Texas Tech University

Texas Tech University: Speech Code Litigation

February 6, 2003

FIRE intervened at Texas Tech when students recognized its overbroad policies, which include a speech code that prohibited "insults," "ridicule," and "personal attacks," and restricted free speech to twenty foot-diameter gazebo referred to as a "Free Speech Zone." With FIRE’s coordination and support, along with the Liberty Legal Institute and the Alliance Defense Fund, the students successfully sought and achieved elimination of the overbroad speech code. Covered widely in the media, the case at Texas Tech also drew support from over 900 students, who signed a petition for free speech on campus, as well as a student organization, Students for […]

Student Handbook: Freedom of Expression Activities and Forum Areas

Speech Code Category: Policies on Tolerance, Respect, and Civility
Last updated: October 16, 2018

Students engaged in freedom of expression activities may be subject to discipline under the Code of Student Conduct for the following actions: … Activities that include the use of obscenities, libelous statements, or “fighting words,” as defined by law.

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Student Handbook: Code of Student Conduct- Misconduct

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: October 16, 2018

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Student Handbook: Code of Student Conduct- Bullying/Cyberbullying

Speech Code Category: Bullying Policies, Internet Usage Policies
Last updated: October 16, 2018

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Student Handbook: Anti-Discrimination Policy

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: October 16, 2018

Examples of inappropriate behavior that may constitute unlawful sexual harassment include, but are not limited to:

• Sexual teasing, jokes, remarks, questions, looks, gestures,
  innuendoes or stories;
• Sexual favoritism;
• Pressure for dates or sexual favors;
• Gifts, letters, calls, e-mails, or materials of a sexual nature;
• Sexually explicit visual material (calendars, posters, cards, software, internet materials);
• Communicating in a demeaning manner with sexual overtones;
• Inappropriate comments about dress or physical appearance; or
• Non-consensual video or audio-taping of sexual activity;
• Inappropriate discussion of private sexual behavior;
• Exposing one’s genitals or inducing another to expose their genitals;
• Unwelcome physical contact (touching, patting, stroking, rubbing);
• Non-consensual sexual intercourse.
• Other gender-based threats, discrimination, intimidation, hazing, bullying, stalking, or violence

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Risk Intervention & Safety Education: Campus Climate & Incident Reporting Form

Speech Code Category: Policies on Bias and Hate Speech
Last updated: October 16, 2018

At Texas Tech, we are committed to an open and diverse society where each member of the Texas Tech community has the right to be treated with respect and dignity.

Because we deeply value tolerance and dignity, the University is committed to appropriately responding to incidents that impact our campus climate.

The Campus Climate Report is an electronic report that can be used by community member to express concerns about our campus climate or report an incident that you believe impacts our campus climate. The Campus Climate Report can be used to report:

• Hostile Environment
• Discrimination
• Bias Incidents
• Bullying
• Incivility
• Microaggressions
• Safety and Security Concerns
• Other incidents or concerns that impact the campus climate but are not listed above

After a report is filed, it is reviewed by the University’s Campus Climate Response Team and an appropriate response to the report is determined by the team. If the person who filed the report leaves contact information, a member of the Campus Climate Response Team will follow up with the reporter within 24 hours from the date the report was filed

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Student Handbook: Code of Student Conduct- Sexual Misconduct

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: October 16, 2018

c. Sexual Misconduct

1. Sexual Harassment
   Unwelcome sex-based verbal, written, or physical conduct when: … Such conduct has the purpose or effect of interfering with the individual’s work or educational performance or of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or educational environment. To constitute an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or educational environment, the complained of conduct must be either severe, persistent, or pervasive

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Student Handbook: Anti-Discrimination Policy

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: October 16, 2018

a. Discriminatory harassment is verbal or physical conduct that shows hostility toward an individual based on or related to sex, race, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or other protected categories, classes, or characteristics and that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational environment; has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with a student’s educational performance; adversely affects a student’s educational opportunities; and is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it adversely affects the victim’s education or creates an intimidating, hostile, abusive, or offensive educational environment which interferes with the student’s ability to realize the intended benefits of the University’s resources and opportunities.

