'Free Speech Semester' at Western Carolina

On Monday, Western Carolina University (WCU) commenced a semester-long "Celebration of the First Amendment" with a presentation by Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. The presentation was sponsored by WCU's campus newspaper, The Western Carolinian, and funded by a 2010-11 Louis Ingelhard First Amendment Award Grant from the College Media Association.

WCU is one of the 27 percent of schools we reviewed in our 2011 speech code report that have yellow-light ratings, which means that it has policies that could too easily be used to ban or excessively regulate protected speech.

Taking a look at these policies and thinking about ways to get WCU's Spotlight rating to green would be a great starting point for WCU students to examine the importance of free speech on campus.