As free speech rights as being squashed at college campuses all over the country, there are some colleges making small strides to help right the scale.
The University of Georgia has announced a new policy that eliminates its restrictive “free speech zones” on campus and allows students to hold “expressive activities” across the taxpayer-funded campus, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Of course, this policy change didn’t come unprompted.
The Young Americans for Liberty, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, sued UGA last year. They accused the university of hindering free speech by restricting demonstrations to just two “free speech zones,” which accounted for less than one percent of its Athens campus.
The specific incident that led to the lawsuit, Campus Reform recounted, took place in March 2011. YAL students were tabling with a debt clock display that portrayed the growing national debt and were told to stop because they were outside of the correct zone.
“Universities cannot function as a marketplace of ideas if free speech is limited to less than one percent of campus,” ADF Legal Counsel Travis Barham told Campus Reform. “We commend the University of Georgia for understanding this and revising its speech policy so that students can speak more freely throughout campus without fear of punishment.”
The new policy allows students to utilize a reservation system to book space to hold events. The system should also be used to notify the dean of students or campus police if spontaneous events grow larger than 10 people, according to Campus Reform.
YAL voluntarily dropped the lawsuit after the recent policy change.
“That makes this a victory for everyone,” ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Hacker told CR. “The First Amendment protects the constitutional freedoms of all students, regardless of their political and religious beliefs.”