b. Examples of inappropriate behavior that may constitute discriminatory harassment include, but are not limited to:

• Slurs and jokes about a protected class of persons or about a particular person based on protected status, such as sex or race;
• Display of explicit or offensive calendars, posters, pictures, drawings, cartoons, screen savers, e-mails, or other multi-media materials in any format that reflects disparagingly upon a class of persons or a particular person in a protected category;
• Derogatory remarks about a person’s national origin, race or other ethnic characteristic;
• Disparaging or disrespectful comments if such comments are made because of a person’s protected status;
• Loud or angry outbursts or obscenities in the academic environment directed toward another student, faculty, staff, or visitor; or
• Disparate treatment without a legitimate business reason; or
• Other threats, discrimination, hazing, bullying, stalking, or violence based on the referenced above a protected category, class, or characteristic.

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Information Technology Division: Misuse or Abuse of Computer Equipment, Programs, or Data

Speech Code Category: Internet Usage Policies
Last updated: October 16, 2018

Conduct for which disciplinary action may be taken–in relation to computer equipment, programs, or data–include, but are not limited to, the following: … Any violation of federal, state, or Texas Tech computer-use laws and policies or Code of Student Conduct.

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Student Handbook: Freedom of Expression Activities and Forum Areas

Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
Last updated: October 16, 2018

The open exchange of information, opinions, and ideas between students is an essential element of the campus experience. These policies are intended to protect the interests of all students as well as other members of the University community. These policies presume that students are generally free to engage in freedom of expression activities in those outdoor areas of campus that are common and accessible to all students (such as park-like areas and sidewalks) without the need of prior approval of the University.

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Student Handbook: Membership in the TTU Community

Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
Last updated: October 16, 2018

As members of the academic community, University students enjoy the privileges and share the obligations of the larger community of which the University is a part. … Freedom of discussion, inquiry and expression is protected and nurtured in the classroom as the safeguard of the freedom to learn.

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FIRE Applauds University of Nevada-Reno’s Dropping of ‘Speech Zones’

July 5, 2006

by Jim Brown Agape Press The University of Nevada at Reno (UNR) has eliminated so-called “speech zones” that limited student expression on campus. The university’s previous policy had designated only four small or remote areas on its grounds as “public forum” spaces while explicitly deeming the rest of the campus a non-public forum. The new policy adopted by the university, however, allows students to use the entire campus — except for the interior of buildings — to demonstrate, protest, or pass out flyers and newspapers. Student activists working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and the Foundation for […]

Hell no, we won’t go

April 20, 2006

Tech’s free-speech campus gives students outlet to voice opinions by Andrew Wood The Daily Toreador (Texas Tech Univ.) Global injustice. Gay marriage. War or no war. Spreading the Christian gospel.The free speech area at Texas Tech has been a forum for people to express their views on those topics and many other topics most people might not even know about. While some events are a peaceful protest, others end up with an atmosphere much like a World Wrestling Entertainment battle royal. The latest exhibition was an Injustice Wall, placed there by Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, a Tech student organization, earlier this […]

Speech Codes and the Future of Education

March 1, 2006

By Patrick Tucker at The Futurist [March–April 2006 issue, vol. 40, no. 2.]

