With culture wars intensifying on university
campuses across the nation, legal activists are doing more than
defending—they are taking a proactive approach to defending First Amendment rights.
The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) on Thursday launched a new legal
effort to change unconstitutional policies at more than 160 public
universities and colleges by sending a first round of 40 letters to
schools in 23 states. All of the schools have policies that violate the
rights of students protected by the First Amendment.
“Public universities should encourage, not censor, the free exchange
of ideas,” says Kevin Theriot, senior counsel at ADF. “The objective of
this effort is to inform university and college officials of how their
policies conflict with the Constitution, as reinforced by numerous
federal court rulings, so that the schools can make changes. This gives
them the opportunity to respect the constitutionally protected rights of
their students without any costly litigation.”
The ADF has identified problematic policies including various speech
codes and zones that place unconstitutional restrictions on student
speech, policies that force student clubs to accept voting members and
officers that don’t agree with the clubs’ beliefs, and policies that
allow non-religious student groups to use student activity fees but
exclude religious student groups even though the students in those
groups have contributed to the fees.
The ADF reports that the letters have already received some response.
For example, Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina has
agreed to modify a policy that unconstitutionally limits student
expression to a small wooded area on campus.
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