School Spotlight

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Type: Public
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Speech Code Rating

University of Nevada, Las Vegas 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

  • Student Conduct Code: Student Rights and Responsibilities- Student Responsibilities

    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: April 18, 2018

    S. Harassment, which is any verbal, visual, electronic, or physical conduct that is sufficiently severe, and/or ongoing that it adversely affects, or has the purpose or logical consequence of interfering with any student’s educational program; or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment within the ... Read More

  • Policy Against Discrimination and Sexual Harassment

    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: April 18, 2018

    Under this policy, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual or gender bias nature constitute sexual harassment when: … The conduct has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual’s academic or work performanc... Read More

  • Student Conduct Code: Student Rights and Responsibilities- Student Rights

    Speech Code Category: Advertised Commitments to Free Expression
    Last updated: April 18, 2018

    As members of the University community, students can reasonably expect all the guarantees and protections afforded students of public institutions, including: … The right to engage in inquiry and discussion, to exchange thought and opinion, and to speak, write, and print freely on any subject in accordance wit... Read More

  • Policy on Speech and Advocacy in Public Areas

    Speech Code Category: Protest and Demonstration Policies
    Last updated: April 18, 2018

    The University grounds are open to the public except those locations where such activity would significantly interfere with and/or disrupt University business (e.g. immediately adjacent to classrooms, where teaching and learning would be disrupted, or narrow walkways or corridors, where the free flow of foot-traffic... Read More

  • Student Conduct Code: Student Rights and Responsibilities- Student Responsibilities

    Speech Code Category: Harassment Policies
    Last updated: April 18, 2018

    Threatening, assaulting, or causing physical harm to oneself or to another. Uttering any words or performing any acts that cause physical injury, or threaten any individual, or interfere with any individual’s rightful actions, including but not limited to the following: 1. words or actions that would cause an indivi... Read More
At present, FIRE has not been involved in any cases at this school.

  • Former Nevada ACLU Head: “Those Who Would Stifle Speech Should Beware”

    December 14, 2016

    Students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) are calling for the head of George Buch, a part-time math instructor at UNLV, after he joked on Facebook that he would alert Immigration and Customs Enforcement about any undocumented students in his class. The student activists have demanded a meeting with UNLV President Len Jessup… Read more

  • UNLV’s Free Speech Zone Too Far from Tonight’s Presidential Debate

    October 19, 2016

    People wishing to express their opinions outside tonight’s third and final presidential debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ (UNLV’s) Thomas & Mack Center should prepare for a long walk. A “public expression area” has been set up at 4700 Paradise Road, more than half a mile from the debate hall. Google Maps estimates… Read more

  • Pressure from Gaming Industry Leads UNLV to Disregard Academic Freedom

    November 14, 2014

    What happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas. This is especially true of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s (UNLV’s) disregard for academic freedom, recently exposed by The Ralston Report and covered by Inside Higher Ed. The controversy arose in August after the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER), an independent think tank… Read more

  • ‘Las Vegas Review-Journal’ Tells UNLV to Commit to Free Speech

    September 4, 2014

    Yesterday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an editorial lamenting that students are returning to college campuses where free speech too often falls victim to speech codes. As the editorial notes, opposition to the First Amendment is all too common on campus. Using FIRE’s recent case at the University of Oregon as an example, where a… Read more

  • ‘Las Vegas Review-Journal’ Calls on UNLV to Abandon Speech Codes

    July 9, 2014

    FIRE is pleased that so many media outlets have covered the project’s launch. But in addition to the news coverage reporting on the project, I am thrilled that the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal recently ran an editorial urging my alma mater, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), to abandon its speech codes. (The Review-Journal actually ran another editorial last month urging UNLV to hire as its new president “a strong free-speech advocate to lead the university.”)

