After a months-long legal battle, Young Americans for Liberty, in conjunction with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal interest group, is claiming a free speech victory on the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts.
The lawsuit came after YAL member Nicholas Consolini tried to host speeches and rallies in publicly accessible areas outside the designated free speech zone on the Amherst campus. Given that the words “policy” and “speech” were undefined, it was left up to the university administrators to determine which groups could make use of the free speech zone.
When interpreting their policy, UMass decided YAL’s chapter was restricted to less than one percent of the campus and only between noon and 1 p.m. each day.
After filing the lawsuit, an agreement has now been struck with the Board of Trustees which stipulates that the Office of Student Affairs and Campus Life will neither “sanction or deny anyone an opportunity to hold a speech or rally” under the provisions of University Regulations for Use of Property.
“The parties, however, are hopeful that the dispute can be resolved without the cost and time of further litigation and without prejudice to either party,” the agreement read.
On behalf of YAL and Consolini, ADF attorneys voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit.
“The only permission slip students need to speak on campus is the First Amendment. UMass-Amherst made the right move by eliminating this unconstitutional limit on student speech,” said ADF legal counsel Caleb Dalton. “A public university is hardly the marketplace of ideas it’s supposed to be when less than one percent of campus is open for only one hour a day. We commend YAL and these brave students for taking a stand and causing UMass to remove this speech zone that never should have existed in the first place.”
“To restrict free speech rights to one hour a day on less than one percent of the campus is unconstitutional, no questions asked,” said YAL President Cliff Maloney Jr. “I applaud the UMass Board for their decision and hope this change will spark a wave of policy reform on college campuses across the country.”
This case is a part of YAL’s national “Fight for Free Speech” campaign, which has successfully revised 36 unconstitutional speech policies and restored First Amendment rights for 714,802 students.
The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, did not immediately respond to request for comment by the time of this publication.
Editor’s note: The reporter of this story is a student at UMass Boston.
