Nonprofit Educational Foundation Cites FSU Infringement on First Amendment Rights
A Frostburg State University residence hall policy has been chosen as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE) Speech Code of the Month for February because of the possible infringement on student’s first amendment rights.
FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation whose mission is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. The organization is concerned about freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, and the religious liberties of students on campus.
The policy that FIRE is concerned about is one involving the use of obscenities on posters in residence halls at FSU. The current policy, which can be found here, indicates that posters will not be approved for posting in residence halls if they contain “content that would be considered offensive to a reasonable person (e.g. nudity, obscenities, etc.)”
FIRE contends that this policy violates a student’s first amendment rights because content that is merely offensive is protected by the Constitution. Indeed, “obscenities” are protected speech under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. California. The Court put forth a three-part test, referred to as the “Miller test” to determine whether an obscenity can be banned.
- Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the “prurient interest”
- Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct
- Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value
FIRE argues that flyers in residence halls which only feature nudity or curse words do not meet the above conditions. Furthermore, FIRE advises that FSU’s policy be revised “to allow students to post flyers without seeking prior permission and with anonymity in at least some locations on campus.”
Prior to the Feb. 5 press release, FIRE had ranked FSU as a “yellow light” institution whose policies restrict a more limited amount of protected expression, by virtue of their vague working, which would easily be used to restrict protected expression. This designation was given because of several FSU policies that FIRE deems too restrictive. This includes the Lane University Center policies on bulletin board usage, our campus Gender-Based Harassment and Violence Policy, and the University Standards of Personal and Group Conduct.
To read more about FIRE, visit www.thefire.org.
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