snyder's article online in its Politics section. Meanwhile, the Inquirer article is garnering heavy attention locally. The Inquirer's Philly.com homepage is running a poll, "Should the bake sale have been allowed to continue?," which has gathered more than 365 votes as of 2:45 pm (with 68 percent voting Yes and 9 percent wanting more information). Nearly 100 comments have appeared on the article as well. The article is also listed on both the "most viewed" and "most shared" lists right now and has been rising on the charts. And the Bluftooni blog has published a wonderful pair of images of a different affirmative action bake sale and its economic cousin, a "pay equity" bake sale in which protesters charge different amounts on the basis of average earnings by race and gender in order to bring attention to disparities in average wages. Both kinds of protests must be permitted wherever freedom of speech is promised. Update: June 30, 2009, Read More About Bucknell University: University Slams Door on Student Satires of Obama Stimulus Plan and Affirmative Action »
June 23, 2009 The top story in the local section of today's Philadelphia Inquirer print edition explores Bucknell University's decision to bar a conservative student group from hosting an affirmative action bake sale on campus. FIRE first wrote to Bucknell on May 21 and issued a press release condemning the school's actions on June 11 after having received no response from the school. As today's Inquirer story explains, Bucknell's hostility to core political speech involves more than just the shutting down of the bake sale event: In March, the club complained that the administration shut down another of its activities - passing out anti-stimulus handbills that blared "The Socialist State of America" on the front with President Obama's face. On the back, the fake dollar bills read: "Obama's stimulus plan makes your money as worthless as Monopoly money." That incident and the bake sale prompted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to get involved. "We want everyone around Bucknell to know that Bucknell is not a place that respects students' rights," said FIRE's Adam Kissel.
The Philadelphia Inquirer piece quotes Bucknell administrators who, amazingly, do nothing more than continue to trumpet the same false arguments and post-facto justifications that Robert successfully refuted on The Torch last week. The irony, as today's story points out, is that many other colleges and universities have been able to hold events like the ones at issue at Bucknell without incident. The article highlights one such example at Kutztown University in 2006: Kutztown University in 2006 allowed one of the bake sales. The university also permitted protesters of the event to demonstrate. And later, it sponsored a forum on affirmative action. "It was a teachable moment, an opportunity to learn from one another and engage in the freedom of expression," said Jesus Pena, associate vice president for equity and compliance at Kutztown. "That's what we in institutions of higher learning should be promoting."
We couldn't agree more. I hope you will join me in making that exact point to the Bucknell administration by contacting them via our action center. The article mentions that Bucknell President Brian C. Mitchell has already received over one hundred letters, e-mails, and phone calls over this issue. Add your voice to the growing list of concerned citizens and Bucknell alumni who have demanded that the school deliver on its promises of free speech on campus. Update: June 30, 2009, Read More About Bucknell University: University Slams Door on Student Satires of Obama Stimulus Plan and Affirmative Action »
June 23, 2009 FIRE's ongoing case at the Community College of Allegheny County is the focus of an editorial in today's online edition of The Times Daily (Alabama). CCAC student Christine Brashier has been blocked by administrators from forming a gun-rights club on campus and was told to destroy all copies of her informational pamphlet. The editorial, while taking a stance against the position Brashier supports—allowing the concealed carry of handguns on campus—nevertheless comes out in favor of her free speech rights. Brashier, the paper writes, "has good reason to be upset. Colleges and universities should promote free speech rather than squelch it, even if they don't agree with the message." This is absolutely right and a key point that the CCAC administration has basically ignored. The piece concludes by referencing FIRE's case at Tarrant County College, where students were barred from holding an "empty holster" protest unless they did so in the school's "free speech zone" and without holsters. As the Times Daily writes, "College administrators should realize that their Free Speech zone is the only casualty at Tarrant. Empty holsters don't kill people." If you would like to help us keep the pressure on CCAC, I encourage you to visit our action center and write directly to the administrators involved. Update: June 7, 2009, Read More About Community College of Allegheny County: Student Denied Right to Start Advocacy Organization »Update: April 21, 2009, Read More About Tarrant County College Bans Symbolic 'Empty Holster' Protest »
