Tag Archives: Group: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

One News Now: ADF attorney David Hacker says Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) was barring student Jacob Dagel from freely handing out flyers protesting the use of college funds to subsidize a governor’s lesbian, “gay,” bisexual and transgender youth conference. “They required student to get permission ten days in advance of doing anything on campus, and then once they got that permission, they could only speak or hand out flyers or papers to their peers if they sat at a table in the student center,” Hacker details. “It’s a really restrictive policy and one that was clearly unconstitutional.”

Greg Baylor at Speak Up Movement: The freedom of religious student groups at America’s public universities is under constant attack. However, the Virginia legislature is the latest to fight bac

LifeSiteNews: DePaul University has punished a student for publicizing the names of fellow students who admitted to vandalizing his organization’s pro-life display.

Heather Gebelin Hacker at Speak Up Movement: Recently, our friends at FIRE celebrated a huge victory (along with legal network attorneys Robert Corn-Revere and Cary Wiggins) in obtaining a jury verdict holding Valdosta State University President Ronald M. Zaccari personally liable for violating student Hayden Barnes’ constitutional rights and awarding him $50,000 in damages

WorldNetDaily: More than six of 10 colleges and universities across the United States have yet to figure out the First Amendment, because their “speech codes” conflict with the Constitution, according to a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “FIRE surveyed 409 schools for this report and found that over 62 percent maintain severely restrictive . . .

Jordan Lorence at SpeakUp Movement: Both Will’s column and Lukianoff’s book show the importance of Alliance Defending Freedom and allies to fight these unconstitutional policies, and why students and faculty need to stand up for liberty and freedom of expression. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys stand ready to protect students and faculty members from these unconstitutional policies restricting their speech. Universities are no longer a marketplace of ideas, encouraging robust debate, when they adopt and enforce these unconstitutional policies.

Michael Barone at National Review: he willingness to lie systematically is also a requirement for administrators who profess a love of free speech while imposing speech codes and penalizing students for violations. All of which provides plenty of business for Lukianoff’s FIRE, which opposes speech codes and brings lawsuits on behalf of students — usually, but not always, conservatives — who are penalized.

Greg Lukianoff at WSJ: At Yale University, you can be prevented from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on your T-shirt. At Tufts, you can be censured for quoting certain passages from the Quran. Welcome to the most authoritarian institution in America: the modern university—”a bizarre, parallel dimension,” as Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, calls it.

Travis Barham at Speak Up Movement University Blog (video embedded): But our friends at FIRE recently unveiled a new way of illustrating the problems with speech codes—a video replete with whiteboard illustrations.

David Hacker at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: Several of Harris’ posts include examples from Alliance Defending Freedom cases, like College Republicans at San Francisco State University v. Reed (a speech code case) and Roberts v. Haragan (a speech zone case).  Here are links to each part of the series . . .

Greg Lukianoff of FIRE at the Volokh Conspiracy: I have been guest blogging this week, and Eugene asked me to reserve some of my posts to respond to reader comments. From the moment that Eugene announced I would be posting, a few commenters have decided that the single most important thing FIRE should actually be fighting is the scourge of censorship-happy Christian colleges. I confess, as I have before, to just being really tired of this argument, as we’ve explained FIRE’s stance on private colleges so many times . . .

Greg Lukianoff of FIRE at Volokh Conspiracy: A few commenters on my latest post for The Volokh Conspiracy have been riffing on the theme that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE, where I work) is only able to show a few examples of censorship on campus, and therefore it must not be that big of a problem. Here’s my erudite response: hogwash . . . The cases that we talk about publicly are only those about which we have been given permission to speak. But even with all these limitations, here’s a short list of just some of the cases we have fought over the past few years . . .

George Lukianoff at Volokh Conspiracy: While the public seems to fondly believe that speech codes are a thing of the past — a bygone product of the “political correctness” movement of the 1980s and 1990s — they are alive and well on the modern college campus. As I explain in Unlearning Liberty, these days, you’re unlikely to open up a student handbook and find a section labeled “Speech Code.” Instead, these codes are woven into other policies regarding student conduct, particularly those that prohibit “harassment” and “incivility.” What hasn’t changed about these speech codes, however, is how ludicrous they often are.

