Students Sue San Francisco State University over Unconstitutional Speech Codes
SAN FRANCISCO. ?San Francisco State University (SFSU) is the latest target of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education?s (FIRE?s) highly successful Speech Codes Litigation Project. In cooperation with FIRE, attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against SFSU for violating the First Amendment rights of its students. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Phoenix-based nonprofit organization devoted to protecting religious liberty, filed the suit.
?Through its policies and practices, SFSU has violated and continues to violate the First Amendment rights of every student on its campus,? FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. ?Beginning today, SFSU will have to answer for its actions in court.?
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the SFSU College Republicans and two of the group?s members, undergraduates Leigh Wolf and Trent Downes. SFSU?s College Republicans were put on trial by a campus tribunal this past spring for stepping on makeshift Hamas and Hezbollah flags as part of an anti-terrorism rally they held in October, 2006. FIRE wrote twice to SFSU President Robert A. Corrigan to stress that no American public university can lawfully prosecute students for engaging in peaceful protest or for ?desecrating? flags of any kind. The university ignored this warning, with a university spokesperson telling the San Francisco Chronicle that the issue was not flag desecration but rather ?the desecration of Allah.? Despite having the power to dismiss the charges at any time, SFSU dragged the plaintiffs through a five-month investigation and hearing before ultimately clearing the group of ?harassment? charges.
?The Supreme Court ruled long ago that the First Amendment protects the right to burn even an American flag in political protest. There are no special protections for Hamas and Hezbollah flags. SFSU knew this, and there is no excuse for putting these students through a five-month ordeal. We hope the lawsuit will stop the university from committing future abuses,? Lukianoff said.
In addition to holding SFSU accountable for unlawfully mistreating the plaintiffs on the basis of their constitutionally protected expression, the lawsuit asks the court to strike down several unconstitutional speech codes at SFSU.
The speech codes at issue in the suit include SFSU?s Student Group Misconduct policy, which permits student organizations to be held collectively accountable ?when the behavior is inconsistent with SF State goals, principles and policies;? its Sexual Harassment Policy, which allows the university to punish any behavior that ?emphasizes another person?s sexuality;? and a portion of its Student Code that prohibits ?intimidation? and ?harassment? without defining either of those terms.
FIRE?s Speech Codes Litigation Project?an initiative working to dismantle unconstitutional speech codes on public university campuses?has attained crucial victories at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, Texas Tech University, the State University of New York at Brockport, and California?s Citrus College.
?Public universities must be made to understand that disregarding the First Amendment rights of their students will have consequences,? Lukianoff said. ?FIRE will continue its litigation project for as long as it takes to get universities to understand this crucial point.?
FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation?s colleges and universities. FIRE?s efforts to preserve liberty on campuses across America can be viewed at www.thefire.org.
CONTACT:
Greg Lukianoff, President, FIRE: 215-717-3473; greg_lukianoff@thefire.org
David French, Director, Center for Academic Freedom, ADF: 931-490-0591; dfrench@telladf.org
Robert A. Corrigan, President, SFSU: 415-338-1381; president@sfsu.edu
FIRE’s work is made possible by the generosity of our individual supporters. Liberty Letters invites you to please click here to make your tax-deductible contribution.
Liberty Letters editor Steve Farrell is a pundit with America's Newspage, Newsmax.com, associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, and the author of the highly praised inspirational novel, "Dark Rose." | More from Steve Farrell
Stumble It!
July 10th, 2007 at 7:02 am
I have seen FIRE’s work before. This is a fantastic organization that indirectly fights radical feminism by upholding the Constitution.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Universities having unconstitutional speech codes?!! What in the love of all that’s holy could you possibly be talking about?
Yep, gonna rock it down, baby, brick by brick, university by university. Hopefully destroy the lives of a dumptruckload of Corrigans along the way. Maybe even an ocean.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
jjtaup:
Gotta wake up. Going on everywhere. Even locally at Idaho State University, near my home, you have codes written into the requirements for various psychology based programs, like Marriage and Family Counseling, or Social Work, that make it so that a student who has religious convictions that this school feels will interfere with practicing according to their standard, can be kicked out of the program regardless of grades.
