College arrests students for handing out Constitutions, ADF files suit [VIDEO]

Handing out Constitutions isn’t protected by the Constitution, according to one college.

Today, Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a motion in federal court calling on Kellogg Community College in Grand Rapids, Michigan to suspend their current speech policies. These policies allow censorship and restriction under the guise that certain forms of expression may conflict with the “mission” of the public community college.

Kellogg is currently facing trial after an incident on September 20, 2016, in which students of the college were arrested by campus law enforcement for violating the school’s solicitation policy, which ADF claims hinders students’ First Amendment rights.

The students were handing out pocket-sized Constitutions. As the students stood on a public sidewalk on campus, they engaged passerby in conversations with questions such as, “Do you love liberty?” while offering free Constitutions to interested peers.

In newly released video footage capturing an exchange between the students and school administrators, the YAL members were told that their fellow classmates, “might not feel like they have a choice to ignore the question” because they “don’t have wifi.”

Perhaps, if the students had been blocking the pathway, disrupting classrooms, or using violence and intimidation to provoke conversation, the case could be made that their behavior was unacceptable and threatening to the ‘rural students.’ However, to claim that a ‘rural’ upbringing renders an individual incapable of engaging in dialogue with a peer they come in contact with in a public space is a gross insult to individuals who choose to live in rural communities. It also implies the administrator’s opinion of what they deem acceptable for the student trumps the student’s right to decide for themselves.

If ‘rural students’ feel threatened by receiving a free Constitution from their peers, they most certainly will fear a campus administration willing to place them in handcuffs for giving that Constitution away to others, while receiving a pat on the head for complying with the university’s coddling “mission.”

When attempting to justify censorship, it always remains easiest to claim a concern for the emotional well-being of another as sufficient to restrict the rights of others. After all, emotional responses often impact us more strongly than more pragmatic or transparent explanations for censorship. Evidently, the United States Constitution is in conflict with Kellogg Community College’s mission, as the former promotes the free exchange of ideas and the latter punishes students attempting to educate classmates on the rights their university is shielding them from.

Watch the interaction below:

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