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The Daily Signal
Passing Out
Copies of Constitution Could Get You in Trouble at This College
Christine Roe
August 01, 2017
A college policy that led to the arrests of a student and two
supporters of a conservative group for passing out copies of the
Constitution on a Michigan campus is getting its day in court.
A lawyer with the First Amendment legal aid group Alliance Defending
Freedom was set to argue in court Tuesday for suspension of the speech
policy because of the arrests at Kellogg Community College in Battle
Creek.
The sequence of events as described by Alliance Defending Freedom, or
ADF:
On Sept. 20, supporters of Young Americans for Liberty were handing out
copies of the Constitution and talking about the club to students in
the middle of a walkway outside Binda Performing Arts Center.
The supporters said their activities didn’t block the walkway or impede
other events, but school administrators and security officers
approached to inform them that they were violating campus speech
policies that demand students get prior permission for “expressive
activities” among other requirements.
In a press release, ADF said one administrator was recorded on video
saying that “engaging [students] in conversation on their way to
educational places” violates policy because it is an “obstruction to
their education” to ask them questions such as “Do you like freedom and
liberty?”
According to ADF, the administrator also said he was concerned that
students from “rural farm areas … might not feel like they have the
choice to ignore the question.”
The college representatives instructed the club supporters to stop
distributing the materials and talking to students. When three of them
said they were going to continue practicing their First Amendment
rights, security arrested them and charged them with trespassing.
After Alliance Defending Freedom became involved, the school dropped
charges against the student and other club supporters.
But related policies, including what the school calls its solicitation
policy, are still in effect.
Travis Barham, an ADF lawyer, was to appear Tuesday in U.S. District
Court for the Western District of Michigan in support of a motion filed
in May seeking suspension of the college’s related policies.
ADF filed a lawsuit Jan. 18 against Kellogg Community College arguing
that the speech policy gives administrators too much discretion to
restrict expression of students’ views because it requires prior
approval and curbs speech in outdoor areas.
In a June 22 press release about the suit, college spokesman Eric Green
said:
This case is not about free speech or viewpoint discrimination. We have
felt from Day One of this unnecessary lawsuit that the plaintiffs’
claims are without merit and that the college’s solicitation policy is
constitutional and appropriate in its scope. … We don’t regulate the
content of anyone’s solicitation materials, but we do govern the time,
place and manner of the activities in order to ensure the safety of all
students, employees, and guests on our campuses.
Green said the policy “ensures that the time, place, and manner of
solicitation activities—regardless of the content of those
activities—do not impede or interfere with the learning environment or
college business.”
Kellogg Community College isn’t the only school to restrict student
speech on campus recently, and it isn’t the only one to punish students
for passing out copies of the Constitution.
ADF, in conjunction with the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education, sent a demand letter in May to Bunker Hill Community College
in Massachusetts after students with the same group, Young Americans
for Liberty, were told they could not distribute copies of the
Constitution.
The letter warned that some campus policies are unconstitutional.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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