FIRE is pleased to announce the publication of Defying the Constitution: The Rise, Persistence, and Prevalence of Campus Speech Codes in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy. Authored by FIRE’s Azhar Majeed, Associate Director of Legal and Public Advocacy, the article chronicles the existence of college and university speech codes nationwide and argues that maintaining them is untenable, given that every single court decision on speech codes has struck them down as unconstitutional. The article analyzes the First Amendment and free speech problems presented by speech codes, examines the harms that they perpetuate on the college campus, and responds to various arguments put forth by their proponents. It also offers potential ways to eradicate speech codes permanently from college campuses. FIRE expects the article to be an informative contribution to First Amendment scholarship, clarifying the state of the law on speech codes.
Campus Speech Codes: Absurd, Tenacious, and Everywhere
One can be forgiven for thinking that campus speech codes are a thing of the past. After all, there were no fewer than five legal decisions from 1989 to 1995 overturning such codes as unlawful or unconstitutional. Sadly, however, speech codes did not disappear in the 1990s; in fact, they increased in number even as it became painfully clear that they were both unlawful and unwise.