Young Americans for Liberty scores 50 pro-free speech policy changes on campuses across the country

These 50 policy changes have already made a direct impact on 982,081 students, and will continue to impact incoming students for years to come.

YAL’s National Fight for Free Speech campaign targets unconstitutional policies that campus administrators use to justify shutting down YAL students and speakers.

“Believe me when I tell you that Bernie’s group is not getting shut down for pushing for Medicare-for-All and complete socialism,” YAL president Cliff Maloney wrote in a recent email to supporters.

As a result of winning 50 free speech reform cases, nearly 1 million students may now be exposed to the ideas of liberty, not just the usual leftist talking points typically presented in the classroom.

The 50th policy change for YAL was a district-wide policy, reformed at Los Angeles Pierce College, which includes 9 schools. Pierce College is a part of the largest community college district in the United States, the Los Angeles Community College District, yet it provided only .003 percent of its 426-acre campus to exercise free expression. In 2016, an Pierce administrator told a YAL student activist that he could not pass out copies of the Constitution unless he was inside the free speech zone, prompting a lawsuit. With this policy change, however, students can now exercise their speech freely.

Other recent victories for YAL include a case at Kellogg Community College where five YAL students were arrested for passing out copies of the Constitution, prompting a policy change, and a case at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, in which students’ rights to expression were limited to only one hour a day in a tiny free speech zone, which has now been eliminated.

YAL also sued the University of California-Berkeley when administrators refused to recognize a YAL chapter, claiming that it was too similar to other groups on campus. Without campus recognition, the YAL chapter could not reserve space on campus to recruit new members or hold meetings. The suit reached a settlement and Berkeley agreed to revise its policies on club recognition so that it wouldn’t restrict political speech.

“I truly believe that the best solutions for society come about when all ideas are fiercely debated. 2019 will be a pivotal year for free speech policy on America’s college campuses,” Maloney told the Washington Examiner. “YAL is preparing to continue our efforts to create a level playing field for all college students in America to hear all viewpoints, not just those espoused by the liberal campus culture.”

Here’s a list of all 50 schools that enacted reforms thanks to YAL’s efforts: