A legal effort Alliance Defending Freedom launched last year to change unconstitutional policies at America’s public universities and colleges has resulted in policy changes at 30 universities across the country, according to the most recent data compiled this week.
The ongoing effort seeks to change policies that violate the First-Amendment-protected freedoms of students at hundreds of public universities and colleges nationwide.
“Public universities should encourage, not censor, the free exchange of ideas,” said Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “This effort has given public universities and colleges the opportunity to respect the constitutionally protected freedoms of their students without any costly litigation. The objective has been to inform officials of how their policies conflict with the Constitution, as reinforced by numerous federal court rulings, so that the schools can make changes.”
“The success of this effort so far means we will continue pressing forward to help schools protect their students as well as help students who often end up the victims of unconstitutional policies,” Theriot added.
Among the problematic policies are various speech codes and zones that place unconstitutional restrictions on student speech, policies that force student clubs to accept voting members and officers that don’t agree with the clubs’ beliefs, and policies that allow non-religious student groups to use student activity fees but exclude religious student groups even though the students in those groups have contributed to the fees.
School | State | Policies Changed |
University of Alabama | AL | Coerced Association |
University of Alabama at Birmingham | AL | Coerced Association |
University of South Alabama | AL | Speech Code |
University of Alabama at Huntsville | AL | Speech Code/Coerced Association |
University of Arizona | AZ | Speech Code |
California Polytechnic State University-Pomona | CA | Student Fee Policy |
University of California-Davis | CA | Equal Access to campus mail for student groups |
University of California-Los Angeles | CA | Speech Code |
University of California-Riverside | CA | Speech Code |
University of California-San Diego | CA | Speech Code |
University of California-Santa Barbara | CA | Speech Code |
University of California-Santa Cruz | CA | Speech Code |
University of California-Berkeley | CA | Speech Code |
Nicholls State University | LA | Speech Code |
University of Southern Maine | ME | Speech Code |
University of Southern Mississippi | MS | Speech Code/Speech Zone/Coerced Association |
Elizabeth City State University | NC | Speech Zone |
East Carolina University | NC | Speech Code/Coerced Association |
The College of New Jersey | NJ | Speech Code/Student Fee Policy |
William Patterson University | NJ | Speech Code |
Evergreen State College | OR | Speech Code |
Cheney University of Pennsylvania | PA | Speech Code |
Indiana University of Pennsylvania | PA | Speech Code |
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania | PA | Speech Code |
Lincoln University | PA | Speech Code |
Virginia Tech | VA | Student Fee Policy |
Arkansas Tech University | AR | Speech Code/Student Fee Policy |
Georgia Southern University | GA | Speech Code |
Eastern Kentucky University | KY | Speech Code |
Eastern Washington University | WA | Speech Code |