University of Maine System Student Conduct Code: Violations

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: October 19, 2017

The following violations indicate categories of conduct or activity which violate the Code. … Harassment or Intimidation: Unwelcome behavior that creates a hostile or intimidating working, educational, or living environment or behavior that unreasonably interferes with an individual’s academic or job performance and opportunities.

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Freedom of Speech and Assembly Policy

Speech Code Category: Protest and Demonstration Policies
Last updated: October 19, 2017

Campus grounds generally are open to students, employees, University groups and sponsoring organizations for expressive activity during university business hours. Under certain circumstances restrictions may be placed on the usage of a designated area, such as time, place and manner, coordination of multiple uses of limited space, to preserve the rights and health and safety of others and to ensure the preservation of personal and University property, and in those circumstances, a permit will be required to engage in the expressive activity.

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Sexual Harassment Policy

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: October 19, 2017

Sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, including sexual assault and sexual violence. Sexual harassment, including sexual assault, can involve persons of the same or opposite sex. Consistent with the law, this policy prohibits two types of sexual harassment: …

2. Hostile Environment: Sexual harassment that creates a hostile environment is based on sex and exists when the harassment:

1. Is severe, pervasive, or persistent, and objectively offensive such that it denies or limits a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s programs, services, opportunities, or activities; or
2. Unreasonably interferes with an individual’s academic or work performance. A hostile environment can be created by anyone involved in a University program or activity, such as an administrator, faculty or staff member, student, or campus guest. Offensiveness alone is not enough to create a hostile environment. Although repeated incidents increase the likelihood that a hostile environment has been created, a single serious incident, such as a sexual assault, can be sufficient.

Determining whether conduct creates a hostile environment depends not only on whether the conduct was unwelcome to the person who feels harassed, but also whether a reasonable person in a similar situation would have perceived the conduct as objectively offensive.

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Board of Trustees Policy Manual: Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Civility

Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
Last updated: October 19, 2017

The Board of Trustees is committed to protecting the rights all University community members share to free speech, which includes free expression and assembly, as enshrined in the U.S. and Maine State Constitutions. There shall be no restriction at any System institutions on these fundamental rights, although the University may prohibit speech that violates the law, defames specific individuals, genuinely threatens or harasses others, or violates privacy or confidentiality requirements or interests. The University may also reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of the exercise of these rights to preserve order for the System’s universities to function as institutions of higher learning.

Free speech requires tolerance for diversity of opinion and respect for an individual’s right to express his or her beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of sanction. Tolerating and respecting another’s views, however, does not mean those views are immune from critical scrutiny. Indeed, it is the university’s responsibility to foster an environment where all are free to critically evaluate the ideas presented to them, and to accept critical evaluation of their own ideas.

Finally, although the University System greatly values civility and expects community members to share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, demands for civility and mutual respect will not be used to justify restricting the discussion or expression of ideas or speech that may be disagreeable or even offensive to some members of the University community. Free speech is not absolute, and one person’s claim to exercise his or her right to free speech may not be used to deny another person’s right to free speech.

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Creating wimps at University of Maine

November 7, 2006

By Jason Antebi at Family Security Matters There is one thing we definitely do not need during a time of war: wimpy Americans. Unfortunately for students at the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI), the manly men that enroll as freshmen may graduate a pansy, due to the absurd campus atmosphere of political correctness.   As the Foundation for Rights in Education (FIRE) notes on their blog The Torch, UMPI has a remarkably foolish (and not to mention unconstitutional) anti-harassment rule. According to their handbook:  Even if the harassment is unintentional (e.g., an off-hand comment or joke) it still […]

Speech Code of the Month: University of Maine – Presque Isle

November 3, 2006

FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for November 2006: University of Maine – Presque Isle. The University of Maine – Presque Isle’s (UMPI’s) Residence Hall Guide contains a harassment policy that states: “Even if the harassment is unintentional (e.g., an off-hand comment or joke) it still occurs and will not be tolerated.” As a public university, UMPI cannot prohibit speech that is protected by the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court has defined what schools may legitimately prohibit as harassment: conduct “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity […]