The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees a freedom from prosecution of law for religious belief, speech, press publication, peaceful assembly, or petitioning of the government. The scope and application of the First Amendment has been a source of some controversy as of late, particularly at institutions of higher education. For this reason, the Federalist Society invited Ari Cohn, the Director of the Individual Rights Defense Program at the Foundation for Independent Rights in Education (FIRE), to come and speak about free speech in educational and academic settings.
Mr. Cohn began his talk by laying a background of speech codes and efforts to both support and suppress free speech on university campuses nationwide. He highlighted cases regarding the prevention of the creation of a Palestinian organization at Fordham University and Democrats group at Central Connecticut State, noting that in each case the university was taking it upon itself to prevent certain voices and ideals from having a platform on campus. Mr. Cohn also addressed “Free Speech Zones” such as those at Citrus College and University of Hawai’i and how the limitation of free speech to specific parts of a campus, or only with the permission of administration, does not make such speech truly free as required under the First Amendment. Mr. Cohn’s speech ended by addressing the issue of allocation of student activity funds to organizations on campus. He explained that a school is allowed to collect activity funds from students so long as the school agrees to distribute the funds irrespective of the personal beliefs (or organizational beliefs) of a student group that is recognized by the university, citing multiple Supreme Court cases.
Mr. Cohn and FIRE are very serious about the First Amendment and the rights that it guarantees to all Americans, including students on university campuses. As Mr. Cohn mentioned at the beginning of his talk, FIRE indicates each university in the nation as either green, yellow, or red relative to their speech code. Green is given to schools whose speech codes are completely compliant with the First Amendment, yellow is given to schools whose speech codes raise some First Amendment concerns, and red is given to schools whose speech codes are blatantly contradictory to the First Amendment. What Mr. Cohn didn’t mention in his talk is that Temple University is indicated as a yellow school. The university has faced its own share of controversy regarding the First Amendment, including the case of DeJohn v. Temple University in 2008, where Temple’s sexual harassment policy (then amended) was found to be facially unconstitutional [in which the treatment of a military veteran by certain faculty and administrators was found], by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, [to fall outside of the scope of the First Amendment.] These are indicators that the Temple University community has room yet for improvement when it comes to free speech and expression.
Mr. Cohn spoke about how universities, law schools, and other institutions of higher education are settings in which challenges to one’s beliefs and ideals are to be expected. Debate, disagreement, and the need to articulate those beliefs are the foundation upon which we, as individuals and as a collective, are able to learn and grow. It is how ideas are fleshed out, how great legal arguments are developed, how societal advances are made, and how compromises are reached in times of disagreement and turmoil. Almost every great institution in the United States touts their diversity and inclusiveness, and in this diversity is included the diversity of belief and opinion. This diversity is what draws many students to these institutions, it’s part of what makes students believe that they are obtaining a high quality education and that they truly are learning, and this couldn’t be any truer than it is in the setting of a law school where there are very few definitive rules and where almost everything is open to interpretation and scrutiny.
The Federalist Society believes that these ideals of free speech are paramount to a successful country, and are particularly important for the future of the legal profession within this country. We, as legal scholars here at Temple Law should be at the forefront of fighting for these freedoms for everyone, and should be doing everything we can to avoid silencing people, silencing ideas, and silencing opinions. It is our hope that Mr. Cohn’s presentation helped people to see that speech is not truly free when an organization, be it a school or the government, decides to limit what types of speech, ideas, thoughts, opinions, and expression are deemed acceptable speech. I believe that Temple Law is where we can become leaders in the push for expansion of free speech both on and off of college campuses nationwide, and I believe that it is our job as members of the Temple Law community to set the example for the entirety of Temple University.
Photo credit Ed Uthman [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
