To kick off the new year, FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for January 2013: Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM). AUM's Policy Regarding Harassment and Discrimination of Students not only prohibits "jokes" related to protected characteristics, but it also prohibits faculty in the classroom from "exerting values of power" and "making judgments" (isn't that what grading is?). This vague and overbroad policy is highly unconstitutional, a fact that one would hope someone in the AUM administration would understand. For these reasons, it is our January 2013 Speech Code of the Month. Read Full Article
FIRE's latest video features author, Atlantic columnist, and FIRE Board of Advisors member Wendy Kaminer. Among her many insights, Kaminer takes on the sacred cow of "civility" on campus: "One of the ironies of this drive for civility ... [is that] you end up encouraging incivility, because people don't know how to argue. They don't know what to do when confronted with an idea they really don't like. They don't have an administrator they go complain to, and so they just shout it down because they haven't learned how to do anything else." FIRE President Greg Lukianoff has more at The Legal Satyricon and Ricochet.
Each month, FIRE singles out a particularly reprehensible campus speech code for our Speech Code of the Month designation. While all of 2012's Speech Codes of the Month flagrantly violated students' and faculty members' right to free expression, two of them, Illinois State University and Oakland University, were so egregious that they deserve special mention as 2012's Speech Codes of the Year. Read Full Article
FIRE released its 2013 report on campus speech codes today. More than three-fifths of the 409 colleges and universities analyzed maintain policies that seriously infringe upon the free speech rights of students. For the fifth consecutive year, however, this percentage has dropped. In another encouraging development, more schools eliminated all of their restrictive speech codes in 2012, earning FIRE's highest, "green light" rating. The report also discusses concerns about new waves of campus censorship potentially facilitated by poorly crafted federal and state regulations and legislation regarding bullying and harassment. Read Full Article
The Tufts University community is facing a growing struggle over the existence of the Tufts Christian Fellowship as a recognized student group on campus. At stake is the ability of Tufts students to organize around shared religious beliefs—and, more broadly, whether the Tufts campus still accepts the American conception of religious pluralism. Read Full Article
As December barrels along, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff’s Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate continues to garner praise and commendations online, on campus, and on-air. Check out all the latest on The Torch.
Blatantly ignoring the First Amendment, administrators at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) in Michigan's Tri-Cities area have repeatedly censored a student's posters—ironically, posters that protest a new, unconstitutional SVSU policy that allows the school to censor student postings. SVSU student Daniel Chapman has come to FIRE for help. Read Full Article
