Two free expression advocacy groups say they’ve sent letters to Pennsylvania public colleges and universities “urging them to protect students’ expressive rights leading up to election day,” according to a news release sent Friday.
The groups are the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
“FIRE has received numerous complaints from students at both public and private institutions,” that organization said in the release. Several complaints involve institutions treating “conversations about the right to vote” as “solicitation” regulated by solicitation policies.
“Even solicitation rules that are constitutional when applied to commercial speech violate the First Amendment when they are used to restrict core political speech,” the letters to the public institutions say.
While private colleges and universities often promise free speech rights to their students and employees, public campuses are bound by the First Amendment to allow free expression. FIRE attorney Jessie Appleby said the two groups sent letters to all public institutions in the swing state.
“Colleges and universities must welcome and protect political
expression and activities on campus, subject to no more than the reasonable time, place and manner rules that apply to all expressive activities,” the letters say. “Institutions may not relegate political expression to ‘free-speech zones’ in low-traffic areas, restrict political canvassing under more stringent solicitation policies, bar outside organizations and speakers from common areas of campus, or consider student organizations’ partisan or non-partisan views when providing funding or access to campus facilities.”
Shippensburg University was among the Pennsylvania campuses where issues were reported, Appleby said. She said the administration there “attempted to limit voter engagement activities to three low-traffic areas of campus and explicitly threatened students with discipline if they approached students in higher-traffic areas.” She said there was also a report of a student whose resident adviser had given her permission “to knock on doors in her own dorm, but was then immediately told to stop because door knocking was not allowed.”
A Shippensburg spokesperson referred Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment Friday to Kevin Hensil, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
“PASSHE universities respect and protect free speech and encourage expressive activities on campus, including election-related activities, that are protected by the First Amendment,” Hensil said. “We also have an obligation to ensure that members of our community are safe and secure. All PASSHE universities have content-neutral policies in place to balance these obligations. Those policies clearly identify public spaces where expressive activities can occur and private spaces, such as residential halls, where students’ privacy is protected.”