UNCG in free speech battle

December 17, 2005

Two UNC-Greensboro students face discipline for protesting outside the university’s designated “free speech and assembly areas,” based on a policy that a national civil liberties organization calls unconstitutional. The students, Allison Jaynes and Robert Sinnott, were charged with a “violation of respect” under the student code of conduct at UNC-Greensboro after a Nov. 16 protest attended by about 40 people. The two students face disciplinary action that could range from a warning to a probation with restrictions. The demonstration outside the library by UNCG College Libertarians was aimed specifically at the university’s policy governing the location of protests on campus. […]

Free speech policy called into question

October 24, 2005

As an American citizen, one has a constitutional right to have and state opinions, but officials at college campuses around the country say there is a time and a place for it. This issue is not foreign to San Diego State. Free speech zones began to appear on college campuses during the 1980s as a way for university administrators to allow students to voice their opinions and put on demonstrations without inhibiting the surrounding learning environment, according to a May 2003 Associated Press article ,”Schools under fire for ‘free speech zones.’” But many believe the idea of “free-speech zones” on […]

Wronging student rights

September 3, 2005

By Greg Lukianoff in The Boston Globe As summer ends and college students return to campus, a number of dreadful court decisions may cause them to wonder if their rights have taken a permanent vacation. While the past decades have hardly been a golden age for student rights, there was good reason to be optimistic in recent years. Speech codes fell at colleges from New York to California, the Department of Education finally clarified that “harassment” does not mean just being offended, and Texas Tech University had to admit that its lone 20-foot-wide “free speech gazebo” was inadequate space for […]

FIRE Chalks Up Another Victory for Students’ Free-Speech Rights

May 16, 2005

The State University of New York at Brockport has agreed to repeal its speech code. It is the fourth consecutive victory for a Philadelphia-based group in its campaign against such codes on America’s public college and university campuses. Last June, with help from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), two students in the College Republican Club filed a federal lawsuit alleging that SUNY Brockport’s anti-harassment policies violated their free-speech rights. Under Brockport’s speech code, examples of harassment included “cartoons that depict religious figures in compromising situations,” calling someone an “old bag,” and “jokes … making fun of any […]

Liberating America’s Intellectual Gulags

April 15, 2005

David French knows what intimidation is. French, the new President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, graduated from Harvard Law School in the early 1990s. One might say that anyone with similar credentials ought to know the definition of intimidation – but French’s experience is a bit more personal than that.“As a pro-life, Christian conservative, I received death threats in my campus mailbox, was shouted down by students and (once) was even shouted down in class by my own professor,” he says about his years in Cambridge. French now spends much of his time explaining to university general […]

Colleges Must Educate Students About Value of Free Speech

December 29, 2004

by Greg Lukianoff at Daily Journal For those of you who are concerned about the state of free expression on campus, I would like to introduce you to Texas Tech University’s “Free Speech Gazebo.” The Gazebo is only 20 feet wide, and in early 2003, it was the sole area on campus where students could engage in free-speech activities – demonstrations, speeches or even handing out pamphlets – without clearing it with the university a minimum of six days in advance. To illustrate the lunacy of this policy, I asked one of my friends, who has a math degree from […]

Federal judge blocks free speech zones at Texas Tech

October 2, 2004

A federal judge has struck down a policy at Texas Tech requiring students to make public speeches in special free-speech zones.The ruling by U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2003 by two civil liberties groups on behalf of Jason Roberts, a former law student who has since graduated.The lawsuit claimed that the one location that Tech designated as a free-speech zone – a 20-foot wide gazebo that can hold about 40 people – and a policy that required a permit for speech at other campus locations were restrictive and violated students’ First and Fourteenth Amendments. […]

Confronting the campus radicals

January 7, 2004

David Horowitz thinks that anybody who cares about the future should confront the fact that U.S. colleges and universities are the fountainhead of financing for the radical movement in America. He has personally taken up the challenge to do something about this.Horowitz was a left-wing campus activist in the 1960s, but he says that men who were too radical even for him and Ramparts, the magazine he edited in the 1960s, now hold tenure at major universities. During the 1970s, these hardcore leftists achieved critical mass on university faculties, took control of hiring committees, and then saw to it that […]