LifeSiteNews: Being pro-life and supporting traditional marriage could cost you a tenured position at a public law school, according to a lawsuit filed in Iowa. Teresa Wagner has sued the University of Iowa, saying the law school has denied her two positions over the last five years because of her work in the National Right to Life Committee and the Family Research Center. The trial got underway in Davenport today.

Lisa Shaw Roy, The Evangelical Footprint, 2011 Michigan State Law Review 1235-1291.

Funding for evangelical advocacy received a boost with the formation of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) in 1994. Prominent movement leaders, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, formed ADF to fund litigation and to coordinate the efforts of Christian litigation firms.

ADF has been responsible for providing funding in several high profile cases, including Rosenberger, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. ADF also sponsors litigation firms with overlapping interests, such as the Christian Law Association, Pacific Justice Institute, the Home School Legal Defense Fund, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, to name a few. While ADF began solely as an umbrella organization to provide funds to individual lawyers and law firms, ADF now also takes its own cases.

Though its success as a funding organization seems apparent given, for example, the number of Supreme Court amicus curiae briefs that disclose ADF support, some opine that its success in coordinating evangelical litigation efforts has been mixed.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy reports on the policy in question and links to some FIRE materials in connection with the matter.

David J. Hacker at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: A federal court in Ohio has struck down a speech zone and advanced notice requirement at the University of Cincinnati.

Huffington Post (Religion News Service) (5/11/2012): Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, sees the Martinez decision “lurking in the background” of other cases. He filed suit in February on behalf of the Christian anti-abortion group Make Up Your Own Mind at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. The school, which does not have an all-comers policy like Hastings, was not going to formally recognize the group because officials deemed it nonreligious. “We don’t want the government determining whether a group is or is not religious,” he said.

Washington Post: Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, sees the Martinez decision “lurking in the background” of other cases. He filed suit in February on behalf of the Christian anti-abortion group Make Up Your Own Mind at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. The school, which does not have an all-comers policy like Hastings, was not going to formally recognize the group because officials deemed it nonreligious. “We don’t want the government determining whether a group is or is not religious,” he said. The school has since officially recognized Make Up Your Own Mind; Tedesco said the ADF is working on a settlement.

Daily Caller: Once again, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE, where I work), has sorted through the hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation that severely restrict the First Amendment rights of their students, and is ready to present a “dirty dozen” of colleges that have attacked freedom of speech with such zeal that we cannot help but (dis)honor them.

ADF Attorney David Hacker at Speak Up Movement University: The ADF Center for Academic Freedom joined a broad coalition of organizations today calling on the U.S. Department of Education to clarify when colleges may and may not investigate and punish student “harassment.” The letter, written by our friends at FIRE, is available here.

Greg Lukianoff at Bangor Daily News: This week, FIRE and a broad coalition of organizations (the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, National Coalition Against Censorship, the Heartland Institute, National Association of Scholars, Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom, Feminists for Free Expression, Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Accuracy in Academia, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni) are writing to the OCR to request that it publicly affirm the Davis standard as the controlling definition for harassment on campus.

OneNewsNow.com: Four Christian groups at Vanderbilt University are “under a serious threat” from the legal and cultural climates and may soon be booted from the campus because of a new university policy that says they must accept anyone and everyone into their organizations.

The Moral Liberal: Colorado College’s Student Code of Conduct contains a policy on “Respect” that prohibits “any act which endangers the mental or physical health or safety of a student or group, or which destroys or removes public or private property, or which produces ridicule, embarrassment, harassment, intimidation or other such result.”

OneNewsNow.com: A law professor says the University of California’s disapproval of a conservative speaker is an example of the movement to quench politically incorrect voices in the educational arena.

FIRE: FIRE is seeking one energetic person to serve as our next Justice Robert H. Jackson Legal Fellow. Working closely with FIRE’s President and Director of Legal and Public Advocacy, Jackson Fellows produce legal scholarship on issues central to FIRE’s mission of protecting core constitutional liberties on campus—freedom of speech, due process rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience, academic freedom, and more . . .

