Posted on 01/11/2023 10:40:13 AM PST by Twotone
Oklahoma State University (OSU) violated students’ First and Fourteenth amendment rights by enforcing policies which police speech concerning political and social issues, according to a lawsuit filed by legal group Speech First on Tuesday.
OSU enforces policies which “deter, suppress, and punish speech about political and social issues of the day,” according to the lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. It specifically challenges three issues Speech First alleges violates student speech rights: the harassment policy, the computer use policy and the Bias Incident Response system.
“This lawsuit not only holds OSU accountable for its unconstitutional policies, but it puts other universities on notice that students are no longer willing to tolerate being steamrolled by universities who use these intimidating investigatory measures to silence and suppress their speech and their thoughts,” Cherise Trump, Speech First executive director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We filed because our student members at OSU are desperate for a campus environment that allows them to debate their peers without fear of retaliation from an administration bent on shutting down meaningful discourse.”
Speech First alleges that OSU’s harassment policy, which defines harassment as “verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion, bullying” or conduct that could harm a student’s mental health, is vague and “can easily be applied to a wide swath of protected speech.” It also alleges that the computer use policy, which prohibits political campaigning, violates students’ rights by preventing them from “using their student email accounts for protected political speech.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
The left has been using law-fare to its advantage for decades, it’s long past time the right does the same thing.
Doe OSU not know they’re in Oklahoma?
Pistol Pete wouldn’t put up with that crap.
OSU will just do what OU did in this situation. They’ll trot out the football team who will criticize the proposal and all the “conservative” legislators will fall all over themselves begging for forgiveness. See also, Missouri.
As a STATE university, it is a government entity and can be held accountable for abusing students’ civil rights.
Two words: Hillsdale College
>>Doe OSU not know they’re in Oklahoma?<<
These days most colleges live in their own universes far from their physical locations.
That they do. When the Free Speech Zones controversy was at its height somebody asked one professor if being on campus meant surrendering constitutional rights, to which he replied huffily “We obey a higher law here.”
It was a well regarded but 2nd team player that was very high on the wokeness scale that brought the team out. Excellent student. Left the team the next year as a graduate transfer to Stanford to finish a masters degree in something, probably working on a Stanford PhD by now.
I get alumni newsletters from OU throughout the year. Arts & Science and Engineering Colleges plus Microbiology and Chemical Engineering departments. Wokeness is rampant at OU.
I'm extremely ticked off at the engineering college. A year or two ago, the University was tooting its horn on research grants from the feds. Big $$$, area of research, principal investigators, yada yada. DEI department type profs were included on every damn engineering principle team. Thanks a lot feds.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
To begin with, since the early states decided that the individual states did not have to respect the rights that they expressly protected with the Bill of Rights (BoR), the states obligating only the feds to respect such rights, our so-called "absolute" rights of free speech and religious expression were never intended to be absolute imo.
In fact, introducing language from the 10th Amendment (10A) to clarify the original scope of our 1st Amendment protections for example, Thomas Jefferson had explained that the states originally had the power to reasonably limit those protections.
"10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
"1st Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
“3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed; …” —Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
But it can also be argued that since the Civil War showed that some states could not be trusted to respect certain rights that the states ultimately decided to give Congress the power to police constitutionally enumerated protections, evidenced by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment (14A).
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
"Section 5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
In fact, Justice Reed had indicated that it is the job of judges to balance 10A state powers with 14A personal protections (my wording).
"Conflicts in the exercise of rights arise and the conflicting forces seek adjustments in the courts, as do these parties, claiming on the one side the freedom of religion, speech and the press, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and on the other the right to employ the sovereign power explicitly reserved to the State by the Tenth Amendment to ensure orderly living without which constitutional guarantees of civil liberties would be a mockery." —Justice Reed, Jones v. City of Opelika, 1942.
Noting that the article doesn't give details about the Oklahoma University rights case, just because students are suing the university in the name of enumerated (absolute?) rights infringement, doesn't necessarily mean that the university cannot constitutionally justify the infringement.
On the other hand, my opinion of OSU's harassment policy is that it reads like a catch-all "when children are present" on a school zone speed limit sign which tilts the scales of justice in a school's favor imo, including possibly "woke" school administrators in OSU's case.
Ping
The constitution always seems to end at the government’s doorstep. (no guns in post office, or SSA office, . . .)
A university education is supposed to prepare a student for life. This is where the country as a whole is headed so you could say that Oklahoma State is merely doing its duty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.