Survey: many college students fuzzy on first amendment rights

January 1, 2004

PHILADELPHIA — One out of four college students in a nationwide survey was unable to name any of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment, according to a free-speech watchdog group.“These survey results are disheartening, but they unfortunately are not surprising,” says Alan Charles Kors, president of the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).Even among campus administrators who were surveyed, from presidents to assistant deans, 11 percent couldn’t name any specific First Amendment rights, the survey indicated. And when asked which freedom the amendment addresses first, only 2 percent of the students and 6 percent of the administrators […]

Universities become censorship zones

November 18, 2003

Laying Free Speech to Rest

November 4, 2003

By Sally Gunter at University Daily Dressed in black and pushing a wooden casket on a dolly, 10 members of Students for Free Speech conducted a funeral procession for free speech Monday morning. “What we are doing is laying free speech to rest due to the administration’s refusal to acknowledge the right of free speech,” said Brian Platt, a junior political science and history major from San Antonio. Platt dressed in a black robe and conducted a eulogy for free speech in the area between the Library and Student Union building. The group did not speak as they walked from […]

PCU

November 1, 2003

Students turn in petitions, demand Whitmore response

October 20, 2003

By Sally Gunter at University Daily Despite cancellation of a formal meeting with Texas Tech President Jon Whitmore, seven members of Students for Free Speech met Friday afternoon outside his office to turn in hundreds of signed petitions. The group had a meeting scheduled with Whitmore last week, but it was cancelled Tuesday following Monday’s media coverage of the campaign for additional petitions, said Brian Roa, a graduate student from Lubbock studying philosophy. The university told Roa the meeting was cancelled because he had not followed the correct bureaucratic steps, Roa said. Whitmore was unavailable for comment. Beth Robinson, a […]

Tech students fight for more speech freedom

October 16, 2003

By Sally Gunter at University Daily Despite the expansion of the free speech forum areas to six, some Texas Tech students are petitioning the university’s free speech policies. However, they are not petitioning in one of the designated areas. Instead, they appealed to students eating at the Market Monday afternoon. “I don’t care what the petition is about,” said Ethan Logan, assistant director for the Center for Campus Life. “Am I concerned about it? No. They’ve already done it.” Logan said Tech does not have rules that deny students their First Amendment rights. “We don’t inhibit or limit free speech […]

Free speech petition gathers signatures

October 14, 2003

By Sally Gunter at University Daily The Students for Free Speech passed out petitions in the Stangel/Murdough dining hall Monday in an effort to challenge Texas Tech free speech policies. Tech students and visitors from University Day crowded the Market dining hall at 1 p.m. as about nine members of the organization recruited people to sign petitions addressed to President Jon Whitmore. “We are collecting them all and are going to find a unique way to turn them in,” said Sean Boyle, a junior sociology major from Keller and member of the Students for Free Speech. The organization has about […]

How Campus Censors Squelch Freedom of Speech

July 14, 2003

Free Speech Curbs Attacked at Another University

June 16, 2003

Tech officials hit with free-speech lawsuit

June 13, 2003

By Sebastian Kitchen at Lubbock Online A Texas Tech law student filed a federal lawsuit against university officials Thursday, claiming they violated his and other students’ First Amend ment right to free speech. The suit states that the university’s policies inhibit free speech and the ability to speak out and distribute literature. The lawsuit comes after Tech officials already have begun addressing freespeech issues and after unsuccessful communication with The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has spurred a nationwide movement about the issue. FIRE is attempting “to bring down every unconstitutional speech code in the country,” said its […]

Law student sues Texas Tech over free speech zones

June 13, 2003

Lawsuit claims Tech curbing free speech

June 13, 2003

Texas Tech Dean of Students Approves of Lack of Procedural Safeguards for Accused Students

April 28, 2015

Earlier this week, Texas Tech University student newspaper the Daily Toreador reported on elements of the student judicial process that have inspired mixed reactions from students and some worrying remarks from administrators. Many of the comments from the Texas Tech community reflect the worryingly common presumption that students accused of conduct code violations are guilty. At times, students and administrators even seem to forget the seriousness of the charges handled by the university’s disciplinary system. The Daily Toreador reports: Amy Murphy, Tech dean of students, said the process is a learning opportunity for students, and administration tries to ensure it […]

