School Spotlight

Miami University of Ohio

Location: Oxford, Ohio
Type: Public
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Speech Code Rating

Miami University of Ohio has been given the speech code rating Yellow. Yellow light colleges and universities are those institutions with at least one ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application. Read more

  • Institutional Diversity: Bias Incident Reporting

    Speech Code Rating: Yellow
    Speech Code Category: Policies on Bias and Hate Speech
    Last updated: August 8, 2018

    The Bias Incident Reporting Form provides the entire Miami University community a mechanism for reporting incidents involving acts of hate or bias due to age, ancestry, color, disability, sex or gender identity, pregnancy, national origin, race, religious belief, sexual orientation, military or veteran status. Read More

  • Miami University Policy Library: Policy Prohibiting Harassment and Discrimination

    Speech Code Rating: Yellow
    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: August 8, 2018

    Harassment: conduct that is based on Protected Class Status that has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with a person’s employment or educational experience or creates an intimidating, hostile, offensive working, educational or living environment. Read More

  • Miami University Policy Library: Public Speaking, Leaflet Distribution, and Demonstrations

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Protest and Demonstration Policies
    Last updated: January 30, 2019

    Miami University embraces the rights of expression, affiliation, and peaceful assembly. Miami University faculty, staff, and students may express their views by demonstrating peacefully for ideas they wish to make known, and the University will protect these rights. The University has an equal and co-extensive oblig... Read More

  • Student Conduct: Introduction

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
    Last updated: August 8, 2018

    The Code of Student Conduct at Miami University is intended to foster and protect the central purpose of the University: the free and open exchange of ideas. Read More

  • Student Conduct: APPENDIX A. Definitions – Title IX Violations

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: August 8, 2018

    In the educational context, sexual harassment is unwelcome, sex- or gender-based verbal or physical conduct that is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it interferes with, denies, or limits an individual’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s educational programs and activities. ... Read More

  • Miami University Policy Library: Right of Expression of Students

    Speech Code Rating: Green
    Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
    Last updated: August 8, 2018

    The University believes that the right of expression is as necessary as the right of inquiry and that both must be preserved as essential to the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge and truth. Consequently, students, individually and collectively, may express their views through the normal faculty, administrative,... Read More
At present, FIRE has not been involved in any cases at this school.

  • Due process legal update

    October 3, 2017

    Late last month, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) rescinded the April 4, 2011, “Dear Colleague” letter, which required schools to adjudicate sexual misconduct claims under the “preponderance of the evidence” standard and ushered in a climate of aggressive Title IX enforcement in which many schools abandoned critical due process protections for… Read more

  • Michigan State President Denies Disinvitation Attempt Against George Will

    December 11, 2014

    George Will, like too many other speakers, is no stranger to requests that he be disinvited from college campuses. In October, students at Scripps College in California successfully petitioned the college to rescind Will’s speaking invitation. Later that month, students and faculty at Miami University of Ohio attempted—and failed—to have Will disinvited from a campus… Read more

  • At Miami University of Ohio, Students Engage in Debate, Not Disinvitation

    October 24, 2014

    All too often, FIRE’s message—that engaging in meaningful debate with controversial speakers is more useful than censoring them—falls on deaf ears. However, Miami University (OH) bucked the growing disinvitation trend by refusing to rescind its speaking invitation to columnist George Will, despite pressure to do so from students and faculty. By refusing to abandon its… Read more

  • Posting Policies Frequently Restrict Student Expression

    October 30, 2012

    This fall, FIRE is writing a blog series about how schools can reform their problematic speech codes and earn a "green light" rating from FIRE—a distinction currently awarded to just 16 of the more than 400 schools in our Spotlight database, but one we hope to be able to award to many more in the… Read more

  • Insensitivity Is Not a Crime

    November 7, 2007

    At Miami University of Ohio, three student artists are under investigation, apparently with the possibility of punishment, for their pre-approved class project, which included “noose-like ropes” in a piece of art displayed on campus. Some viewers apparently interpreted the art in a way that made them feel offended, reminding them of actual nooses and lynchings…. Read more