In defense of free speech on college campuses

A Pierce College student’s lawsuit challenging the college’s restrictive “free speech zone” policy can proceed, a U.S. District Court judge recently ruled.

Last week, Judge Otis D. Wright II of the United States District Court for the Central District of California rejected a motion by Pierce College and the Los Angeles Community College District to dismiss the lawsuit filed by student Kevin Shaw and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Shaw filed the lawsuit in March 2017 following a Nov. 2, 2016 incident in which a college administrator stopped Shaw and other members of Young Americans for Liberty from distributing Spanish-language editions of the United States Constitution and talking about free speech issues with other students.

The administrator warned Shaw that failure to apply for a free speech permit and restrict activities to the 616-square-foot designated free speech zone on the 426-acre grounds would result in Shaw being asked to leave campus.

Far from unusual, free speech zones have proliferated on college campuses across the country, turning institutions once regarded as places where the expression and exchange of ideas were once valued to places where free speech is increasingly stifled. According to a recent report by FIRE, about 10 percent of colleges now maintain free speech zones.

That is what makes Shaw’s challenge and Judge Wright’s rejection of college officials’ motion important. “The court’s ruling sends an important message to colleges nationwide that still restrict student speech to free speech zones,” FIRE Director of Litigation Marieke Tuthill Beck-Coon said in a statement. “The campus is a college student’s public square. It’s their place to be engaged citizens.

Unfortunately, Pierce and the LACCD haven’t quite gotten the message and want the public to believe their restrictive policies aren’t antithetical to free speech. “We are fully committed to free expression on our campuses,” said LACCD spokesman Yusef Robb in a statement. “As a community college district, promoting the free exchange of ideas and knowledge is at the core of what we do, every day.”

That’s clearly not true. If LACCD were truly committed to free expression and promotion the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, Shaw and other students wouldn’t be stopped from passing out copies of the Constitution, especially when, according Judge Wright’s ruling, they were not “disrupting campus operations or interfering with foot traffic.”

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court case Sweezy v. New Hampshire in which the court argued “[t]eachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die,” the DOJ argues in its brief that “many institutions of higher education have failed to answer this call, and free speech has come under attack on campuses across the country.”

Unfortunately for students and scholars across the country, this is all too apparent. We urge Pierce, LACCD and colleges across the country to repeal unduly restrictive policies on free speech and once again live up to their mission to foster the free exchange of ideas.

— Orange County Register, Digital First Media