Louisiana Tech University, a public university in Ruston, La., holds a yellow light speech code rating, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s campus free speech rating system.
A yellow rating occurs when an institution has “at least one ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.”
Louisiana Tech received this rating due to two policies found in the school’s Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Behavior concerning student protests and demonstrations. The first of these policies concerns the distribution of materials. The policy requires students to receive administrative approval before passing out literature. This leaves the door open for the university to potentially determine what type of information students can distribute.
Another policy on the books at Louisiana Tech concerns the location of student events. The policy states that all student events must occur in university-designated locations. This is under the auspicious goal of avoiding conflicts and avoiding the disruption of everyday activities. This type of policy can be weaponized against certain groups to restrict student events.
“Violations of our policies by students or student organizations could result in action by the Behavioral Standards Committee or the Student Organizations Committee, as the case may be,” Dickie Crawford, assistant vice president for Student Advancement told Red Alert Politics. “The time, place, and manner regulations within our policies are designed to support students’ ability to engage in free-speech activities in a way that does not impede upon the primary educational and research mission of the university.”
Current policies at Louisiana Tech carry the potential for administrative overreach, although student activists say they have not run into any glaring problems.
“There was free speech reform last summer, but there are a few codes that FIRE takes issue with wording. Our goal is fixing the technicalities that FIRE’s asking for so that we can have that green light rating,” Andrew Bays, Louisiana Tech Young Americans for Liberty chapter president told Red Alert Politics. “We already have the best codes in the state and it’d be nice to find a way to publicize that as another accolade for the university.”
The national organization of Young Americans for Liberty credits its students on the ground for keeping universities in check.
“It’s a blessing to have Andrew at Louisiana Tech fighting for free speech. Without the efforts of the YAL chapter at LT, there would be no one to keep these bureaucrats in check,” YAL director of free speech Alexander Staudt told Red Alert Politics.