New (and, Fortunately, Failed) Disinvitation Attempts Span Political Spectrum

February 12, 2015

Last year, FIRE published a report detailing the growing trend of “disinvitations” of invited speakers on college campuses. This month, students at Texas Tech University and Saint Louis University (SLU) are proving that “disinvitation season” is taking place throughout the year, and that demands for revoked invitations for speakers are not limited to one side of the political spectrum. Tonight, political activist and professor Angela Davis will be speaking on a panel at Texas Tech as part of the school’s African American History Month Lecture Series. However, some members of the campus community, among them the school’s College Republicans group, […]

Commencement Invitation Drama Continues; Free Speech Advocates Speak Out

May 9, 2014

This spring, FIRE has already brought you the news of women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali being disinvited from speaking at Brandeis University, Condoleezza Rice canceling her commencement speech at Rutgers University after some students objected to her invitation, and Pasadena City College disinviting and then re-inviting Academy Award-winning writer Dustin Lance Black. It’s been a pretty active “disinvitation season” so far, and free speech advocates are speaking up about why this trend is so worrying.

Speech Code of the Month: Colorado Mesa University

April 7, 2014

FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for April 2014: Colorado Mesa University. Colorado Mesa’s policy on “Free Speech” limits students’ expressive activities to just one “concrete patio” on the university’s 86-acre campus. While the university has the right to enact reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, courts have held time and again that onerous restrictions like this one are not reasonable.

Hearing Today in ‘Free Speech Zone’ Lawsuit in Texas

January 12, 2010

The Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas) is reporting on today’s hearing in federal court regarding FIRE’s case at Tarrant County College (TCC). As Torch readers will remember, TCC violated the constitutional rights of student protesters who intended to participate in the national “Students for Concealed Carry on Campus” protest by wearing empty holsters—just like students around the country were doing. The students were told that they could not wear the holsters anywhere on campus and had to confine all protests to tiny “free speech zones.” Ultimately, with the help of FIRE and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the students […]

FIRE’s Will Creeley Discusses Texas Tech’s Speech Code Rating on Local News Broadcast

December 16, 2009

Yesterday, FOX34 News in Lubbock, Texas, ran a segment on Texas Tech University’s “red-light” rating in FIRE’s Spotlight database. The university earned this rating because of language in its policy on e-mail and computer use that restricts freedom of expression by stating that The use of computers and the network is a privilege, not a right–a privilege that may be temporarily or even permanently revoked at any time for abusive conduct. Such conduct would include … the use of abusive or otherwise objectionable language in either public or private messages …..  Will Creeley, FIRE’s Director of Legal and Public Advocacy, […]

Organization battling Tech on freedom of speech rights

December 15, 2009

Some of Tech’s policies are drawing fire from FIRE the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. In 2004, this national organization coordinated a successful legal challenge resulting in expanded free speech zones on Tech’s campus and a re-write of the university’s speech code. Now FIRE is giving Tech a “red light” rating for policies it deems restricts freedom of expression by students and faculty using university computers and email. FIRE’s Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Will Creeley says the issue is policy dependence on subjective standards. “By granting university administrators the power to decide what speech is and is not objectionable, the […]

Universities’ Compliance with Speech Code Decisions Leaves Much to Be Desired

September 24, 2009

FIRE’s newest Justice Robert H. Jackson Legal Fellow is Erica Goldberg. Erica is a graduate of Tufts University, where she was editor-in-chief of Tufts’ weekly newspaper, and of Stanford Law School, where she was a member of the moot court board. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ronald L. Gilman on the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where she was confronted with various deprivations of freedom of expression. Before becoming a Robert H. Jackson fellow, Erica worked for two years as an appellate attorney at Latham & Watkins in Washington D.C. and then as […]

