Spring is in the air in California. While the Sierra Nevada gets a late spring snowstorm, the California golden poppies have opened along I-5. Spring is a time of transition from one season to the next, and also a time when high school seniors eagerly await that wonderful transition from high school drama to college coolness. At this time of year particularly, seniors await acceptance letters from their favorite college or university. But once the letters arrive, how is a high school senior going to choose his or her school? If the decision has anything to do with free speech policies on campus, it may be wrought with confusion, especially for students considering California schools.
California’s public colleges and universities, it seems, have no institutional respect for freedom of speech on campus. A series of contradictory policy decisions have made the Golden State’s higher education system a mess when it comes to freedom of speech.
Take last week, for example. On Friday, FIRE’s Samantha Harris wrote about the great news at San Francisco State University. SFSU repealed its illegal speech zone policy and now allows literature distribution in the outdoor areas of campus so long as pedestrian traffic is not impeded. Even better, SFSU removed the official free speech zones so that students can now engage in speech in most outdoor areas. But down the street, the University of California Hastings College of the Law continues to enforce its “nondiscrimination” policy against the Christian Legal Society, banning it from campus.
On Tuesday, I wrote that the University of California system is considering a new speech code that will give administrators great ability to censor disfavored student speech. This comes on the heels of the UC system amending its harassment policy to protect student speech. But at the same time, the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest community college district in the United States, fights to keep an even more speech-restrictive harassment policy.
To top it off, we have good information that several California State University system campuses still maintain an unconstitutional speech code that was struck down and amended two years ago.
For a state that supposedly accords broad protection to student speech and that has one of the best public higher education systems in the country, California’s public colleges and universities remain behind the curve on free speech issues. The Golden State can do better.
Tags: christian legal society, CLS, CLS vs. Martinez, Free Speech, Freedom of Speech, Hastings, Higher Education, Public Universities, Student rights, UC-Hastings
April 12, 2010 at 7:49 pm |
[...] chiding the University of California Regents over a proposed speech code or pointing out the contradictory approaches to student speech, the lack of respect for student speech in California has caused me [...]