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First Amendment for College Administrators

Lesson 5: Conclusion

Video 1: Key takeaways for administrators

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Video Transcript

Let’s recap: Free speech is the foundation of our nation’s academic institutions, permitting students and faculty to seek the truth through a diversity of voices. It is also the foundation of our democracy, guaranteed by the First Amendment. So when you’re working with students and faculty, be cognizant of their First Amendment and academic freedom rights. Don’t take disciplinary action on or investigate claims based only on protected speech. Under First Amendment standards, speech is protected unless it falls into one of the limited exceptions discussed earlier in this training.

Make sure all relevant policies at your college or university align with the First Amendment and other state and federal laws. For example, revise “bias reporting” policies that suggest protected speech — an off-color joke, for example — could constitute harassment. Suppressing speech because you personally disagree with it or find it offensive, is one of the most egregious violations of student and faculty rights you can make.

And make sure students know their own and their classmates’ expressive rights, as well as when speech crosses the line into an unprotected true threat, discrimination, or harassment. You can do this by incorporating lessons on the principles of free speech, academic freedom, truth-seeking, and curiosity, for example, during first year orientation.

In these politically charged times, administrators like you are routinely asked to intervene in free-speech controversies. The administrators we know who do this best—and, thus, make their own jobs easier—are well versed in their college’s rules and regulations and able to point to their school’s strong free speech policy every time. When campus leadership demonstrates a principled commitment to expressive rights and academic freedom publicly, loudly, and clearly at the very beginning of a controversy, threats to protected expression often dissipate. When people know the rules — and know that you know the rules — they’re far less likely to ask you to break them.

As always, if you have any questions about free-speech incidents that occur on your campus, or want our help drafting policies that will better protect speech, FIREis here to help.

Suggested Resources

• For assistance drafting First Amendment compliant policies, reach out to our Policy Reform team at speechcodes@thefire.org; 

• FIRE, "Reforming College Policies"

• FIRE, "Model Speech Policies for College Campuses"

• Greg Lukianoff, "Five ways university presidents can prove their commitment to free speech" (2019)

• FIRE, "Free Speech Lessons for Freshman Orientation & First-Year Experience Programming"

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