Our friends over at FIRE have just released their 2009 report on speech codes on campus. Unfortunately, the picture they paint isn’t a pretty one — speech codes are all too common. Restricting speech is bad enough in it’s own right — indeed it i unconstitutional at public institutions, not that such a fact stops schools from trying — but is even more troublesome when you look at how schools implement speech codes. A common practice is to restrict speech through overly broad sexual harassment policies. As Kate Schindler and I point out in this IWF publication from 2007, such a strategy creates a double whammy — schools restrict free speech on campus AND misdirect resources away from protecting students from legitimate harassment. That’s a lose/lose proposition for students.
