Arizona State University has reportedly blocked access to the petition website Change.org, citing concerns with "spam" emails coming from the site in the wake of a petition posted on the site that advocated lower tuition costs at the university. Today, FIRE wrote a letter to the university asking that Arizona State immediately restore access to the Change.org website and assure its students that its IT department does not block access to websites that might host content critical of the university.Read Full Article
FIRE has selected ten finalists for our contest for the best tweet promoting our newest video, about FIRE's case at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where Professor James Miller was ordered to take down a poster featuring a quote from the science fiction show Firefly. With more than 80,000 views, the video is among FIRE's most popular. $500 in prizes is at stake for the participants, so please go to Prizes.org and vote on your favorite today—on Monday, it's all over!
Following a state council's ruling that New Jersey's new anti-bullying law is an unfunded mandate in violation of the New Jersey Constitution, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) notes that the law also violates college students' First Amendment rights. The law ignores the fact that harassment in the educational context has a precise legal definition, crafted by the Supreme Court with specific attention to balancing the right to freedom of expression with the government's interest in prohibiting real harassment. The law also conflicts with recent rulings on campus speech from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, whose jurisdiction includes New Jersey. Read Full Article
This evening, Vanderbilt University will hold a town hall “discussion” about its new nondiscrimination policy that prevents belief-based student groups from making belief-based decisions about their leadership. Vanderbilt effectively is discriminating against political and religious groups that seek to promote a common message. Vanderbilt has told students that their organizations are engaging in prohibited discrimination if they require that leaders of the Vanderbilt College Democrats be Democrats, that Christian groups be Christian, that Muslim groups be Muslim, that single-sex singing groups maintain their identity, or that political publications exclude students who do not share their views. TAKE ACTION: Tell Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos to preserve religious freedom at Vanderbilt! Read Full Article
In an open letter today, FIRE asks Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos important questions about how Vanderbilt will handle the ramifications of its recent decision to ban political and religious student groups on campus from making leadership decisions based on their core beliefs. FIRE points out that Vanderbilt must be willing to explain whether the university will, for example, force a Muslim group whose leader converts to Christianity to retain that person as a leader, or whether politically oriented student newspapers will now be forced to accept columnists who denigrate the newspaper's own beliefs. Read Full Article
Only two days are left to enter FIRE's contest on Prizes.org for the best tweet promoting our video about the infamous Firefly censorship case at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, now with nearly 80,000 views on YouTube. The best tweet promoting the video will receive a grand prize of $300, with smaller prizes for runners-up. Take a look at the contest rules and feel free to vote on as many entries as you like. In two days, only 10 finalists will remain, and voting will begin to determine the grand prize winner. Submit your own entry now!
The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) has eliminated its speech codes, earning the highest "green light" rating for free speech from the FIRE. While two-thirds of the nation's colleges maintain policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech, Ole Miss is now a proud exception, having fully reformed four policies that restricted speech protected by the First Amendment. Ole Miss is the 16th school nationwide to earn a green light, the fifth to do so in the last two years, and the first in Mississippi. Ole Miss administrators worked in close contact with FIRE attorneys to address the university's speech codes. Read Full Article
Syracuse University's School of Education has readmitted a graduate student it had expelled from its teaching program after he complained on Facebook about a racially charged comment made in his presence by a community leader. Syracuse had told Matthew Werenczak that his only chance for reinstatement was to undergo a special course of diversity training and counseling for "anger management"—all because he expressed annoyance over a community leader's complaint that student teachers were coming from Syracuse rather than historically black colleges. Within hours of FIRE bringing his case to the public, Werenczak was readmitted. Read Full Article