  • ‘Las Vegas Review-Journal’ Urges Nevada Schools to Repeal Speech Codes

    January 27, 2014

    If the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) don’t get it, at least the Las Vegas Review-Journal does: UNLV and UNR, as public institutions, cannot maintain their broad and vague prohibitions on “offensive” or “disrespect[ful]” speech. The Review-Journal spoke with FIRE’s Samantha Harris for an editorial published yesterday explaining how the Nevada schools earned their “red… Read more

  • Runnin’ Rebel with a Cause: Protecting the First Amendment

    September 18, 2012

    In April of 2011, my colleague Azhar Majeed wrote to University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) President Neal Smatresk urging him to revise two policies (UNLV’s Statement on Diversity in the University Community and its Student Computer Use Policy) that violated the First Amendment by restricting constitutionally protected speech.  When I joined FIRE’s staff in… Read more

  • Compelling ‘Civility’

    June 1, 2012

    Earlier this week, an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) discussed the growing popularity on college campuses of programs aimed at promoting civility. While one might reasonably ask whether there is a connection between exorbitant tuition rates, administrative bloat, and programs such as the "transformational, saturation approach" civility projects discussed in the… Read more

  • Administrative Priorities at UNLV Law

    March 11, 2011

    From TaxProfBlog comes word that the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which needs to fill a $2.26 million budget hole at its William S. Boyd School of Law, has decided to raise law school tuition and fees by a total of approximately $2.2 million (a 15-20 percent hike to the $20,000 in-state tuition and $33,400 out-of-state tuition for… Read more

  • Similar Story, Different School – Magazine Vandalized at UNLV

    February 22, 2011

    On February 7, an article was ripped out of several copies of The Vagus Nerve, a monthly art and literature magazine of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and then symbolically defaced with Twinkies. The article in question argued that some girls should wear jeans instead of leggings and also "put down the Twinkie." This appears… Read more

  • Editorial Teaches Critics of the ‘UNLV Civility Statement’ about the True Purpose of Higher Education

    January 31, 2011

    Recently, the University of Nevada – Las Vegas (UNLV) released the "UNLV Civility Statement," which urges students to act civilly, but welcomes "unpopular and unsettling ideas" as an integral part of intellectual inquiry. In response, The Rebel Yell, UNLV’s campus newspaper, published a misguided editorial that called upon the administration to punish acts of incivility. Today, the… Read more

  • UNLV Adopts New Civility Statement, But Keeps It Strictly Aspirational

    January 25, 2011

    As reported by the Rebel Yell student newspaper last week, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Faculty Senate has approved a new civility policy statement that expresses the university’s intent to foster civil expression on campus. The statement will appear online as a supplement to the university’s existing policy on hate crimes. The adoption of… Read more

  • Rights in the News: FIRE’s Thought Reform Efforts Continue to Resonate

    May 1, 2009

    It seems like every week we’re reporting that FIRE’s short film on the University of Delaware’s experiment in thought reform has doubled the amount of views received on YouTube from the week before—a trend I’m all too happy to continue. This week the folks at Reason (which—throwback!—published Alan Charles Kors’ article "Thought Reform 101" back… Read more

  • Under Pressure, UNLV Scraps Proposed Bias Incident Policy

    April 29, 2009

    In a victory for freedom of speech and conscience on campus, the chancellor of the University of Nevada system has ordered UNLV to rewrite a proposed bias incident policy that drew the ire of free speech activists, including FIRE and the ACLU of Nevada. According to an article in the Las Vegas Sun, Chancellor Jim… Read more

  • Le Moyne, Occidental, UNLV Top the List in the ‘2005 Campus Outrage Awards’

    April 1, 2005

    Today the Collegiate Network released its “2005 Campus Outrage Awards,” and Le Moyne College received a not-so-coveted first-place award for dismissing student Scott McConnell for advocating corporal punishment. In addition to this dubious distinction, McConnell’s case has been covered by The New York Times, NPR, The Baltimore Sun, The American Spectator, The Post-Standard, and the Christian… Read more