Student Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures: Student Code of Conduct

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: July 17, 2016

Physical abuse, verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion, and/or other conduct that threatens or unreasonably endangers the mental or physical health, safety or reputation of any person or oneself, including any such conduct achieved through means of social media or any other means of electronic communication.

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Rights and Responsibilities as a Resident

Speech Code Category: Policies on Tolerance, Respect, and Civility
Last updated: July 17, 2016

Inappropriate behavior or unlawful activities may result in immediate termination of your residence hall contract (regular cancellation fees will apply), your relocation to another hall and/or referral to the Office of the Dean of Students or the appropriate law enforcement body. Such violations include, but are not limited to the following: …

• Abuse (physical or verbal) and/or battery of a resident or staff member …
• Other inappropriate behavior deemed so by Housing personnel.

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Facilities Maintenance & Operations: Use of Outdoor Spaces

Speech Code Category: Protest and Demonstration Policies
Last updated: July 17, 2016

Student organizations need to obtain approval for outdoor activities through the Office for Student Involvement.

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Student Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures: Appendix A- Response to Allegations of Student Sexual Misconduct

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: July 17, 2016

“Sexual harassment” is unwelcome conduct or behavior of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Conduct that is sufficiently serious to limit or deny student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s educational program creates a hostile environment, and is prohibited.

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Student Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures

Speech Code Category: Internet Usage Policies
Last updated: July 17, 2016

Use of computing facilities and resources to send obscene or abusive messages.

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UNL Bias Response: Bias FAQs and Terminology

Speech Code Category: Policies on Bias and Hate Speech
Last updated: July 17, 2016

What is a bias incident or hostile climate action?

Any demeaning, derogatory, or otherwise offensive behavior directed toward an individual on the basis of sex, gender identity or expression, race/ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, ability/disability, or other group or personal characteristic may qualify as a bias incident or hostile climate action.

[…]

Why should I report a bias incident?

Engaging in behavior that demeans any individual or group member is contrary to the values of the university community. Bias incidents and hostile climate actions divide our community, diminish an individual’s sense of belonging and participation, and undermine the university’s goals of creating and maintaining a welcoming and inclusive community for all of its members. UNL needs your help in responding to these situations. The purpose of reporting is not to start a punitive action but to allow the university to address incidents and respond in other ways using education, speaking out, and/or other appropriate means. Any disciplinary measures will be initiated in compliance with university policies and in accordance with the law.

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Policy and Procedures on Unlawful Discrimination, Including Sexual and Other Prohibited Harassment

Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
Last updated: July 17, 2016

Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, unwelcome requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when: … Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with the individual’s work or academic performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or academic environment.

…

No person shall contribute to a hostile or abusive environment at UNL based upon race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status or sexual orientation (collectively “protected status”) by engaging in harassing conduct (e.g. physical, verbal, graphic, or written) that is unwelcome and sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent so as to clearly interfere with or limit the ability of (1) a student to participate in or benefit from the services, activities or privileges provided by UNL; or (2) an employee to engage in his or her work duties.

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Student Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures: Appendix B- Policy for Responsible Use of University Computers and Information Systems

Speech Code Category: Internet Usage Policies
Last updated: July 17, 2016

Misuse includes the following: … Using electronic communications to harass or threaten users in such a way as to create an atmosphere which unreasonably interferes with the education or the employment experience. Similarly, electronic communications shall not be used to harass or threaten other information recipients, in addition to University users. … Personal use of any University information system to access, download, print, store, forward, transmit or distribute obscene material. … Obscene with respect to obscene material shall mean (1) that an average person applying contemporary community standards would find the material taken as a whole predominantly appeals to the prurient interest or a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, (2) the material depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically set out in Neb. Rev. Stat. 28-807 to 28-809, as amended, and (3) the material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

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Indian Group That Profited Off Drunkenness For Years Complains About Cheeky College Football Shirt

