Nicholls State University: President’s University-Wide Email Threatens to Violate the First Amendment

On June 8, 2020, Nicholls State University president Jay Clune emailed all faculty and students declaring the university will “respond with the swiftest, harshest action allowed by law if any member of our campus community is found acting or communicating in a manner that does not support our values.” FIRE wrote Nicholls State on June 12 informing it that Clune’s proclamation threatened the expressive rights of the entire Nicholls State community and ran afoul of the university’s obligations under the First Amendment. We requested a substantive response to address our concerns, but Nicholls State did not respond.