Campus Speech Codes Said to Violate Rights

Most college and university speech codes would not survive a legal challenge, according to a report released in December by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a watchdog group for free speech on campuses.

The group examined publicly available policies at more than 300 institutions — those highly ranked in U.S. News & World Report, as well as other big public universities — and concluded that 93 percent of them prohibit speech that is protected by the First Amendment.

“Codes that would be laughably unconstitutional in the public sphere dominate at colleges,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of the watchdog group. Colleges adopt restrictive speech codes not only out of political correctness, Mr. Lukianoff said, but also because they fear harassment lawsuits.

The report labeled many speech codes as overly broad or vague, and cited examples such as Furman University’s prohibition of “offensive communication not in keeping with the community standards,” and a ban on “disrespect for persons” at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The report also warned more than 200 colleges that they were “extremely vulnerable to a constitutional challenge.” Three colleges recently revised their speech codes after the group filed lawsuits against them.

Many colleges’ codes are vulnerable to legal challenges because they regulate the content of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment, rather than the effect of speech, which could be threatening or disruptive, said Derek P. Langhauser, general counsel for the Maine Community College System. Because of that distinction, colleges’ disciplinary actions against students whose speech has a negative effect is often legally defensible, even if a code itself is not, he said.

A speech code may exist primarily to promote institutional values, Mr. Langhauser said. “If nobody is really enforcing it, you’re not saving anybody from anybody,” he said, referring to the watchdog group’s scrutiny. “The better question is how many students are really being prosecuted and losing the opportunity to get an education because of the existence of these codes,” Mr. Langhauser said.

The report, “Spotlight on Speech Codes 2006: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses,” is available on the group’s Web site (http://www.thefire.org/index .php/article/7555.html).

http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 53, Issue 18, Page A32