'Las Vegas Review-Journal' Urges Nevada Schools to Repeal Speech Codes

If the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) don’t get it, at least the Las Vegas Review-Journal does: UNLV and UNR, as public institutions, cannot maintain their broad and vague prohibitions on “offensive” or “disrespect[ful]” speech. The Review-Journal spoke with FIRE’s Samantha Harris for an editorial published yesterday explaining how the Nevada schools earned their “red light” ratings in our Spotlight database and why this should concern Nevada students.

“Students across the country have been disciplined and expelled for exercising their constitutional rights,” the editorial says. “Make no mistake, cracking down on ideas is tyrannical.” After all, colleges and universities especially are supposed to be places where people are exposed to new ideas and can engage in open debate: “Nobody has a right to never be offended.”

As Samantha noted to the Review-Journal, many colleges choose to work with FIRE to revise their speech codes in order to comport with the First Amendment and fully protect student and faculty free speech rights. UNLV and UNR should do so, too.

Check out the rest of the editorial on the Review-Journal’s website.

Image: University of Nevada, Reno - Wikipedia