June 22, 2009 Today's press release announces another victory for religious liberty and freedom of conscience on campus. Late last week, we learned that Wright State University was finally granting full recognition to a Christian student group that wanted to limit voting membership to others who shared the group's deeply held beliefs. The group, Christian Bible Fellowship (CBF), could not in good faith include in its constitution the nondiscrimination language required by Wright State. After all, as a Christian organization, the group was "discriminating" on the basis of religion, and Wright State was refusing to grant a religious exemption to the group. Despite the group's 30-year history as a registered student organization, Wright State withdrew recognition from CBF in January. Since its inception ten years ago, FIRE has reminded public universities that the First Amendment protects the right of religious students to form groups based on shared beliefs. Wright State's application of its nondiscrimination requirement actually discriminated against religious student organizations, and the mandatory nondiscrimination language was simply unconstitutional in the absence of a policy for belief-based exemptions. To force a group whose mission is to communicate a particular Christian message to accept voting members or leaders who reject that very message is like requiring the College Democrats to accept College Republicans as members or leaders. Thankfully, at public universities like Wright State, the First Amendment prevents such an absurd outcome, and it is good that Wright State finally has seen the light. CBF's troubles at Wright State began in late January of this year, when CBF was informed by Wright State's Office of Student Activities that its re-registration was being denied because its constitution required voting members to adhere to religious and behavioral standards, such as requiring that voting members "accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior" and subscribe to the group's articles of faith. (Nonvoting members did not have to meet these standards.) We wrote to Wright State President David R. Hopkins on February 12, reminding him that the Constitution requires that "if Wright State is to allow expressive organizations to exist on its campus at all, it must allow religious organizations to exist, to define their missions, [and] to select their own members." We also pointed to its victories in similar religious liberty cases at Ohio State University and at Tufts University. Wright State General Counsel Gwen Mattison later phoned me to say that CBF would be recognized for the remainder of the academic year because it was being grandfathered in, despite the university's new requirement of nondiscrimination language, along with a few other groups whose constitutions did not include the new language (but which apparently had been recognized anyway). She also told me that CBF would be required to amend its constitution when applying for re-recognition for next year. Mattison later refused to confirm the details of this conversation. Later this spring, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff spoke on campus at a conference regarding precisely this issue of student rights. Amazingly, one of the administrators on Greg's panel made a statement positing that students lose their constitutional rights when they pass through the schoolhouse gate—exactly the opposite of what the Supreme Court expressly stated in the landmark 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (discussed in FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus, pp. 44-45): It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.
We are making a transcript of the recording from the panel—this is a classic you'll want to read for yourself. Then the Alliance Defense Fund came in with a strong demand letter to Wright State Director of Student Activities Rick Danals on behalf of CBF, requesting that the university allow CBF to maintain its belief-based requirements for voting members. On June 12, Danals granted an exemption and signaled that Wright State would not further impede the group's recognition for 2009–2010. Official notification of recognition followed on June 18. (See ADF's press release here.) The Campus Bible Fellowship should be commended for standing up for its constitutional rights, and FIRE will be watching Wright State to ensure that the rights of all expressive organizations, religious and secular alike, are protected on campus. You can let Wright State's president, David R. Hopkins, know what you think by contacting him at 937-775-2312 or david.hopkins@wright.edu, or you can reach Danals at 937-775-5543 or rick.danals@wright.edu. Update: June 25, 2009, Read More About Wright State University: Christian Group Banned from Campus »
June 22, 2009 SCOTUSblog, which provides extensive, informed coverage of the Supreme Court, has picked the petition for Truth v. Kent as one of the petitions to watch during the Court's conference this Thursday. Six weeks ago, FIRE filed an amicus brief in support of the Truth petitioners' request for certiorari. As Torch readers may remember, Truth involved a public high school denying a religious student organization recognized status because the organization restricted its members to students who endorsed its religious beliefs. The school held that the organization could not discriminate on the basis of religious belief even though the school allowed student groups to discriminate on the basis of any other set of ideological beliefs. Surprisingly, the Ninth Circuit upheld this decision as reasonable and viewpoint neutral, bringing the Ninth Circuit into conflict with other federal circuits. FIRE has seen an unfortunately high number of schools violate student religious groups' expressive association rights by preventing them from discriminating on the basis of religious belief. While Truth involved a high school, two Ninth Circuit cases have already applied Truth to the college setting, thus leaving no doubt that Truth will deny both high school and college students in the Ninth Circuit their basic expressive association rights. FIRE thus hopes the Supreme Court will grant certiorari and reject Truth's faulty reasoning. Since FIRE filed its amicus, the school district filed its response to the petitioners, asking the Court to leave Truth intact. In so doing, they claimed that there was no circuit split because the other circuit cases—which correctly came out the other way—involved belief restrictions on voting, rather than general members. This argument is quite weak given the Truth decision did not rely on that distinction. Instead, the Truth decision claimed that the school had a pedagogical right to impose conduct-based rules on student groups in order to instill the value of non-discrimination. Such an analysis applies equally to voting and general members. In its First Amendment analysis, the Truth court