Wisconsin Regents Approve a 3-Strikes Policy to Deal With Students Who Disrupt Speakers

The University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents on Friday approved a policy that will compel campuses to suspend and, eventually, expel students who repeatedly disrupt controversial speakers and speech, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

According to the board’s agenda, any student who has been found responsible twice for disrupting another person’s free speech will be suspended for a minimum of one semester. A student who has disrupted someone else’s speech three times will be expelled.

The policy also states that protests that disrupt the ability of others to listen or engage with free speech are not allowed and “shall be subject to sanction.”

State legislatures, including the Wisconsin Assembly, passed similar policies on campus speech earlier this year that were based on model legislation created by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian and conservative public-policy think tank.