The folks at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) have posted the June selection for Speech Code of the Month. It goes to Bemidji State University in Minnesota for this incredible squelching of free speech.
Bemidji State’s Student Code of Conduct (PDF) prohibits:
engaging in any offensive, obscene or abusive language, or in boisterous or noisy conduct reasonably tending to arouse alarm, resentment, or anger in others on University-owned or controlled property or at University sponsored or supervised activities.
Is anybody home at Bemidji State?
The policy’s prohibition on conduct “tending to arouse alarm, resentment, or anger in others” is also in direct conflict with a decision of the Supreme Court. In Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4 (1949), the Court held:
Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.