September 14, 2015

By Matt Lamb at The College Fix UPDATED College warned against wearing the dreamcatcher shirt to first game of the year A college administrator’s public warning not to wear an offensive T-shirt at the first football game of the season now appears to have been all bluster. The shirt depicts a popular tailgaiting spot for University of Nebraska-Lincoln games that netted its owner, a Native American community center, handsome profits for several years. The creator of the shirt fought back against the school’s warning against wearing its wares, arguing that those who are offended are hypocrites. The two versions of […]

6 of 10 universities can’t figure out 1st Amendment

December 20, 2012

by Bob Unruh at WND More than six of 10 colleges and universities across the United States have yet to figure out the First Amendment, because their “speech codes” conflict with the Constitution, according to a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “FIRE surveyed 409 schools for this report and found that over 62 percent maintain severely restrictive, ‘red-light’ speech codes – policies that clearly and substantially prohibit protected speech,” said the executive summary. “That this figure is so large is deeply troubling, but there is good news: for the fifth year in a row, the percentage of schools maintaining […]

How free is ‘abusive’ speech?

December 1, 2009

The Nebraska Supreme Court will take up a free speech case this week involving a college student’s angry e-mails to a professor running for political office. The student, Darren Drahota, was charged with disturbing the peace and fined $250 in Lancaster County for sending e-mails in 2006 to his former political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, State Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln. At the time, Avery was running for his seat in the Legislature. The Nebraska Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in June, and a UCLA law professor appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is […]

Game-day politicking ban put on hold

September 4, 2004

LINCOLN — Nebraska regents may weigh in on whether Memorial Stadium — or for that matter an entire campus — is the right place for political campaigning.Regent Randy Ferlic of Omaha criticized Friday a new University of Nebraska-Lincoln policy banning campaign activity at Cornhusker football games.”I look at this as an abridgment of the expression of free speech,” Ferlic said. Ferlic said he will initiate a discussion of the issue at next Friday’s regular Board of Regents meeting. In the face of strong reactions from the two major political parties and questions by some regents, Chancellor Harvey Perlman decided Friday […]

Thought Reform 101

March 1, 2000

At Wake Forest University last fall, one of the few events designated as “mandatory” for freshman orientation was attendance at Blue Eyed, a filmed racism awareness workshop in which whites are abused, ridiculed, made to fail, and taught helpless passivity so that they can identify with “a person of color for a day.” In Swarthmore College’s dormitories, in the fall of 1998, first-year students were asked to line up by skin color, from lightest to darkest, and to step forward and talk about how they felt concerning their place in that line. Indeed, at almost all of our campuses, some […]

Nebraska President Releases Pro-Speech Statement on Husker Players’ Anthem Protest

September 28, 2016

University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds released a statement this morning expressing strong support for free speech amid criticism of three Husker football players who knelt during the national anthem at their game on Saturday. Citing both the First Amendment and a Nebraska Board of Regents policy that promises “the right to disagree, speak freely and be heard,” Bounds said he strongly supported both the rights of the three Husker players—Michael Rose-Ivey, DaiShon Neal and Mohamed Barry—to kneel in protest and the rights of others to express support or disagreement in return: The same freedoms that protect their speech also protect our […]

University of Nebraska Student Senator Faces Impeachment Over Remarks Made During Debate

November 25, 2013

Following comments made during a debate over the free speech ramifications of a proposed resolution, a student senator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) is facing a hearing and potential impeachment. While opposing a resolution pledging to remove “derogatory language” from its members’ vocabulary, Association of Students of the University of Nebraska (ASUN) Senator Cameron Murphy argued that context matters and that words should not be banned wholesale simply because they are considered “offensive” or “derogatory” per se. In doing so, he quoted and discussed comedian Chris Rock’s “Niggas vs. Black People” routine and related a personal story about being called a “cracker.” Murphy concluded that “[r]estricting […]

David Moshman: ‘Sexual Harassment Is Wrong Because It Is Harassment, Not Because It Is Sexual’

May 24, 2013

In light of the Departments of Education and Justice’s new federal "blueprint" for campus sexual harassment policies, David Moshman, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, writes for The Huffington Post today to share a story that would be funny if it weren’t true.  At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) a psychology graduate student named Toni Blake studied and taught human sexuality. One day in 1993 Blake brought a banana to a class session on contraception and used it to illustrate the application of a condom. Warning about the danger of impregnation prior to ejaculation, she joked that […]

