American University: University Summons Student Organization to Meeting with Administrators Over Political Meme

On September 17, 2024, the American University College Republicans shared a meme on Instagram featuring an AI-generated photo of former President Donald Trump holding a cat and duck in each arm captioned, “Trump will save the ducks and kittens!” The meme seemingly referred to an allegation that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating domestic pets. After a student complained about the organization’s post, calling it “hate speech,” administrators summoned the AU College Republicans to a meeting to discuss the complainant’s concerns. FIRE wrote AU on October 17, urging it to amend its procedure for handling complaints to avoid summoning students to meetings with administrators for a complaint concerning clearly protected speech because the implicit threat of discipline chills student speech.