The Moral Liberal: Regular Torch readers will likely remember Lopez’s shocking story: As a student in a Speech 101 class, Lopez delivered remarks referencing his religious views as part of a class assignment, including expressing his view of Biblical morality and his conception of the proper definition of marriage. Following the speech, Lopez was called a “fascist bastard” by his professor. When Lopez asked for a grade, the professor recommended that Lopez “Ask God what your grade is.” Additionally, Lopez was told by his professor that he had likely violated LACCD’s policies as a result of his speech. Lopez filed suit against LACCD in February 2009 with the assistance of the Alliance Defense Fund, alleging that his First Amendment rights had been violated and that the speech codes maintained by LACCD were unconstitutional.

David Moshman at the Huffington Post: Adams appealed the summary judgment with the support of the Alliance Defense Fund, the American Association of University Professors, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. On April 6 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed with respect to Adams’ First Amendment claim, ruling that the First Amendment did apply to the speech in question and so the case must go to trial.

Robert Shibley writing at Pajamas Media: “[A]s the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has repeatedly determined, the vast majority of colleges maintain policies that restrict far more expression than the law requires . . . Lautenberg and Holt’s bill will only make this problem worse by actually requiring colleges and universities to enact policies that violate the Constitution.”

Charisma: “‘Christian professors should not be discriminated against because of their beliefs. Disagreeing with an accomplished professor’s religious and political views is no grounds for refusing him promotion,’ says [ADF attorney David French]. ‘Opinion columns are some of the clearest examples of free speech protected by the First Amendment. Mentioning them on a promotion application does not change that.’”

“ADF is representing UNC criminology professor Mike Adams, who contends that he was unconstitutionally denied a promotion because his application referenced his nationally syndicated opinion columns that espoused religious and political views not held by university officials.”

FIRE: “With the year coming to a close, it’s as good a time as any to check out the impressive legal scholarship that FIRE has amassed in the past few years. These law journal and law review articles bring much-needed attention and legal scrutiny to the free speech issues that lie at the heart of FIRE’s mission and activities.”

The Washington Post / The Answer Sheet: “The University of Virginia has eliminated four controversial policies that restricted the free speech of students and faculty, becoming one of a minority of schools across the country to do so . . . More than two-thirds of the nation’s colleges maintain policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech, according to FIRE.”

Robert Shibley writing at Pajamas Media: “There are 296 American public officials at grave risk of being personally sued for civil rights violations. The names of those who may soon be paying out of pocket for civil damages include some of America’s most respected citizens, who every day manage multi-million dollar budgets and massive numbers of government employees with little oversight and even less accountability. Can you guess who they are? They are the presidents of many of America’s largest and most prestigious public colleges and universities.”

The Legal Project: “Through cases like those enumerated above related to expression concerning Islam, and through countless others directed more generally at protecting individual liberty on our campuses, the FIRE is helping students to unlearn some dangerous lessons they are being taught at our colleges and universities about the scope of individual liberty.”

FIRE: “Unfortunately—but perhaps not surprisingly, given the understandably powerful emotions driving the legislation—some have taken our criticism of the bill as evidence that FIRE is serving some sinister partisan agenda . . . As “proof” of our hidden agenda, LaVictoire charges that FIRE is ‘rather strongly tied to groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Research Council.’ But this lazy guilt-by-association dog won’t hunt. While FIRE has successfully worked with the Alliance Defense Fund to defend First Amendment rights on campus, so too have we won crucial victories with many state and regional chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

LezGetReal: “The Foundation for Individual Rights In Education has decided unilaterally that it is necessary to maintain harassment and discrimination against students in schools because they believe that it is alright to bully lesbians and gays . . . FIRE, which is rather strongly tied to groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Research Council claims to work on ‘behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation’s colleges and universities.’”

FIRE: “An ‘anti-bullying’ bill introduced in Congress last week gravely threatens free speech on America’s college campuses. Despite the bill’s admirable intention of preventing future tragedies, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has determined that the bill is at odds with the Supreme Court’s carefully crafted definition of harassment and would require colleges to violate the First Amendment.”

