Are college students Radford citizens?

“College students … are treated like third class citizens… This needs to change.” — Bill Kovarik, city council candidate.

“They’re not third class citizens. They’re not citizens at all… It’s legal (for them to vote). But it’s wrong” — Keith Marshall, podcaster.

To understand the controversy over First Amendment and voting rights of college students in the city of Radford, Virginia, we have to go back in time. Way back, when the issue was first thought to have been resolved.

1970 — Census begins counting students as part of college towns
1971 — Voting rights advocates point to college student residency (9 – 12 months)
and the fact that students pay taxes and are affected by the local laws of college towns
1979 — Symm v United States — The Supreme Court affirms that college students have the right to vote in their college towns.
2009 — City of Radford declines to move elections from mid-May (when the semester is over ) to November due to concerns about student voting.
2012 — Early voting permitted in Virginia.
2020 — Widespread use of mail-in voting due to Covid pandemic.
2021 — Virginia General Assembly moves all local elections to November.

So, until very recently, it was difficult if not impossible for students to vote in college towns. And note that it only took four decades for a Supreme Court decision to influence voting policies in Radford.

And today there are still plenty of people who don’t want Radford students to vote in Radford.

But why? It’s not true that college students have no stake in local elections. If a Radford city ordinance forbids students from exercising their First Amendment rights, then the students, rather obviously, have a stake in the way the city is managed. They have every right — and duty — to vote in local elections.

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For a short history of college students voting, see Timothy Reese Cain, “Isnt it terrible that all these college students are voting?” May 2024, History of Education Quarterly 64(3):319-345

R U Speechless?

This web site began with a class of communications students in the spring of 2013 who challenged some of the constitutional infirmities in Radford city and Radford University speech policies.

Some of the policies changed as a result, and some should have changed but did not. The moral of the story? The struggle for freedom is endless, and it requires patience, compassion and courage.

— Prof. Bill Kovarik, 2026

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Freedom of speech and press are fundamental rights guaranteed under Sec. 12 of the Virginia Constitution, the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Academic freedom is specifically established in Article 13 of the EU Charter, and linked in the US to the First Amendment by Chief Justice Earl Warren in Sweezy v New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957). The court’s opinion noted:

The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation.

And yet, freedom of speech is often not recognized in the one place where it ought to be respected the most: A college campus in the USA.

Today many universities simply refuse to recognize First Amendment rights until they are forced to do so by a court. At Radford University, this web site formed the report of a special topics class requested by then-provost Sam Minner in 2013. It continues to the present to track limits on student and faculty expression. Continue reading “R U Speechless?” →

Academic Freedom’s global decline

Academic freedom has declined in 50 countries, and only 9 countries have registered improvements, according to the Academic Freedom Index released March 17, 2026 by the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität.

“While all dimensions of academic freedom are now declining in more countries than those in which they are improving, the most widespread declines are occurring in individual-level dimensions and campus integrity,” the report said.

“The decline in institutional autonomy in the United States stands out as a case of fast and steep deterioration,” the report also said.

Teddy Roosevelt and free speech

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.

Déjà vu all over again — student newspaper thefts at RU

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.

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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.

Is there a free speech crisis in American universities?

“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…”

Censorship by Theft at Radford University

Editorial, Washington Post, Nov 14, 2019 — Radford University, a taxpayer-supported institution in southwestern Virginia, is in a public relations hole entirely of its own making. The question is how deep its administrators will insist on digging…

It turns out, after what campus police called an “in-depth” investigation, that a low-level university employee — neither administrator nor professor — was caught on video and admitted stealing papers from four of the news racks, as The Post’s Joe Heim reported. The administration and police won’t reveal the thief’s identity, although they know it; they won’t charge the employee because they say taking free newspapers is not a crime; and they won’t offer an explanation of who swiped the papers from 18 other news racks. Nor will they offer a motive or explanation for the theft…

The university’s strategy, if you can call it that, is tailor-made to prolong Radford’s embarrassment, calling into question its leadership’s judgment…

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US Supreme Court puts a town’s sign regulations in their place

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.

Dixie University loses lawsuit over Greek letters

by FIRE May 5, 2015

ST. GEORGE, Utah, May 5, 2015—Dixie State University has announced that it will suspend the unconstitutional speech codes that three students challenged in a First Amendment lawsuit filed in March. The lawsuit, which is supported by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), targeted Dixie State’s unconstitutional flyer approval process, posting policies, “free speech zone,” and club event policies—all of which are now suspended.

In addition to suspending the speech codes, Dixie State President Richard B. Williams announced in an email yesterday to the campus community that the university will permanently revise its policies. In his email, President Williams stated that Dixie State is a place “where even unpopular answers, seemingly absurd ideas, and unconventional thought are not only permitted, but even encouraged.”

FIRE will continue to monitor developments at Dixie State closely to ensure that the university’s apparent recognition of First Amendment principles translates into meaningful policy reform.

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USA Today covers RU Speechless

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