UCLA and many other college campuses could be violating freedom
of speech laws, according to a recent study by the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education, a Philadelphia-based civil
liberties group.
According to its findings published in December, 68 percent of
universities restrict speech protected by the First Amendment.
UCLA was one of the schools noted as having at least one policy
which “clearly and substantially restricts freedom of
speech” and “unambiguously infringes on protected
expression.”
The group’s report, “Spotlight on Speech Codes 2006:
The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses”
surveyed the policies of 330 universities nationwide between
September 2005 and September 2006.
The report ranked universities’ speech codes with green,
yellow or red lights.
Universities with red lights had at least one policy that FIRE
said unambiguously restricts “important categories of campus
expression.”
Of the universities found to be restricting speech, 76 percent
received “red light” grades, including UCLA, USC and
all the other University of California campuses except
Berkeley.
According to FIRE, these universities maintain free speech
policies which violate the First Amendment by regulating the
literal content of speech.
“Codes that would be laughably unconstitutional in the
public sphere dominate at colleges,” Greg Lukianoff,
president of FIRE, said in a statement.
But university officials were skeptical of the report’s
findings.
Robert Naples, assistant vice chancellor for UCLA Student and
Campus Life, said FIRE has often taken a “zealous”
interpretation of the First Amendment.
“Only a court determines that we have crossed the
line,” he said.
He added that UCLA regularly looks at these policies and tries
to balance a respect for the First Amendment with the desire to
maintain a harmonious student environment.
“We think we’ve probably struck the right
balance,” he said.
Undergraduate Students Association Council President Marwa
Kaisey said that while UCLA’s policies are often necessary to
protect individuals from feeling discriminated against, anytime
they limit a person’s ability to voice their opinion on a
general subject, they are actually harmful to college
education.
“The college experience would not be as rich without
exposure to those who think differently from us,” she
said.
But she added that discriminatory speech can “stunt our
intellectual development” by creating an environment in which
students are afraid to express themselves.
FIRE has launched legal challenges against many universities and
colleges on their speech codes and has defeated similar policies at
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, Texas Tech University,
Citrus College and the State University of New York at
Brockport.
These cases challenged disciplinary actions taken by schools
against students for breaching speech codes.
Derek Langhauser, general counsel for the Maine Community
College System, remarked in an interview with the San Francisco
Chronicle that students who are prosecuted because of these codes
will lose the opportunity to get an education.
To date, UCLA has not prosecuted students because of speech
codes, according to Naples.
But FIRE has claimed that it will continue to oppose any
unconstitutional free speech policies in universities and
colleges.
“Speech codes have lost in the courts whenever they have
been challenged, and they are a failure with the public who
rightfully believe that colleges and universities rely on free
speech in order to function,” Lukianoff said in a
statement.