The Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) sent a letter to Auburn University, claiming its newly adopted Auburn Housing and Residence Life policy violates students’ free speech rights.

FIRE’s letter refers to a rule that prohibits students from “hanging or displaying items such as flags, banners, decals or signs out of or obstructing residence hall windows.”

According to FIRE, student Eric Philips had a Ron Paul for President banner hanging on the inside of his dorm room window.

Citing the new rule, the residence hall director told Philips to take the banner down. So Philips did. And he also took photos of various dorm windows on campus, which have banners and other items displayed. He forwarded the pictures to FIRE.

FIRE President Greg Lukianoff claimed the organization has “evidence of the unconstitutional double standard apparently in place at Auburn” and insisted the university is “bound by the First Amendment [and] must evenly enforce its policies on student expression.”

Do you think Auburn’s new rule unfairly limits students’ speech rights? Chime in below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Louisiana State University hired Ivor van Heerden in 1992 to work at the Louisiana Geological Survey.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, van Heerden was an associate professor at the school and was also the deputy director of its Hurricane Center.

After the storm, van Heerden began making public statements that suggested Katrina’s catastrophic flooding was caused by the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to properly engineer and maintain the city’s levees.

LSU officials weren’t too happy about van Heerden’s remarks. Fearing the comments could lead to a loss of federal funding for the school, they told him not to make public statements about the cause of the levee failures.

But van Heerden kept talking. He even testified before the state legislature and federal Congress, and he wrote a book that not only further discussed his viewpoint on the levee failures but also talked about LSU’s efforts to squelch him.

When LSU declined to renew his contract, van Heerden sued and claimed the school retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights.

A court found that there was enough circumstantial evidence for his retaliation claim against an interim dean to go forward. An email cast doubt on the interim dean’s assertion that van Heerden was let go for budgetary reasons. Also, there was evidence that the school had tried to hire new faculty members for the same kind of position that van Heerden held — which would cast further doubt on the claim that budgetary reasons motivated the contract non-renewal.

Cite: Van Heerden v. Board of Supervisors of Lousiana State University.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) recently gave a nod to universities that showed the greatest respect for students’ speech rights.

Relying on its “red, yellow and green light” rankings for speech policies, FIRE listed these schools, in no particular order, as the best of the best:

• Arizona State University
• Dartmouth College (NH)
• The College of William & Mary (VA)
• University of Pennsylvania
• Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
• University of Tennessee-Knoxville
• University of Virginia

Did FIRE forget a school that honors free speech? Tell us about it in the comments box below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) called out universities that have consistently failed to respect students’ speech rights.

The offenders, randomly listed, are:

• Syracuse University (NY)
• DePaul University (IL)
• SUNY — Binghamton
• UMass Amherst
• Yale University (CT)
• Bucknell University (PA)
• Michigan State University
• Colorado College
• Tufts University (MA)
• Brandeis University (MA)
• John Hopkins University (MD)
• Marshall University (WV)

FIRE’s logic behind choosing the schools  for this list — and updates on the universities’ progress — is here.

Any other schools you’d add to the list? Sound off below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

The beach town of Narragansett, Rhode Island is a popular summer rental location for students of the nearby University of Rhode Island. In an effort to keep summer disturbances to a minimum, it passed an ordinance making it a public nuisance to “conduct a gathering” of at least five people in a way that “constitutes a substantial disturbance of the quiet enjoyment of private or public property in a significant segment of the neighborhood, as a result of conduct constituting a violation of law.”

If you host an “unruly gathering,” local cops slap a bright orange sticker at the front of your residence. Subsequent offenses call for fines and community service.

A group of students sued to challenge the ordinance, saying it violated their due process rights. They said those orange stickers “publicly branded them as criminals” before a hearing was held. They also charged it was too broad and too vague.

Not so, the court said. The stickers didn’t harm any legally recognizable liberty or property interest, and the constitutional right of association doesn’t include a right to hold a social gathering.

Nor was the ordinance too vague. When viewed as a whole, forbidden conduct was expressed clearly enough.

Cite: URI Student Senate v. Town of Narragansett.

