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Spotlight on Speech Codes 2012: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation's Campuses

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Spotlight on Speech Codes 2012: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

  • “The U.S. Supreme Court has called America’s colleges and universities “vital centers for the Nation’s intellectual life,” but the reality today is that many of these institutions severely restrict free speech and open debate. Speech codes—policies prohibiting student and faculty speech that would, outside the bounds of campus, be protected by the First Amendment—have repeatedly been struck down by federal and state courts. Yet they persist, even in the very jurisdictions where they have been ruled unconstitutional; the majority of American colleges and universities have speech codes. FIRE surveyed 392 schools for this report and found that 65% maintain severely restrictive speech codes—policies that clearly and substantially prohibit protected speech. That this figure is so large is deeply troubling, but there is a small silver lining: It represents a decline in the percentage of schools maintaining such policies for the fourth year in a row.”
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