2024 Policy Statement on Political Speech on Campus

Looking for quick answers to your questions about political speech or campaigning on campus? Check out FIRE's FAQ. 

Protecting robust political expression, debate, and peaceful protest at our nation’s colleges and universities is vital to the health of American democracy. It follows that students and faculty peacefully expressing political views during the 2024 election season must not face any form of suppression.

But as FIRE observed in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020, major election cycles have been routinely marred by the censorship of political speech on campus. While intentional viewpoint discrimination against certain candidates or causes is a common throughline, more obscure culprits — like genuine administrative confusion about how IRS requirements can impact campus campaigning — show up time and again, too. 2024’s ultra-polarized campus climate strongly suggests we’ll soon see an uptick in speech controversies as November nears.

Twenty years after issuing our initial election-year call to colleges and universities to “prove themselves as models for democratic discourse,” that admonition holds. 

The good news: It can be done. 

In setting policy governing on-campus political speech, colleges should follow these guidelines to ensure their campuses remain open to all viewpoints this election season.

Students

Students at public colleges and universities enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment and must be free to engage in political activity, expression, and association on campus.

Students at private colleges and universities are entitled to that degree of freedom of expression and association promised to them in institutional handbooks, policies, and promotional materials, or due to them by virtue of state law (as in California) or standards of accreditation.

The overwhelming majority of private colleges and universities make extensive free speech promises, comparable to those required by the First Amendment, in their materials. Of the 489 colleges and universities rated in FIRE’s 2024 report on campus speech codes, only six private institutions earn a “Warning” rating for clearly and consistently stating that they hold certain values above a commitment to free speech.

Student Groups

Student groups at public universities enjoy First Amendment rights of free expression and free association. Student groups at private universities enjoy those freedoms promised them by institutional handbooks, codes of conduct, and other published policies.

• Student groups may freely express political viewpoints. Like individual student speech, student group speech may be limited only by the few, narrow First Amendment exceptions — including, for example, when speech is unprotected because it meets the legal definition of a true threat, incitement, or discriminatory harassment. Student group speech is also properly subject to reasonable, viewpoint- and content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations. This means student groups must be allowed to publish, advocate, denounce, or otherwise engage in First Amendment-protected political expression as they see fit.
• Public universities can’t deny student groups funding or university resources because of their beliefs. Student groups are often funded by student activity fees collected from every student. Groups can then apply for funding from the university or the student government acting on the university’s behalf. When these bodies distribute activity funding, they cannot exclude or prefer groups based on viewpoint. Once fee money is allocated to student organizations, it becomes “a fund that simply belongs to the students,” and the institution cannot use funding as a cudgel to dictate student organizations’ activities.

Political events, speaking engagements, and other partisan activities hosted by a student organization and funded by student activity fees are not institutional activities. When a public university decides to use student fees to fund a multiplicity of independent student groups, each student group retains its status as a private party expressing its own viewpoint and can neither be censored by the university nor cautioned against using allocated fees or facilities for “partisan purposes” or other political speech if those fees or facilities could be used by other groups for the same activity. If a public university or student government denies such funding to a student organization because of its partisan message or ideology, it is engaging in unlawful viewpoint discrimination. Administrators who censor student organization speech on the basis of viewpoint violate clearly established legal precedent and risk being held personally liable for damages and attorneys’ fees as a result.

• Students at public universities can form political groups. Public universities must recognize their students’ rights to associate with those who share their political beliefs. Whether progressive, liberal, libertarian, conservative, or otherwise, political student groups may not be denied recognition because of their beliefs or because similar groups already enjoy recognition. Denying a political or ideological student organization the right to associate with like-minded students deprives them of freedom of association, a basic right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
• Student groups may post political speech or hyperlinks on university-affiliated websites. Universities sometimes attempt to limit political activity on student groups’ websites or remove hyperlinks to politically oriented student groups’ websites on the university’s official website out of concern this activity might be construed as the university’s own political expression. 

When the university controls a website (for instance, a department’s homepage) that page might be seen as bearing the imprimatur of the university. However, just because a university hosts political speech on a webpage controlled by a student group does not automatically make the third party’s speech that of the university. When evaluating these cases, the presumption in such cases should be that the linked website’s speech is not attributable to the university, a presumption that may be overcome only where the speaker represents himself or herself as speaking on behalf of the institution, and only to the extent a reasonable person would believe that to be true. Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code does not require all linked websites on a tax-exempt university’s official website to be free of campaign activity. Whether a university website’s links constitute intervention on behalf of a political campaign will be determined by assessing all relevant facts and circumstances in context. Simply put, the fact that a university website links to a political website (such as a club directory listing a political organization’s website) does not make the site into a university website. Students therefore can include whatever content they wish as long as a reasonable person can tell that content is theirs and not the university’s.

• Student newspapers may publish political editorials and opinion articles. Student newspapers may publish editorials expressing opinions on political and legislative questions — including endorsements of candidates, bills, or initiatives — even when such newspapers use university facilities and resources or are advised by university faculty. These activities do not constitute political activity for Section 501(c)(3) purposes. 