This Month in FIRE History: Lawsuit Challenges Speech Code and “Free Speech Gazebo” at Texas Tech

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 […]

Questions Surround Proposed ‘Free Speech Zone’ at Northeastern Illinois University

December 19, 2008

Deanna Isaacs of the Chicago Reader reports troubling developments at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), a public university in Chicago. According to Isaacs, NEIU President Sharon K. Hahs has proposed instituting an unconstitutional free speech zone on the NEIU campus, with prior approval requirements that put an impermissible onus on students and faculty members seeking to exercise their constitutional rights of assembly and demonstration. FIRE has not yet seen Hahs’ proposed policy, but if Isaacs’ description is accurate the implications are breathtaking: Proposed by university president Sharon K. Hahs, the Policy Concerning Demonstrations on Campus, Distribution and Display of Visual Communications […]

American Public Universities Take Cue from Singapore

June 28, 2007

When you think of a place where order takes precedence over liberty, where the government regulates every minute aspect of civil life, you may well think of Singapore. Over the years, Singapore has made the news for everything from caning an American teenager for vandalism to banning chewing gum to fining people for failing to flush public toilets. But if you think Singapore and the United States don’t have much in common, think again. We need only look to that supposed bastion of liberty—the American university—to find common ground.   Singapore maintains a Speakers’ Corner (you can see a picture […]

Emmett Hogan on 2006: The More Things Change…?

January 5, 2007

Emmett Hogan is a student at University of Michigan Law School and a luminary early FIRE employee. As we looked back on 2006 in campus rights and abuses I wanted to check in with him for his thoughts on the past year in FIRE history. This was his thoughtful response: One of FIRE’s most gripping cases from 2006 involved a breathtaking exercise in thought reform by Michigan State University. FIRE publicly challenged what MSU calls a “Student Accountability in Community Seminar” (SAC) which is intended to address student behavior that administrators consider unacceptable; the seminar is successful only when it […]

The Trouble with Free Speech Zones

June 24, 2005

The Daytona Beach News-Journal article that Charles discusses below highlights the controversy over many public universities’ “free speech zone” policies—policies that limit free speech to specific, and often tiny, areas of campus. FIRE President David French is quoted as saying that free speech zone policies are “very common”—“[i]t’s gotten to the point where if I’m looking at a policy and I don’t see free-speech zones, I’m shocked.” Universities often try to justify restrictive free speech zones by arguing that they are “reasonable time, place, and manner” regulations that are permissible under First Amendment law. However, free speech zone policies like […]

Play Nice or Else

March 17, 2005

Everybody loves free speech until they’re the one offended. Then somebody had better pay. Or so it would seem at the University of North Texas, where the residue from a student protest six weeks ago finds a Hispanic organization searching for vindication, a conservative group refusing to apologize and a university chancellor failing to appease all sides. “We have a long way to go in all this,” says the aforementioned chancellor, Lee Jackson. They do indeed–with nothing less than the First Amendment on the line. But first, some background. The Young Conservatives of Texas, a student organization that takes stances […]

Bigger in Texas?

February 22, 2005

Responding to our recent post about the University of North Texas, a reader from Texas wrote: Well, I appreciate your understanding of the scale of things here in Texas. I noticed that, in your discussion of the fun at North Texas, you made reference to “nearby Texas Tech.” We are about 300 miles from North Texas. Yeah, that’s sorta “nearby” in Texas. Great point and thanks for writing! The scale of Texas plays havoc with my New York mind. I looked it up, UNT and TTU are therefore ten Rhode Islands away from each other! Not shocking to Texans, I […]

Calls for Censorship in Texas

February 21, 2005

The Denton, Texas, Record-Chronicle carried a story on Saturday (registration required) about an uproar over a free-expression issue at the University of North Texas. Apparently, the university chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) at UNT held a “Capture an Illegal Immigrant” event to draw attention to what they see as the problem of illegal immigration in Texas (you can read about it in the UNT student paper or read a bunch of articles about it at the UNT YCT website). Basically, YCT had a few students around campus put on orange shirts with the words “Illegal Immigrant” on […]