did not even inquire into whether, in contrast to voting members, general members do not affect a group's message formation or expression. The school district's attempt to make that a distinguishing issue thus makes little sense. The district also argued that the other circuit cases occurred at the college level, and thus merited a different analysis because high schools are allowed to be more paternalistic than colleges. Given the Ninth Circuit has already applied Truth to the college level, this distinction does not justify concluding there is no circuit split. Furthermore, the degree to which legal analysis in the high school setting can apply to college campuses, and vice versa, itself presents a federal circuit split. Thus, this point does not provide the federal circuit consensus that the district claims. The district also failed to address the important issue of viewpoint discrimination beyond asserting that it did not occur on the part of the district. The school district's policy prevents student groups from discriminating on the basis of only one belief system: religion. Since the Supreme Court stated unequivocally in Rosenberger that religion qualifies as a viewpoint, it is hard to see how such a policy could be viewpoint neutral, and so perhaps it is unsurprising that the district had little to say on this point. The district also separately urged the Supreme Court not to address the constitutional claim because the Truth decision followed a previous Ninth Circuit case that made an exception to the Supreme Court's general views on when municipalities can be sued for violating constitutional rights. Normally, in order to sue a municipality, an official policy or custom has to be at issue, but the Ninth Circuit had previously held that this rule does not apply when the plaintiff only seeks prospective relief (i.e., when the plaintiff seeks to force a government entity to stop violating their rights). Whatever the merits of that decision, it would be a shame if it precluded the constitutional claim from being addressed, especially since an official policy—the district's non-discrimination policy—was clearly the crux of the Truth case. We will keep readers updated as the Supreme Court decides whether to take the case.
June 22, 2009 Daniel Ortner is a senior at Brandeis University, where he is triple majoring in History, in Sociology, and in Health, Science, Society, and Policy and is minoring in Legal Studies. He has been involved in study abroad programs in England, China, and Israel. While at Brandeis, Daniel has been Forum Editor for The Justice, an independent student newspaper, where he has covered FIRE's Red Alert case involving Professor Donald Hindley and other FIRE issues. He is currently an officer for The Advocates, a student rights club on campus. On his dedication to free speech and why he came to FIRE, Daniel writes: Attending a school that is on FIRE's Red Alert list has given me plenty of exposure to the dangers of stifled free speech and a campus traumatized by an administration without regard for students' rights or interests. In my three years thus far at Brandeis, the Hindley case along with several other free speech fiascos—such as the self-censorship of campus media publications and attempts to stifle or limit the ability to bring "controversial" speakers such as former president and Nobel Prize winner Jimmy Carter to campus—turned me into an outspoken and staunch free speech advocate. As the Forum Editor of The Justice, I worked to ensure that view points would not be suppressed and penned columns lampooning the lack of accountability and the absurdity inherent in certain decisions by the administration. This experience brought me into contact with FIRE, which spoke on campus regarding the Hindley case and wrote opinion pieces that I published. I was impressed with FIRE's strong presence and efficient advocacy. Over time, I have become even more impressed due to its unflinching and unceasing argumentation even as the Brandeis administration has stood continually unwilling to allow for a reasonable resolution. Yet, the reasons for my strong support for the causes of FIRE are not just institutional but also deeply personal. As a left-wing, conscientiously objecting Israeli American, I have always found my right to speak challenged even by my immediate family members. I am often told that because I have not served in the army, for instance, I do not have a right to speak about matters of Israeli policy and foreign affairs. I have always recoiled at such a suggestion and sought to defend my individual right to speak out on matters relevant to my life and the world around me. One of things I value most about the United States of America is that because of our stringent protection for free speech and our "melting pot" ideology, I have never had my rights of citizenship or speech called into question. It is because of this freedom that I have been able to freely consider and evaluate my political, social, and religious views so deeply and thoroughly. It is because of this blessing of liberty that I have been able to change my points of view so dramatically on fundamental matters of conscience, moving from Judaism to Atheism to being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints without fear of persecution or opposition. It is solely because of this right that I have been able to grow into the person I now am. My schooling, at both public high school and private university levels, has been instrumental in expanding my horizons and bringing me further in my pursuit of truth. Even in the relatively unfree high school environment, my mind was enlightened by historical, cultural, and social theories that changed my fundamental life perspective. This is doubly true on the university level, where incredibly intellectual opportunities await if only we are willing to fight to defend them. FIRE's mission to protect fundamental rights in the institutions that are meant to be the bastions of our liberty is an especially just and worthwhile one.
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