Berkeley protests lead to campus free speech conversations nationwide

Recent legislation and protests at the University of California, Berkeley have reignited discussions of student free speech on university campuses nationwide.

In North Carolina, a proposal last year by Lt. Gov. Dan Forest has again become a topic of debate. The Campus Free Expression Act would require disciplinary action for those who interrupt the free expression of others — like the Feb. 1 protests at U.C. Berkeley, where students caused a controversial speaker to cancel his speech on campus.

Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director for the Foundation For Individual Rights in Education, said campus free expression acts have been passed in Virginia, Missouri and Arizona.

Cohn also said FIRE has gotten legislation passed in three states to prohibit schools from having free speech zones, which he said the organization opposes. FIRE’s research shows that one in ten colleges use misleadingly labeled free speech zones to quarantine speech on campuses.

“What that tells me is two things,” he said. “One, that 10 percent of schools using this tactic is a big enough problem that we need to address it. But that 90 percent of schools don’t use free speech zones to stifle speech proves that if the other schools that use that tactic were to eliminate the free speech zones, the sky would not fall.”

FIRE rates colleges and universities on their speech codes. UNC received a green rating, meaning FIRE is not currently aware of threats to students’ free speech rights at the University and its policies nominally protect free speech.

UNC and Duke University are the only schools in North Carolina that received a green rating.

UNC’s current policy permits assemblies and gatherings of university-sponsored, university-affiliated and unaffiliated groups without prior approval in Y-Court, the Pit and in designated major open spaces. It said any group, whether affiliated with the University or not, may distribute pamphlets, written materials, publications and advertisements at any open, exterior campus space.

Under the policy, UNC has seen many protests and exercises of free speech on campus.

Students gathered in front of South Building to protest Trump’s inauguration with the “Not My President” walkout. Students held police brutality protests in Lenoir Dining Hall, the Student Union and in Kenan Stadium and students held a call-out to protest the president’s executive orders which support the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Bill Marshall, a UNC law professor, said the importance of education is taken into consideration in deciding how far free speech can go on campus.

“I mean, the University has an ability to make sure that its core mission gets accomplished — but at the same time, it needs to give a lot of rein to dissent as well,” he said.

Censoring content is when free speech restrictions become unconstitutional, Marshall said. But time and manner restrictions could be allowed.

“If the University said that it was going to allow only pro-government speech and not allow anti-government speech that would be presumptively unconstitutional,” he said. “That’s true in a university setting, as well as in other places. But if a university said that it wasn’t going to open up its library to any speech whatsoever, then that would probably be upheld as a reasonable time, place and manner restriction.”

Free speech applies in full force to public but not to private universities, Cohn said.

It does not look like Berkeley did anything wrong, but they miscalculated how much security was needed during the protests, he said.

Marshall said universities should be cautious in restricting student speech — whether it is at private or public universities, and whether it is explicitly protected by the First Amendment or not.

“I do think that we have a tradition in this country of protecting students’ right to speak as part of a learning experience,” Marshall said.

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