After students speak up, Southern Methodist University backs down from memorial lawn display policy
Southern Methodist University says it will update the memorial lawn display policy it cited earlier this summer to justify moving the SMU Young Americans for Freedom’s annual lawn display commemorating the September 11 attacks.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story Schools: Southern Methodist University
University of Rhode Island’s contradictory values and policies chill speech
Before I entered FIRE’s summer internship program, I knew that my university, the University of Rhode Island, was dubiously designated FIRE’s Speech Code of the Month in December 2016 — an award given to campuses with particularly restrictive and/or ridiculous rules about what students can and cannot say on campus. Upon taking a closer look at URI’s student handbook, my recently developed eye for problematic university policies helped me spot some troubling contradictions between my school’s stated philosophy and its policies.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story Schools: University of Rhode Island
Berkeley plans multi-platform free speech initiative for new academic year
The University of California, Berkeley has grappled with, and sometimes stumbled, managing its obligations under the First Amendment in recent months. But the start of a fresh academic year brings new chancellor Carol Christ at the helm. And on Tuesday, Christ announced that Berkeley is going to put free speech at the very forefront of campus conversation with a variety of initiatives this year, meaning that the home of the ‘60s Free Speech Movement could be poised to resolve lingering questions about its commitment to free speech for good.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story Schools: University of California, Berkeley
American Bar Association calls for protections for student media
The American Bar Association House of Delegates unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday in support of the New Voices campaign, which seeks to enact legal protections for students to gather and publish news and ideas free from censorship.
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Public colleges, the cancellation of white nationalist events, and the First Amendment
As the nation reels from the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, two public colleges this week have canceled or disallowed campus events featuring white nationalist Richard Spencer. Yesterday, Texas A&M University canceled a “White Lives Matter” event, featuring Spencer, planned for September 11. This morning, the University of Florida denied a request from Spencer’s organization, the National Policy Institute, to rent campus facilities.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story Schools: University of Florida Texas A&M University – College Station
‘The Talk’: How to ‘do’ free speech (VIDEO)
Since James Madison first drafted the First Amendment in 1789, free speech has been a fundamental right for all Americans. But how do we do it?
FIRE’s 2017 summer interns sit us down and give us “The Talk.”
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story, Top Video, Video
Profile: Mary Beth Tinker on ameliorating civic education
For nearly a year, Mary Beth Tinker’s home away from home was a 23-foot-long RV named Gabby. Plastered across Gabby’s side was an illustration of a large magenta wave carrying the words “speech, press, petition, religion, assembly” towards three waving children on a school bus. A white peace sign and a bold speech bubble for each student (one voicing “civics education!”) artfully summed up Tinker’s mission: It was the fall of 2013, and the student rights advocate was traveling the nation with Student Press Law Center attorney Mike Hiestand, on a Tinker Tour. Their goal? To promote civics and encourage students to know and use their rights.
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California legislature unanimously urges colleges to adopt free speech policies consistent with the ‘Chicago Statement’
The California legislature unanimously passed a resolution that urges “all private and public universities in California” to adopt free speech statements modeled off of the Chicago Statement and a statement issued by the Chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, Howard Gillman. The resolution was introduced by Assemblymembers Kevin Kiley and Bill Quirk. It passed the California Assembly 76-0 and the Senate 39-0.
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Category: Newsdesk, Top Story
Cases: FIRE Launches Campaign in Support of University of Chicago Free Speech Statement
A defense of dialogue: What I learned from Daryl Davis
One of the keynote speakers at this year’s FIRE Student Network Conference was Daryl Davis, a rock ‘n’ roll piano player and the patron saint of dialogue. In addition to his illustrious musical career, Davis, an African-American man, spends his time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. As astonishing as this sounds at first, evidently there’s something to it: More than two dozen people, including a former Grand Dragon and a former Imperial Wizard (state and national Klan leaders, respectively), have left the KKK as a direct result of Davis’ influence ― not through censorship or intimidation or judicial prosecution, but through simple conversation.
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On the violence in Charlottesville
We at FIRE were deeply saddened to hear about the violent response to counter-protesters against white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which resulted in the death of civil rights advocate Heather Heyer and serious injuries to many others.
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