What do you think of this ruling? Share your comment below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

John McGlone is an evangelical Christian who likes to share his faith on college campuses. But when he tried to do so at Tennessee Technological University, things didn’t go so well.

When McGlone and a friend set up shop at the school, he was told to move to another location on campus. McGlone didn’t want to move, and he asked to see a written policy that limited where he could go.

He wasn’t shown a policy right away and went back to join his friend — and was told he’d be arrested if he didn’t leave.

The next day, a dean told him a written application had to be submitted before he could distribute literature on campus. McGlone refused to fill out an application and sued, accusing the school of violating his First Amendment rights.

He lost. The court said the policy was OK because it:

• didn’t give school officials too much discretion
• was content-neutral
• was narrowly tailored to serve significant government interests, and
• left ample alternative channels for communication.

McGlone couldn’t sue over the policy because it never caused him injury — he never even submitted an application and was given the green light to deliver his message in a designated area of the campus. He didn’t have the right to choose his own spot, the court said.

Cite: McGlone v. Bell.

How much freedom should schools have to regulate on-campus religious speech? Tell us what you think below.

Franchesca O’Neal was a student in Professor Charles Falcon’s speech communications class at San Antonio College. When it was time to pick a topic for a public speaking assignment, she chose abortion.

But Falcon banned the topic, saying it would be disruptive and would interfere with his goal of teaching students how to present speeches effectively.

O’Neal filed a First Amendment free speech claim, but the court rejected it.

Falcon’s ban on the topic was justified by “legitimate pedagogical concerns.” Based on his experience, he said abortion was a topic that would interfere with his ability to teach students how to present speeches effectively.

He also claimed allowing a speech on abortion would “imping[e] the rights of other students to receive the best classroom training possible.”

The court agreed. Abortion is a heated topic, it said, and Falcon had a legitimate concern that allowing speeches about it would shift the class focus away from communication skills.

Cite: O’Neal v. Falcon.

Did the court get it right? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

The University of the Virgin Islands disciplined student Stephen McCauley after finding him guilty of violating its policy on hazing and harassment. The charges were based mainly on an allegedly harassing phone call McCauley made to another student as well as an allegedly harassing remark he made to the other student at a bar.

A university policy defined “hazing-harassment” as “any act which causes or is likely to cause serious physical or mental harm or which tends to injure or actually injure, frightens, demeans, degrades or disgraces any person.”

McCauley sued the school, saying it violated his First Amendment rights by bringing charges against him based on his conduct.

With respect to the school’s hazing/harassment policy, the court agreed.

Why? Because the policy was too broad. The school can ban speech that’s likely to cause a substantial disruption, the court said. But its hazing/harassment policy was so broad that it encompassed some speech that can’t reasonably be viewed as likely to create a threat of substantial disruption.

The hazing/harassment policy was unconstitutionally overbroad, the court said.

Cite: McCauley v. Univ. of the Virgin Islands.

Do you agree that the school’s policy was too broad? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Law student Adam Key isolated a video frame of Regent University president Pat Robertson scratching his nose. Robertson happened to be using his middle finger to relieve the itch, and the picture made it look like he was “flipping the bird” to viewers.

When Key used the image as his Facebook profile picture, school administrators weren’t too happy. They told him he’d violated a school ban on profane or obscene behavior.

Key removed the image, but he later talked about the episode on a school listserve. Then the school got reports that he’d been carrying a stun gun on campus and scaring other students with erratic behavior. It decided enough was enough and suspended him for a year.

First Amendment violation? No, said the court hearing Key’s case. Regent is a private university, and the First Amendment deals only with governmental infringement of free speech rights.

Cite: Key v. Robertson.

How far should schools go to regulate students’ use of Facebook? Let us know in the comments section below.

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The students sued for free speech violations. The school had no right to stop their private, non-disruptive prayer, they said – even if they used a faculty office and an instructor joined them.

The college said allowing prayer in a faculty office, with instructor participation, crossed the line because it made it look like the school was endorsing religion.

What the court ruled: The court said a reasonable outside observer wouldn’t see things that way. It refused to dismiss the case.

Cite: Kyriacou v. Peralta Community College Dist.

Did the court get it right? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.