A. Barton Hinkle writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Yet when it comes to Orwellian regulation of thoughtcrime, Tech remains a rank amateur next to George Mason University. GMU maintains a speech code that prohibits ‘any form of bigotry . . . . whether verbal, written, psychological, direct, or implied.’”

Ilya Somin, Associate Professor at George Mason University School of Law, comments at The Volokh Conspiracy: “. . . Hinkle is absolutely right to point out the egregious flaws in the GMU code and to urge George Mason and other schools to repeal their codes without waiting for a legal challenge to arise.”

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Of the nearly four hundred public colleges and universities whose policies are assessed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Virginia is now one of 13 schools given FIRE’s coveted ‘green light,’ meaning that the school’s policies respect constitutionally protected student speech.”

FIRE: “This week, the University of Virginia (UVa) confirmed that it had eliminated the last of its policies that unconstitutionally restricted the free speech of students and faculty members. While more than two-thirds of the nation’s colleges maintain policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech, UVa is now a proud exception, having fully reformed four speech codes. UVa has now earned a coveted ‘green light’ rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).”

ADF Attorney David French writing at Phi Beta Cons: “Last week, the Alliance Defense Fund, at which I’m the director of the Center for Academic Freedom, released part four of ‘Hanna’s Story,’ our based-on-true-events dramatic series (yes, dramatic series — and I think it’s pretty darn good) about a new student’s struggle to start a pro-life club . . . The conservative academic-freedom movement has come a long way in just a few years. I can remember the good ole days of hardcover books, primitive websites, and using actual Wite-Out on complaints. Now there’s YouTube channels, Facebook pages, and documentary films.

ADF Attorney David French writing at Speak Up Movement / University: In the aftermath of CLS v. Martinez, we’ve been seeing quite a bit of discussion about ‘deference’ — the idea that courts should give public universities wide room to make its own decisions. As Charlotte Allen so ably noted, a distorted concept of deference has been applied to ratify extreme forms of viewpoint discrimination and is now being used to try to insulate even speech codes from constitutional scrutiny.

ADF Attorney David French writing at Phi Beta Cons: “Evidence shows that academics have disdain for evangelicals. Evidence also shows that students at secular colleges tend to abandon both their faith and their faith practices. There is also absolutely no doubt that the campus has become quite decadent . . . I don’t know a single serious evangelical leader who believes (as the author asserts) that ‘no degree of accommodation [with academia] aside from outright mass conversion is ever going to be enough.’ In fact, I know quite a few serious Christians — including my colleagues at the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom — who have a much simpler, more modest goals, like free speech, freedom of association, and giving Christian scholars a fair chance at tenure and promotion in the academy.”

FIRE: “Nearly three years after she was terminated over her protected classroom speech, the San José/Evergreen Community College District (SJCCD) has agreed to pay adjunct professor June Sheldon $100,000 in lost earnings in exchange for dismissal of her First Amendment lawsuit . . . On July 16, 2008, the Alliance Defense Fund and attorneys from the Pacific Justice Institute filed a lawsuit against the district and several administrators involved in her case.”

Adam Kissel writing at FIRE’s The Torch: “Today we examine the University of Illinois’ reply and ADF’s response to the reply. … As FIRE’s letter to UIUC stated, the harm at UIUC has already occurred and is ongoing; an investigation of a professor’s protected expression violates his or her rights. Further, every day without a resolution of Howell’s case deepens the chilling effect on the rest of the university’s faculty members, who must now understand that honestly stating their interpretation of the Catholic position on sexual conduct could make them the next ones getting the axe.”

Donald A. Downs writing at the The John William Pope Center: “An important free speech and academic freedom case merits attention because it appears to portend an erosion of the protection professors have traditionally enjoyed for their writings. The case is serious enough that the plaintiff, Michael Adams, has won the support of several free-speech groups: the American Association of University Professors, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, in addition to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing him. … Tenure and promotion cases can present difficult issues of judgment and departmental discretion regarding quality of work, defying simplistic determination. I do not know enough about the facts in this case to render a confident opinion about who is right or wrong, but the methodology employed by the court reflects a growing problem in the realm of academic freedom that cries out for attention.” | Via Speak Up Movement.

ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending a conference sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education‘s Campus Freedom Network. Along with Greg Lukianoff (FIRE’s President), Adam Kissel (the Director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program), and Professor Daphne Patai (a member of FIRE’s board of directors), I participated in a panel discussion entitled, “The Philosophical and Practical Underpinnings of Academic Liberty.” … In my prepared remarks, I observed that utilitarian rationales are not the only ethical arguments for free speech — one can make ‘deontological’ claims as well. People are entitled to speak and people are entitled to receive information, whether or not the effects of the expression are desirable. These entitlements can be called ‘rights,’ and thinkers differ on where these rights come from. I believe that people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to liberty — which includes the right to free speech. To be sure, many today reject the claim that rights come from God, but this conception of rights animated the thinking of the Framers.”

York Daily Record: “The writers of all seven amicus briefs filed this week with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Westboro Baptist Church noted two things: The protest by the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his family was terribly offensive and presented a worldview with which they disagreed greatly. And, despite that, all seven said the court must rule in favor of the Kansas-based church when it hears the appeal by Spring Garden Township’s Albert Snyder in October.” | Via Religion Clause.

Inside Higher Ed: “[I]f you want to study Roman Catholicism, your instructors have been through different vetting — they will have been nominated by (and their salaries paid by) the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center, a church organization independent of the university, set up to serve Catholic students at the university. … the situation raises church-state issues at a public institution, presents issues of fairness when it is permitted for only one religious group at a secular college, and may undercut the values of the field of religious studies, faculty critics say. … “Save Dr. Ken,” a Facebook group, has more than 5,000 members. The Alliance Defense Fund, which defends the rights of religious students and faculty members, is taking up his cause. So is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which issued its analysis of the case on Friday.”

ADF Attorney Travis C. Barham writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Back in March, a federal district court in North Carolina ruled that Dr. Mike Adams’ nationally syndicated columns were not protected by the First Amendment. … Well, the next chapter in Dr. Adams’ quest to end discrimination against Christian and conservative professors has now unfolded. Last week, ADF filed the opening brief in his appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. And just days ago, the American Association of University Professors, FIRE, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression filed a friend of the court brief on his behalf.”

Inside Higher Ed / Quick Takes: Mike Adams, a conservative, Christian professor who believes his promotion to full professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington was derailed because of opposition to his views, is getting broad backing on a key point in his legal fight. … Adams has been receiving support from the Alliance Defense Fund.

The Alliance Defense Fund has received the support of three significant organizations in its defense of a criminology professor whose opinion columns were determined by a judge to be unprotected by the First Amendment simply because he made reference to them in a promotion application.

ADF Attorney David French writing at Phi Beta Cons: “While I fervently wish CLS v. Martinez had gone the right way, the decision has at least spawned a tremendous burst of impassioned commentary from those who value the freedom of association and understand the importance of the university as a marketplace of ideas. As always, FIRE is one-stop-shopping for those interested in penetrating and persuasive analysis. Minding the Campus has run important pieces by K. C. Johnson and John Leo. Over at the Alliance Defense Fund Academic Freedom File, [Travis Barham] has put together a comprehensive media roundup.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Many advocacy groups and interested parties have issued statements on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. Here is a sampling . . . ” (links to press releases by numerous groups including ADF)

Inside Higher Ed: “A legal battle set off by the selection of a book . . . came to a close on Monday — when a federal judge rejected a former librarian’s lawsuit against the university . . . The former librarian . . . was on a committee that was assigned to task of picking a book for the freshmen to read. During the deliberations, he suggested an anti-gay book — and his recommendation and the comments he made about the book led to an intense debate among faculty members at the university . . . [David French], senior counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that has defended the rights of religious individuals and that backed Savage in this case, said via e-mail: ‘We are disappointed that the federal district court applied Garcetti to further limit academic freedom.’”

