The United States Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the case of a student suing Georgia Gwinnett College over its free speech policies. The case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, arose when Chike Uzuegbunam claimed the school limits free speech to a tiny portion of the Lawrenceville campus. Even then, the student claims, school policies require the student to have permission to speak and to refrain from offensive speech.
The move appears to be part of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ push for greater free speech rights on college campuses. It was filed Tuesday, the same day that Sessions spoke on the issue at Georgetown University. He said colleges with policies like the one at GGC turn campuses “into an echo chamber of political correctness and homogeneous thought.”
In the GGC brief, the Justice Department said GGC’s policies would fail the First Amendment test on several grounds. “These students were required to obtain prior authorization from campus officials, to limit their expressive activity to a specified date and time, and to comply with the Student Code of Conduct’s prohibition of speech that “disturbs the…comfort of person(s).”
Specifically, the department took issue with the size of the free speech zone, about 0.0015 percent of campus. Because the person making the speech could be drowned out by others and would be unable to move to another part of campus to continue, the department said this amounts to “heckler’s veto” giving one side an advantage over the other.
“The Justice Department argues the college’s speech policies were not content-neutral, established an impermissible heckler’s veto, and were not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest,” the department said in its brief.
Sessions promised the GGC case would not be the only one his department takes. “A national recommitment to free speech on campus and to ensuring First Amendment rights is long overdue,” he said in a release. “Which is why, starting today, the Department of Justice will do its part in this struggle. We will enforce federal law, defend free speech, and protect students’ free expression.”
