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Media Report on Latest Stand Up For Speech Case: Censorship at Dixie State

Earlier in the month, students William Jergins, Joey Gillespie, and Forrest Gee filed a First Amendment lawsuit against Utah鈥檚 Dixie State University, the eighth and most recent suit filed as part of 果冻传媒app官方鈥檚 .

We at FIREare no strangers to the argument that campuses must be a 鈥渟afe space鈥 free from emotional and ideological discomfort. Dixie State kicks it up a notch by ensuring that sitting presidents and long-dead revolutionaries are also protected from the peril of college students with sharpened viewpoints鈥攊n this case, flyers negatively portraying Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush as well as Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. As the earlier this month:

The students 鈥 Jergins, Joey Gillespie and Forrest Gee 鈥 say in court documents that the public school requires students to get permission before posting things on campus. They asked to put up three fliers featuring the photos with satirical captions last October. But they say they were denied because the fliers violated school policy by mocking people.

The suit also challenges other speech codes at Dixie State, such as its policy establishing a 鈥渇ree speech zone鈥 that comprises roughly 0.1 percent of the campus acreage. When the students hosted a free speech wall event on campus, after acquiring the requisite approval from no fewer than four separate campus entities, they were restricted to the tiny zone and visited by a campus police officer who was checking for 鈥渉ate speech.鈥

Here鈥檚 a sampling of recent news coverage of the suit:

  • 鈥溾 Associated Press
  • The Spectrum, 鈥,鈥 Kevin Jenkins
  • Cato Institute, 鈥溾 Nat Hentoff
  • Campus Reform, 鈥溾 Taylor Grenawalt
  • The SU Independent, 鈥溾 Dallas Hyland
  • Reason, 鈥,鈥 Elizabeth Nolan Brown
  • Free Beacon, 鈥溾 Mary Lou Byrd
  • OneNewsNow, 鈥溾 Bob Kellogg

And this isn鈥檛 the first time Dixie State has had major free speech issues. Back in 2013, it sought to bar any student organization from using Greek alphabet letters in its name, an attempt to distance the institution from its apparent 鈥減arty school鈥 image.

Now, under federal scrutiny and with the media watching, Dixie State may finally learn its lesson. As Cato Senior Fellow and FIREBoard of Advisors member Nat Hentoff , 鈥渋t鈥檚 wonderful to see students like those at Dixie State take to the courts to rescue the First Amendment. They鈥檙e becoming our educators.鈥

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