Jordan Lorence writes at the Speak Up Movement Blog via the Christian Post’s Advancing Religious Liberty Blog: “Our friends at FIRE have written about the absurd attempts by the University of California-Berekely to restrict the names of student organizations can call themselves by claiming ‘trademark’ rights over words such as ‘Cal’ and ‘California,’ and even some restrictions on the use of ‘Berkeley.’ I agree that in some isolated situations, a private student group may name itself something that may confuse people into thinking it is an official part of UC-Berkeley. But this is needless overkill, and is another way that universities can harass private student organizations that advocate unpopular or controversial ideas . . . ”

The Oakland Tribune: “The Peralta Community College district is considering guidelines to limit where and how groups can speak on campus, prompting outrage from employees and students who say the proposed rules would restrict free speech . . . Peralta is only the latest district to consider the so-called free-speech zones, which have riled academics around the country . . . An estimated 70 percent of U.S. public colleges and universities restrict speech in some way, said Will Creeley, director of legal and public advocacy for the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has fought against free-speech zones around the country.”

Christian Examiner: “The U.S. Supreme Court—which will review a religious discrimination case brought by a Christian legal society from San Francisco college of law—has received nearly two dozen legal briefs supporting the student club . . . ‘Just as all student groups have the right to associate with people who share common beliefs and interests, Christian student groups have the right to be Christian student groups,’ said [Gregory S. Baylor], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘Requiring leaders of a Christian club to live by a Christian code of conduct is no different than an environmentalist club requiring its leaders not to be lumberjacks.’” | For more information on the case see the ADF Alliance Alert case tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/wordpress/tag/zz-christian-legal-society-v-martinez/

LifeNews: “The Duke University Women’s Center has issued a letter of apology after it denied the campus pro-life student group space for an event on motherhood. The center abruptly canceled a Duke Students for Life event on the day of the meeting because it was engaging in pro-life activities elsewhere on campus.” | Related: FIRE: Duke Keeps Pro-Life Group Out of Women’s Center During ‘Week for Life’ | Rick Garnett: Oh, Duke . . . why do you make it so hard? | Eugene Volokh: Pro-Life Speech “Upsetting” and “Not OK” for the Duke University Women’s Center

“A Women’s Center representative told Duke Students for Life (DSFL) that ‘we have a problem’ and an ideological ‘conflict’ with the event, which was supposedly canceled to protect Duke women from encountering the event during the group’s ‘traumatizing’ pro-life ‘Week for Life.’”

Wendy Kaminer writing at The Atlantic: In the Ward and Mendell cases, ‘complainants are wielding the canons of professional ethics as if they were blasphemy codes for the state church and you have to punish these people as heretics,’ Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jordon Lorence asserts. ‘Who’s being the narrow minded fundamentalist and who’s being the civil libertarian in these discussions?’ . . . Not surprisingly, the right wing, anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund is perhaps the primary defender of First Amendment rights in cases involving the anti-gay speech and belief of conservative Christians. ADF receives (and perhaps desires) little assistance from the ACLU, an increasingly unreliable defender of speech and belief that conflict with its gay rights agenda.”

WorldNetDaily: “The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has begun reviewing a request by the Los Angeles Community College District for permission to reactivate speech restrictions . . . ‘Seventy percent of American colleges have unconstitutional speech codes,’ Hacker told WND. ‘Christians and all students should not be punished for simply expressing views on topics that are appropriate on campus.’”

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence writing at the Academic Freedom File: “Here are seven reasons why we at the Alliance Defense Fund are battling for the constitutional rights of the Christian Legal Society before the U.S. Supreme Court: 1. The Constitution protects CLS’s rights . . . 2. Universities can deny recognition in order to stigmatize unpopular groups . . . . 3. The policies are illogical and ridiculous . . . 4. Other students can use these policies to undermine or abolish groups they don’t like . . . 5. It debases the discourse on civil rights. 6. It will spread if not stopped here at the university . . . 7. It teaches wrong ideas to the next generation of our nation’s leaders . . . ”

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence writing at the Academic Freedom File: “The broad array of briefs supporting religious liberty and the Christian Legal Society is amazing. For example, 14 states, through their attorneys general joined togehter in a brief authored by the State of Michigan supporting CLS. The states include a geographic diversity from sea to shining sea of Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.”