Faculty

Faculty at public colleges and universities enjoy a broad right to engage in political speech as private citizens and outside the parameters of their employment-related activities. Faculty members should be free to participate in political rallies on campus, express partisan messages outside of the classroom (for instance, by wearing political buttons), disseminate political speech via email, post political humor and commentary on their office doors, and more. (State laws may vary in terms of the protections they afford to political speech in the workplace.) Professors taking part in such activities should be understood to be speaking as citizens on matters of public concern, not as faculty members acting pursuant to their job-related duties.

The list of activities in which faculty at public universities may not participate is comparatively narrow and easily understood. Faculty may be prevented, for instance, from fundraising in class, making statements in support of candidates or a party on university letterhead, or otherwise offering oral or written public support for a candidate or party in a manner that could be reasonably perceived as attributable to the university. (Again, state law varies in this area, so faculty should review state-specific requirements.)

Individual state constitutions, state case law, collective bargaining agreements, and faculty resolutions may provide additional protections or rights beyond those enunciated by the First Amendment or federal case law. Faculty members at public universities are encouraged to consult these sources when considering the scope of their speech rights on campus.

While working, faculty at private colleges and universities enjoy the right to free speech as specified in their contracts with their employing institution and relevant faculty policies. If an institution has promised its faculty expressive rights, they may engage in partisan political speech when such speech is not likely to be perceived as officially representing the views of their employing institution. This includes discussing political issues in class when germane to the course. Of course, when not working, private university faculty are citizens who enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment.

As a general rule, the presumption should be that faculty are not speaking on behalf of the university. It is possible to overcome this presumption, however, and faculty who serve in a joint administrative capacity are more likely to run afoul of rules preventing the appearance of official endorsement. (Note that non-faculty employees of universities may not enjoy the same political speech protections as students and faculty, and state law varies in this area.)

Institutions

While universities and colleges that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are prohibited from engaging in political activity as institutions, individual students, student groups, and faculty members do not endanger their institution’s tax-exempt status by engaging in partisan political speech when such speech is clearly separate and distinct from the institution’s views or opinions.

This is frequently misunderstood by university administrators, despite the IRS having consistently made clear that “[i]n order to constitute participation or intervention in a political campaign . . . the political activity must be that of the college or university and not the individual activity of its faculty, staff or students.” Likewise, with respect to students, the IRS has noted that “[t]he actions of students generally are not attributed to an educational institution unless they are undertaken at the direction of and with authorization from a school official.”

The presumption is that student and faculty political activity does not represent the views of the university as an institution. This presumption applies with particular vigor when speakers clearly indicate that they are not speaking for the university. The risk of the appearance of institutional endorsement may be greater when the speaker is a senior university administrator, but it decreases as one moves down the chain of command to lower level administrators. The risk does not apply to students, student groups, or faculty members without administrative roles.

At public universities, partisan student groups may use institutional resources and facilities for partisan political expression and activities when the use of such resources and facilities is obtained in the same way that nonpartisan student groups may obtain such use. Similarly, students and student organizations at private institutions promising freedom of speech are not prohibited by IRS regulations from using student activity fees to engage in political speech and activity and may use institutional resources and facilities for these purposes — provided that these resources are made available to all speakers and student groups and that each student group follows the same procedures observed by all others seeking to use university resources.

As long as partisan political activity on campus by students and student groups is neither privileged nor hindered by the institution, and as long as partisan political speech by students and faculty does not overcome the strong presumption that they do not speak for the institution, then the tax-exempt status of universities and colleges will not be endangered.

Conclusion

Students, student groups, and faculty at public and private universities enjoy a robust right to engage in political expression on campus. This is as it should be: The right to speak one’s mind about political questions is a vital component of civic participation in the United States, and our campuses are uniquely equipped to serve as the “marketplace of ideas.”

But too often — and particularly in election years — FIRE confronts censorship of political expression on campus. When students, student groups, and faculty members are prevented from discussing the day’s most important political issues, democracy suffers. FIRE urges universities and colleges to carefully consider the crucial function our institutions of higher education play in fostering debate and discussion on these issues and to greet with deep suspicion any legal interpretation or contrivance that would undermine this crucial role.

If you think your expressive rights might be threatened by a college or university, please contact FIRE.

Further Resources

FIRE Student Network, FIRE’s FAQ for Political Speech on Campus (2024).

American Council on Education, Political Campaign-Related Activities of and at Colleges and Universities (2024).

Judith E. Kindell and John Francis Reilly, Election Year Issues, Exempt Organizations Continuing Professional Education Technical Instruction Program for Fiscal Year 2002, Internal Revenue Service (2002).

Judith E. Kindell and John F. Reilly, Election Year Issues, Exempt Organizations Continuing Professional Education Technical Instruction Program for Fiscal Year 1993, Internal Revenue Service (1993).

Laura Beltz and Mary Zoeller, Political Speech on Campus: A Practical Look at University Policies and Regulations, Cumberland Law Review Online (2020).