Another nearby school, University of Nevada at Reno had “free speech zones.” That is, only in these zones could students say what they wanted to say about various issues … these zones are at many colleges around the country.
We read that the state shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of speech. And yet it goes on, everywhere, from restraints put on teachers to those put upon students, and yet when it comes to anything that promotes the new moral and political order of things … anything goes.
FIRE fights back … and is winning everywhere …. and this is about time and is good. Unless of course we really have it in our hearts to become the next Soviet Union.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Mike Adams is a conservative teacher employed by one of the many liberal schools. After reading his stuff, I concluded that academics may be more liberal that in a non-academic setting.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams
http://www.dradams.org
FIRE had DePaul University of Chicago on their worse school list. DePaul is a Catholic institution that supports gays sex.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I though speech codes were abolished several years ago by then-director of Office for Civil Right Gerals Reynolds. At that time it was big news, but now I found only a small articles and some clarifications in pdf format
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96252,00.html
http://www.thefire.org/pdfs/3967_2341.pdf?PHPSESSID=…
July 10th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
that they are “banned” by the office for civil rights is one thing … that they are weeded out and enforced, when they are in effect ubiquitous, whether written or unwritten. and let’s not forget the 9th District Court, the ACLU, and a college system that is so dominated by the left, and has so long created a spirit of intimidation that there is little chance that even when there are legal written protections that many will stand up against them. Beyond these, the next administration that can rewrite administrative law with a stroke of the pen, law of the land power.
We have a long road ahead of us.
July 11th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Just FYI for everyone. There was a documentary that was released called Brainwashing 101 back in like 2004 which I have saved on my other computer as a .mov quick time file. In that documentary all these speech codes were discussed, along with other liberal and feminist attacks making the college campuses dangerous place for men and conservatives. Some of it was redone an now released as indoctrinate U, pretty much the same. It is great.
http://indoctrinate-u.com/pages/welcome.html
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=27163
The liberals have been making leftist movies and they get released, but conservative movies don’t. It is still struggling to make its way to the big silver screen.
July 11th, 2007 at 9:43 am
watch the trailer!!!!!
http://indoctrinate-u.com/pages/welcome.html
July 11th, 2007 at 9:54 am
http://www.thefire.org/
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/5826.html
July 11th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Steve Farrell.
Perhaps you understand better “perceived” sexual orientation that was an element in over $5 million verdict in Title IX case
http://www.fresnobee.com/sports/bulldogs/story/82630.html
July 11th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I hope this article gets a perm spot on this site. It is that important!
Universities want “diversity” but not diversity of ideas! You tow the party (feminist) line or ELSE.
July 11th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
In todays universities one has to live in “fear.” Fear of one says, because the consequnces could be extreme!
July 11th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Universities rule through fear and intimidation now. You are but a Jew in Nazi acedemia.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
When I was in community college I was dating a girl trying to get into the nursing program which is very competitive. How do they keep men out of these programs, “require” pre-requisites which grades are then used to determine who gets into a program and who doesn’t.
I was a math tutor in community college I made a B in college level algebra, and A in trig and a A in pre-calc.
The girl I was dating made an A in algebra class and that in a summer session?
While we were in the math lab, I noticed she was redoing her test? I asked here about it and she said the teacher which is a “female” is allowing the students to correct the wrong answers on the test for extra credit. Well, ya! Duh, you’d make an A.
I noticed all the students in that particular class were female and nursing students.
So when no men are in the program or few get accepted they say, we are no discriminating they didn’t score as high on the pre-requisistes.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
dating a girl which was trying
July 11th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
“I asked here about it and she said the teacher which is a “female” is allowing the students to correct the wrong answers on the test for extra credit. Well, ya! Duh, you’d make an A.”
And later when in a career as a nurse, does she get to go back and correct the wrong medication? Maybe just rubbing out the correct meds on the chart and inserting the one’s incorrectly used will help the dead patient.