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), writing at Reason Magazine: “With so many examples of censorship and administrative bullying, a generation of students is getting four years of dangerously wrongheaded lessons about both their own rights and the importance of respecting the rights of others. Diligently applying the lessons they are taught, students are increasingly turning on each other, and trying to silence fellow students who offend them. With schools bulldozing free speech in brazen defiance of legal precedent, and with authoritarian restrictions surrounding students from kindergarten through graduate school, how can we expect them to learn anything else?”

FIRE: “In a letter to FIRE, Yale University President Richard C. Levin maintained Yale’s position defending the censorship of images of Mohammed in a book about those images, citing a ‘risk to life and safety.’ However, President Levin also reaffirmed Yale’s commitment to the strong protection of free speech in its classic Woodward Report, stating that ‘it is not the role of the Dean or any other University official to suppress the speech of any student or student organization’ and expressing ‘regret’ for Dean Mary Miller’s role in the withdrawal of the Freshman Class Council’s T-shirt design calling Harvard students ‘sissies.’”

ADF Attorney David Hacker writing at the Academic Freedom File: “Yesterday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education filed an amicus brief in support of Jonathan Lopez at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Last July, a federal district court in Los Angeles granted Mr. Lopez’s request for a preliminary injunction against Los Angeles Community College District’s speech code. LACCD appealed after it unsuccessfully asked the district court to reconsdier the preliminary injunction.”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, writing at Phi Beta Cons: “[L]ast week, on Christmas Eve eve, FIRE stung the University of Minnesota . . . Katherine Kersten broke the story, and then FIRE was all over it, reminding the university of its constitutional obligations and alerting the larger public to a proposal that was basically a magnet for federal litigation. After just a few days of pressure, the university did the right thing. In a letter to FIRE, the university’s counsel pledged that the school would never ‘mandate any particular beliefs, or screen out people with “wrong beliefs” from the University.’”

FIRE Press Release: “In response to sustained pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities has backed away from its plans to enforce a political litmus test for future teachers.”

FIRE: “Martinez is possibly the most important case concerning FIRE’s core issues to come before the Supreme Court in our decade of existence, and Torch readers will be hearing much more about it in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, check out initial reactions from UCLA Law professor and noted blogger Eugene Volokh and Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel and former FIRE President David French.”

Mike Adams writing at Townhall: “It’s hard to believe it has been over four years since I spoke at N.C. State. That night, back in August of 2005, I gave a speech calling for a conservative revolution on our college campuses . . . In January of 2006, I got a call from David French of the newly formed Center for Academic Freedom – a branch of my favorite public policy organization, the Alliance Defense Fund. David asked that I help him identify illegal speech codes and brave students willing to fight them. By the end of the year, we had worked together to bring down several speech codes through litigation or, in some cases, the mere threat of litigation.’”

Clarification:   The Alliance Defense Fund is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

Inside Higher Ed: “[At] his Conservative Librarian blog, [Bert Chapman] argues that gay people are an economic drain . . . as word of the blog spread at Purdue, the campus has seen petitions and protests, with many calling for Chapman (who has tenure) to be fired . . . The university has rejected calls to fire Chapman.”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, writing at National Review’s Phi Beta Cons blog: “On Friday, FIRE reported that a federal judge in Texas had issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) permitting two students to hold an ‘empty holder’ protest next week outside Tarrant County College’s tiny ‘free speech zone.’”

Patrick Deneen writing at the Front Porch Republic: “What these invocations of academic freedom end up accomplishing is a) empowering libertarians who believe that there should be no limits on speech, which in effect is to say that speech really doesn’t matter and everyone should say (and pretty much do) whatever they want so long as no blood is drawn; and b) obfuscating the actual issues that are in contention. At issue in these various instances that respectively prove offensive to the Left and the Right are substantive claims about the human good and the proper end of human life. It would be refreshing if this actual debate took place at many institutions where this were a genuine open question.”