This Month in FIRE History: FIRE Declares Free Speech Should Not Be Quarantined to Tiny ‘Free Speech Zones’

February 17, 2005

Three years ago this month, back when FIRE was in its toddlerhood, we won our very first victory in the battle against so-called Free Speech Zones. These “speech zone” policies restrict free speech and expression to tiny corners of campus and have been identified (and often defeated, thankfully) at dozens of campuses across the country. West Virginia University has the dubious distinction of being our first “speech zone” case. The university’s policy stated: “Due to the limitations of space on the downtown campus, the two designated areas for free speech and assembly will be the amphitheater area of the Mountainlair […]

Texas Tech’s ‘Free-Speech Zones’ Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

October 15, 2004

A federal judge has struck down “free-speech zones” at Texas Tech University, ruling unconstitutional a requirement that students who wish to give speeches must stay within a designated area. The case was brought by Jason Roberts, a law student who had sought to speak publicly about his view that “homosexuality is a sinful, immoral, and unhealthy lifestyle.” He asked administrators for permission to give the speech outside the designated zone — a 20-foot-wide gazebo that can hold about 40 people. According to the lawsuit, officials turned down the request, saying that it was “the expression of a personal belief and thus […]

Fraternities Must Stand Up to Schools’ Squelching Free Speech

October 11, 2004

While there is no shortage of free-speech battles on college campuses, fraternities have the dubious honor of being at the center of many of the least-sympathetic controversies. From Halloween parties where brothers show up dressed as Ku Klux Klan members to fraternity newsletters that graphically relate a brother’s sexual exploits with named co-eds, fraternities sometimes express themselves in ways that are not exactly likely to win the battle for hearts and minds. However, although fraternities later may regret the actions of some of their brothers, they must not allow their rights to be stripped away by overzealous or opportunistic administrators. […]

Victory for Free Speech at Texas Tech

October 5, 2004

LUBBOCK, Texas, October 5, 2004—In the third victory in the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE’s) ongoing legal campaign for free speech on America’s public campuses, a federal judge struck down Texas Tech University’s speech code. The judge also ordered large areas of the university to be opened to free expression and prohibited the university from enforcing several other severe limitations on speech. The case against Texas Tech was coordinated by FIRE and filed by the Liberty Legal Institute and the Alliance Defense Fund against Texas Tech President Donald R. Haragan as part of FIRE’s ongoing Speech Codes Litigation […]

Federal Judge Throws Out ‘Free-Speech Zones’ at Texas Tech

October 4, 2004

Free-speech ruling goes against Tech

October 2, 2004

Practical Advice for Fraternities Caught in the Battle for Free Speech on Campus

September 16, 2004

I. Introduction While there is no shortage of free speech battles on college campuses, fraternities have the dubious honor of being at the center of many of the least sympathetic controversies. From Halloween parties where brothers show up dressed as Ku Klux Klan members to fraternity newsletters that graphically relate a brother’s sexual exploits with named co-eds, fraternities sometimes express themselves in ways that are not exactly likely to win the battle for hearts and minds. However, although fraternities may later regret the actions of some of their brothers, they must not allow their rights to be stripped away by […]

Texas Tech Loosens Speech Restrictions, But Some Repressive Policies Remain

December 9, 2003

LUBBOCK, TX—In response to the pressure of a free-speech lawsuit and student demands for constitutional rights, Texas Tech University is backing away from at least some of its severe restrictions upon free expression. In July, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) coordinated a lawsuit to force Texas Tech—a public university with 28,000 students—to eliminate a speech code that had designated only one 280-square-foot gazebo for free speech. In response, the university has greatly expanded the number of free speech zones from one small area to six substantially larger areas. “We are heartened that the suit and student activism […]