California State University, Long Beach: Moratorium on New Student Organizations

As early as September 2015, California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) imposed a moratorium on recognizing any new student organization. This move deprived students of the ability to form new organizations and request student fees collected by CSULB and distributed by the student government. FIRE wrote to CSULB on August 18, 2016, to warn the university that its moratorium was limiting students’ rights to free expression and association. Additionally, FIRE raised concerns that students whose groups were not recognized by CSULB were at risk of violating an ambiguous policy requiring “off-campus” groups to get an administrator’s permission before distributing literature on campus. Within hours of FIRE’s letter, CSULB removed the moratorium from its web page.