Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended free speech on college campuses and said the Justice Department would join legal battles around the country to stop the use of campus “free speech zones.” “Freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” said Sessions in a speech at Georgetown. “The American university was once the center of academic freedom — a place of robust debate, a forum for the competition of ideas. But it is transforming into an echo chamber of political correctness and homogeneous thought, a shelter for fragile egos.” (Inside Higher Education, September 27, 2017, by Andrew Kreighbaum)
Sessions said the DOJ was filing a statement of interest in a Georgia case pitting Georgia Gwinnett College against a Christian student who felt the zone policy prevented him from freely spreading his Christian faith. Sessions said the colleges’ speech policies “…were not content-neutral, established an impermissible heckler’s veto, and were not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest.” (Broadcasting & Cable, September 26, 2017, by John Eggerton)
The speech zones at Georgian Gwinnett occupy a small fraction of the campus area and the college’s free speech policies relied on their interest in preventing “polarizing or controversial” literature on campus and in the case of the student “fire and brimstone” messages that could make students uncomfortable. In its most recent motion on the case, realizing that they could not defend their policies, they announced they were amending them so the case should be dismissed. (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, September 26, 2017, by Adam Steinbaugh)