In recent years, there has been a significant amount of movement in the push to rid campuses of free speech zones, with groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education experiencing success at schools like West Virginia and Texas Tech.
Author: Seth Zweifler
A new direction: J-labs turn classrooms into newsrooms
Today, journalism schools are increasingly transforming their classrooms into newsrooms – offering new opportunities for students but raising new legal and philosophical questions.
U. of Memphis president orders investigation into Helmsman's budget cut
Less than three days after The Daily Helmsman publicly accused a University of Memphis committee of slashing its budget in response to content, the school’s president is ordering an investigation into the matter.
Michigan Supreme Court strikes down university's rule against 'disrupting' employees
A Michigan State University ordinance that was used to convict a law student for disrupting a parking enforcement employee has been struck down as unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.
U. of Memphis paper faces funding cut after tension with administrators, police
The student newspaper at theUniversity of Memphis is protesting a budget cut it believes to be a directresponse to the past year’s content.
U. of Florida plans to remove newspaper racks, charge for space in new ones
The University of Florida’s independent student newspaper is protesting a change in distribution policy that it believes could have a detrimental effect on readership and First Amendment freedom
Report: Free speech awareness rises in 2012, support for off-campus speech rights about the same
Fifty-seven percent of Americans believe that public schools should not be able to punish students for posting “offensive” content on social media, according to the latest installment of the First Amendment Center’s State of the First Amendment report.The 2012 report was released Tuesday, and while some of its findings continue to paint a grim picture for appreciation and knowledge of the First Amendment — 27 percent of Americans were unable to name any of its five freedoms, fairly consistent with last year’s results — a few responses are more optimistic for the future of the First Amendment inside and outside the schoolhouse gates.Just 13 percent of respondents believed the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees, the lowest total in the past decade.National awareness of freedom of speech as a First Amendment-protected right jumped from previous years; 65 percent of those responding were able to volunteer "speech" as a protected right.
Colo. commission wants to repeal newspaper theft law
A Colorado commission that reviews criminal laws voted Friday to repeal a statute that makes it a crime to steal free newspapers, arguing that the legislation has clogged up the state’s justice system.
U. of Michigan paper faces $1 million defamation suit — in Canada
A Canadian hockey club filed suit against the University of Michigan’s student newspaper in an Ontario court Tuesday, following a story that alleged the team offered money to a UM-bound player.
Former Elon student asks N.C. Supreme Court to open police records at private colleges
Nick Ochsner, the former Elon University student journalist who was denied access to records held by the private school’s police department, is taking his case to the state Supreme Court.Ochsner filed a petition Tuesday to have his case against the university and the state attorney general’s office heard by the North Carolina Supreme Court.