‘Speech Code of the Month’ in ‘The FIRE Quarterly’

As Torch readers know, each month, FIRE features a college or university with a particularly egregious speech code as its Speech Code of the Month. We use Speech Code of the Month to educate the public about the ever-present problem of speech codes on campus, but the feature also helps put public pressure on these schools to encourage revisions of these repressive policies.

An article in our new issue of The FIRE Quarterly discusses the changes in policies FIRE has witnessed in four institutions that have been named Speech Code of the Month in the past. Since June 2005, Albertson College of Idaho, Jacksonville State University, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the University of Nevada at Reno, and the University of Mississippi (a change that occurred after the Quarterly went to press) have all changed their policies after being named Speech Code of the Month. Furthermore, a policy change appears imminent at Western Michigan University, where, shortly after being named Speech Code of the Month in March 2007, University President Diether Haenicke directed university administrators to rewrite a questionable policy there.

For the full article on the real changes Speech Code of the Month has brought about, look to page 5 of The FIRE Quarterly.