Free Speech Zone - On College and University Campuses

On College and University Campuses

The use of free speech zones on university campuses is controversial. Many universities created on-campus free speech zones during the 1960s and 1970s, during which protests on-campus (especially against the Vietnam War) were common. Generally, the requirements are that the university is given advance notice and that they are held in locations that do not disrupt classes.

In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that non-disruptive speech is permitted in public schools. However, this does not apply to private universities. In September 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Sam Cummings struck down the free speech zone policy at Texas Tech University. "According to the opinion of the court, campus areas such as parks, sidewalks, streets and other areas are designated as public forums, regardless of whether the university has chosen to officially designate the areas as such. The university may open more of the campus as public forums for its students, but it cannot designate fewer areas... Not all places within the boundaries of the campus are public forums, according to Cummings' opinion. The court declared the university's policy unconstitutional to the extent that it regulates the content of student speech in areas of the campus that are public forums".

In 2007, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education released a survey of 346 colleges and Universities in the United States. Of those institutions, 259 (75%) maintain policies that "both clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech."

In December 2005, the College Libertarians at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro staged a protest outside the University's designated protest zones. The specific intent of the protest was to provoke just such a charge, in order to "provoke the system into action into a critical review of what's going on." Two students, Allison Jaynes and Robert Sinnott, were brought up on charges under the student code of conduct of "violation of respect", for refusing to move when told to do so by a university official. The university subsequently dropped honor code charges against the students. "University officials said the history of the free-speech zones is not known. 'It predated just about everybody here," said Lucien 'Skip' Capone III, the university attorney. The policy may be a holdover from the Vietnam War and civil rights era, he said.'"

A number of colleges and universities have revised or revoked free speech zone policies in the last decade, including: Tufts University, Appalachian State University, and West Virginia University. In August, 2006, Penn State University revised its seven year old rules restricting the rights of students to protest. "In effect, the whole campus is now a 'free-speech zone.'"

Controversies have also occurred at the University of Southern California, Indiana University, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Brigham Young University.

At Marquette University, philosophy department chairman James South ordered graduate student Stuart Ditsler to remove an unattributed Dave Barry quote from the door to the office that Ditsler shared with three other teaching assistants, calling the quote patently offensive. (The quote was: "As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.") South claimed that the University's free-speech zone rules required Ditsler to take it down. University spokeswoman Brigid O'Brien Miller stated that it was "a workplace issue, not one of academic freedom." Ultimately, the quote was allowed to remain, albeit with attribution.