A majority for the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Wednesday that Virginia Tech’s bias reporting policies do not violate free speech principles protected by the First Amendment, upholding a lower court’s decision to deny a preliminary injunction.
Speech First, an organization aimed at protecting students’ rights to free speech on college campuses, first brought the suit in federal district court under 42 USC § 1983 for alleged violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. The organization claimed that Virginia Tech’s bias reporting policies “restrain, deter, suppress, and punish speech about the political and social issues of the day.”
The court found that Virginia Tech’s bias reporting policies fall “within the bounds of acceptable government speech” because they haven’t “imposed or threatened to impose any discipline on anyone.” The opinion reads:
Our country rightfully places great value on the freedom of speech, and any statute or regulation implicating speech receives close scrutiny. Freedom of speech, after all, is expressly protected in the very first of the original amendments to our Constitution. But the First Amendment does not stand in the way of modest efforts to encourage civility on college campuses.
The decision went on to state that universities have historically excluded students from particular demographic backgrounds from engaging in open dialogue. Considering this history, the court explains that “many universities – Virginia Tech among them – find it equally vital to communicate that their campuses are places welcoming to all students, whatever those students’ backgrounds and whatever their political, social, or religious views.”
While Senior Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, who wrote Wednesday’s opinion, was joined by Judge Albert Diaz to form the decision’s majority, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III dissented saying that policies such as Virginia Tech’s “restrict the role that speech can play in our democracy at the very time the unique capacities of university speech are needed most.”
Speech First’s suit against Virginia Tech is not the organization’s first action of this kind. Since 2018, the organization has brought suits opposing similar policies at eight other universities, including the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois and most recently Texas State University.
The Fourth Circuit’s decision comes at a time when free speech remains a hotly contested issue among higher-education institutions. In the past few months, students at the University of Pittsburgh protested anti-trans speakers on campus while federal judges urged schools to “crackdown” on such protests.
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