Throughout modern history, colleges have been known for protecting unpopular expression.

This blog uses a photo of President Teddy Roosevelt (above) giving a speech defending Professor John Bassett on the Duke University campus in 1903.

Bassett was in danger of being fired for saying he thought  Booker T. Washington (an African American leader) was the greatest person the South had ever produced except Robert E. Lee.

Racist newspapers and opinion leaders demanded that Bassett be fired outright for expressing an opinion that,  today, would be seen as far too deferential to Gen. Lee.

But the Duke University board refused to fire Bassett, and President Roosevelt took a train south to praise them, saying:

“You stand for Academic Freedom, for the right of private judgment, for a duty more incumbent upon the scholar than upon any other man, to tell the truth as he sees it, to claim for himself and to give to others the largest liberty in seeking after the truth.”

It’s been a long time since any defense of campus speech has been given with such force and clarity.

by Bill Rickards
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

October 7, 2019

Famous New York Yankees coach and manager Yogi Berra once said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” That’s close to how it feels here at FIRE when we hear student newspapers have been stolen from stands on campus.

Take, for example, the most recent case of newspaper theft at Radford University, where about 1,000 copies of Radford’s student newspaper, The Tartan, went missing from newsstands following the publication of controversial articles. This type of press censorship is something FIRE has written about again and again.

— MORE —

ALSO SEE

“How long are we going to wait?” Editor in chief criticizes Radford’s newspaper theft investigation. By the Student Press Law Center,  Feb. 2020.

“The claim that America’s campuses are in the midst of a free speech crisis has been made so often and so emphatically that it has widely become accepted as fact. According to the prevailing narrative, liberal professors and students have turned institutions of higher learning into elitist enclaves, where any thought that does not conform to leftist orthodoxy is aggressively suppressed… (but this is) as untrue today as it was in the 1970s,” writes Mary Anne Franks in the Dec. 30, 2019 edition of the Virginia Law Review.

“The assertion that conservative ideas are being violently suppressed on college campuses is as untrue today as it was in the 1970s. While there have been a handful of violent incidents involving conservative speakers, the vast majority of universities have experienced no such controversies. The attempts at ideological suppression that do occur on campuses are far more likely to target leftist views than right-wing views…”

In Reed v Town of Gilbert,  Ariz., 135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015), the Supreme Court held that a town’s sign regulations violated the First Amendment because they were content based and could not survive “strict scrutiny.”

A ‘content based’ regulation is one that restricts a particular kind of content.  In the town of Gilbert, a regulation strictly limited temporary directional signs for religious events.  In its opinion, the court said:

“Because content-based laws target speech based on its communicative content, they are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if the government proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests. E.g., R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 395.

 In contrast, a content-neutral regulation for signs might be one that restricts the size or safety features  of a sign. That kind of regulation only has to survive intermediate scrutiny, which tests whether a law  is narrowly tailored to serve a substantial government interest.

Following Reed, it is obvious on the face of it that the  City of Radford’s  Greek Sign Ordinances violates the First Amendment.  Other cases concerning content specific laws, if applied to the city of Radford’s regulation,  would very likely have led to this same conclusion.

Further reading:  

Supreme Court Opinion, Reed v Town of Gilbert, June 18, 2015.

What’s wrong with the Greek Sign Ordinances?   (This site) 

Susan L. Trevarthen * and Adam M. Hapner ** (Summer, 2020). LOCAL GOVERNMENT LAW SYMPOSIUM: ARTICLE: THE TRUE IMPACT OF REED V. TOWN OF GILBERT ON SIGN REGULATION. Stetson Law Review, 49, 509. https://advance-lexis-com.radford.idm.oclc.org/api/document?collection=analytical-materials&id=urn:contentItem:6059-M551-DXPM-S018-00000-00&context=1516831.

Bulletin boards have become a battleground at Radford University in Radford, Va., with students claiming university policies restrict their First Amendment rights.

The policy in question requires university approval for any flier students wish to hang on campus bulletin boards. Over the past semester, journalism professor Bill Kovarik has led a small movement called RU Speechless?, which protests this regulation, among other campus “censorship” policies, as prior restraint.

Story Published May 8, 2013 

Students in the First Amendment and Higher Education class are bearing flyers, a hard-hitting message and symbolically wearing red duct tape over their mouths, and have been rallying with faculty and other involved and driven students with the campaign they call “RU Speechless.”