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Penn State Settles Lawsuit
Today, the Alliance Defense Fund announced that it has settled a portion of its lawsuit against Penn State, which agreed to drop its speech code and clarify other policies. Congratulations to ADF and to our former president and Legal Network attorney David French!
Penn State did the right thing by settling the lawsuit and recognizing its duty to obey the Constitution. But, at the same time, it is important to note that universities shouldn’t have to face the threat of a lawsuit in order to compel changes to patently unconstitutional policies.
Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call to the hundreds of other “red light” public universities identified in Spotlight: The Campus Freedom Resource. If college presidents don’t want to hear the knock of a federal marshal serving a lawsuit, they would be wise to immediately reassess their unconstitutional policies.
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First Amendment News is a weekly blog and newsletter about free expression issues by Ronald K. L. Collins and is editorially independent from FIRE.