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Student Thankful for School’s ‘Green Light’

February 21, 2013

In an op-ed published in today’s edition of The Daily Nebraskan, an independent student newspaper at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), graduate student Benjamin Welch writes about the importance of having a diversity of ideas on campus, even when those ideas might offend others. Welch writes: Regardless, when a truly diverse population exists, as many universities strive for, a person of a particular persuasion or belief system taking offense to an action or speech of another is an inevitable byproduct. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Knowledge and finding oneself is the cornerstone of the college experience, and a facet […]

Victory for First Amendment: Nebraska Supreme Court Exonerates Student Charged with “Breach of the Peace” for Two E-mails

September 24, 2010

In a victory for the First Amendment, the Nebraska Supreme Court has reversed a college student’s conviction for breach of the peace for sending two anonymous e-mails to his professor. In the e-mails, University of Nebraska student Darren Drahota had criticized the professor, who was also running for the state legislature at the time, for his political views and questioned his patriotism. The professor alerted the police to the e-mails, resulting in a conviction for disturbing the peace that was upheld on appeal by the Nebraska Court of Appeals. In its decision in State v. Drahota, the Nebraska Supreme Court […]

Nebraska ‘Breach of the Peace’ Case Reaches Oral Argument, Receives Local Media Attention

December 4, 2009

An important First Amendment case in which a University of Nebraska student was found guilty of breaching the peace for two anonymous e-mails he sent to his college professor went to oral argument this week before the Nebraska Supreme Court. As Torch readers may recall, FIRE submitted an amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief in the case, in which student Darren Drahota criticized the political views of his professor and questioned his patriotism. The case has generated a significant amount of local press coverage in the past week, including in the Lincoln Journal-Star, Omaha World-Herald, and Lexington Clipper-Herald, and on Nebraska.TV. (Nebraska also […]

FIRE Files Amicus Brief in Important ‘Breach of the Peace’ Case

November 20, 2009

Earlier this week, FIRE filed an amicus brief with the Nebraska Supreme Court in an important First Amendment case involving political e-mails sent by a student to his university professor. FIRE wrote the brief on behalf of Darren Drahota, a University of Nebraska student who was criminally convicted of disturbing the peace based on two anonymous e-mails sent to his political science professor, current Nebraska state senator Bill Avery. You can read an article in the Lincoln Journal Star about the case here. In a decision that would pose a clear threat to First Amendment rights if allowed to stand, […]

Anne Neal in ‘The New Republic’ on UNL and Bill Ayers

December 9, 2008

Check out Anne Neal’s article in The New Republic on the disinvitation of Bill Ayers from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in October. Anne, the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and a First Amendment lawyer, writes: UNL had invited Bill Ayers, now a University of Illinois at Chicago professor, to speak at its education college’s centennial celebration. A day after the invitation was publicized and the school was bombarded with emails and phone calls, UNL chancellor Harvey Perlman revoked the invitation, citing “security concerns.” Let there be no question: Professor Ayers’ past behavior and involvement […]

Questions Remain Following University of Nebraska–Lincoln President’s Letter Concerning Ayers Cancellation

November 18, 2008

For a few weeks now, FIRE has been monitoring the situation at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) following the cancellation of a speech by William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a founding member of the Weather Underground, a group responsible for the bombings of several public buildings—including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol—during the 1960s and 70s. Ayers’ speech was abruptly cancelled by UNL on “safety” grounds after the publicity generated by his relationship with now President-elect Barack Obama drew attention to his activist history. Nebraska’s governor and attorney general, as well […]

At University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Cancellation of Ayers’ Speech Raises Troubling Questions

October 20, 2008

This past Friday, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) announced the cancellation of a November speech by William Ayers, citing unspecified “safety concerns” as grounds for the move. According to UNL’s statement, the school’s “threat assessment group” had been monitoring e-mails and had received “other information” suggesting a potential threat to security. No further details have yet been provided. Ayers is currently a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was also a founding member of the Weather Underground, a group responsible for bombing the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and other government buildings in the 1960s and […]

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 […]