Penn State Seeks, Receives Help on New 'Speech Code' Policy for Campus
by Jim Brown
May 26, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A federal civil rights lawsuit has prompted Pennsylvania State University to dump a speech code that barred students from using words deemed to be "intolerant." The Alliance Defense Fund filed the lawsuit on behalf of A.J. Fluehr, a student who claimed the policy allowed for viewpoint discrimination against conservative and religious students. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Penn State asked ADF to help the school draft a new policy. ADF attorney David French says the policy that resulted now fully protects free speech.
"We're very encouraged by this outcome," says French, "and I would like to applaud Penn State for bringing us into the conversation after the lawsuit was filed and ...for the changes that they made." The resultant policy was an "important change," he says, "and one that protects free speech at one of our country's most important public universities."
French describes the old policy as one of the worst speech codes he had ever seen. "The old draconian speech codes were unconstitutional because they enabled university officials to engage in viewpoint discrimination," he says. The policy enabled any student who felt offended on the basis of their sexual orientation, for example, to make a complaint against another student and have that student silenced and perhaps even punished, French states. According to an ADF press release, the school used the policy recently to prohibit a student from displaying an art exhibit designed to protest the culture of terrorism in the Palestinian territories.
"What we were trying to do [in changing the policy] is quite simple," the attorney explains. "[We were trying] to make sure that conservative students and religious students had the same rights to free speech as everyone else."
The old policy, he explains, discouraged open discussion on campus. "[And] it's a longstanding First Amendment rule that you can't censor speech just because somebody else feels that your speech is offensive or 'intolerant,' to use the word that Penn State used," he adds.
French says other universities should follow the Penn State model, which he says strikes a proper balance between protecting students from real misconduct while allowing the full range of free speech. "This is an excellent outcome for those who believe that universities are supposed to be the marketplace of ideas," he says.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
