Judge Rules Against Georgia Tech's Discriminatory Speech Code
by Jim Brown
August 23, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A federal judge has forced the Georgia Institute of Technology to repeal a controversial policy that bars students from engaging in so-called "acts of intolerance." In March, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed a lawsuit challenging the policy, claiming it censored the speech of religious and conservative students on campus.
Recently, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued an order that eliminated Georgia Tech's speech code and replaced it with a new policy that ADF attorney David French says "respects the constitutional rights of students." He is calling the court's ruling "a tremendous victory" for free speech on college campuses.
The problem with Georgia Tech's former speech code was that it "allowed the university to arbitrarily decide which speech was or was not maligning or intolerant," French contends. Under that policy, he says, the university's officials were able to censor speech based solely on the content and viewpoint of the speech.
"So what they did, in effect," the attorney explains, "was to censor conservative and Christian students whenever they pleased at the same time that they allowed leftist students to engage in some of the most vicious and vile, insulting speech I've ever seen in my life."
In addition to repealing the discriminatory speech code, U.S. District Court Judge J. Owen Forrester also denied Georgia Tech's request to have the case dismissed and ruled that ADF's lawsuit against the school may continue. The suit accuses the administration of withholding funding from religious student groups and engaging in explicit religious instruction on the issue of homosexual behavior through a training program called "Safe Space."
Among the legal matters that remain to be resolved, French says, are "our challenge to the university's discriminatory funding guidelines, where they do not fund religious activities but will fund virtually every other kind of activity imaginable; and also our challenge to the university's decision to actually preach a particular religious point of view about homosexuality."
Although Georgia Tech backed down on the issue of its speech code, the ADF lawyer asserts, the school apparently still believes it can treat conservative students as second-class citizens and single out religious students for negative treatment. Meanwhile, he notes, the university is itself accused of unlawfully establishing religion through the so-called "Safe Space" program's pro-homosexual sensitivity training.
But in the meantime, French says, ADF is glad that a mutually agreeable settlement was reached with regard to the university's speech code. Not only did the federal judge's ruling effectively replace Georgia Tech's old code with one that "respects and protects the fundamental right to free speech," he points out, but the court's order "also makes sure no one changes the new policy without judicial consent," so students' rights will continue to be protected.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
