- Many elements of First Amendment doctrine are applicable not at all to private universities and only in substantially modified form to public campuses. True enough, but few go as far in arguing this as does Yale’s Robert Post [Vox, Erwin Chemerinsky response, Will Creeley (FIRE) response, Post response to Creeley]
- Rundown of shout-downs: state representative kept from speaking at Texas Southern’s Thurgood Marshall Law School [Caron/TaxProf, Greenfield] University of Oregon president’s annual state-of-university speech [Oregonian] Pro-Trump hecklers shout down California Attorney General, assembly majority leader at Whittier College [Adam Steinbaugh, FIRE] College Republicans disrupted at UC Santa Cruz, not for inviting someone controversial, just for being them [Celine Ryan/Campus Reform, John Sexton/HotAir]
- Threats of violence against journal editors are one way to get a retraction [Sara Hebel/Chronicle of Higher Education, Jerry Coyne, Oliver Traldi, Quillette (Bruce Gilley, “Case for Colonialism” paper)]
- “New policy authorizes University of Wisconsin to expel students for repeatedly disrupting speakers” [ABA Journal] Will the new rules themselves improperly restrict speech? [Howard Wasserman, Joe Cohn/FIRE first and second posts]
- Debate over proposal by Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) to prohibit “hate speech” on campus [Andrew King vs. Chris Seaton, Simple Justice]
- Federal court agrees that Title IX does not oblige university to ban (now-defunct) student gossip anonymous messaging app Yik Yak [Adam Steinbaugh, FIRE]
Filed under: colleges and universities, First Amendment, free speech, hate speech, Oregon, Title IX, Wisconsin
One Comment
“Will the new rules themselves improperly restrict speech? ”
Maybe, but worth the experiment.
Not all sounds emanating from a vocal tract can be construed to be speech. Shout-downs are behaviors, more than speech, intended to impeded another’s speech rights. Because the speech content of a shout-down is often irrelevant to the effect that it has, words that might be present in the sound stream are little different than what might come from an air horn.
A restriction on shout-downs might easily be written to be content neutral, and stated to have the goal of fostering an environment of debate and exchange. Or it might be written badly. Let’s see.