This shouldn’t have to be a court case.
Via The College Fix:
More than 12 years after William Felkner was forced to choose between staying in his graduate program and obeying his conscience, the former student has a chance to protect the First Amendment rights of students nationwide.
That’s according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed last month by the Cato Institute, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and National Association of Scholars in Felkner’s lawsuit against Rhode Island College, a public institution.
If the Rhode Island Supreme Court doesn’t overturn a trial court ruling against Felkner, “public college administrators will be presented with a road map for an end-run around decades of First Amendment jurisprudence governing student speech rights,” the groups warn the high court.
Rhode Island college students in particular would be harmed, the brief claims: Administrators would have “vast discretion to censor critical, dissenting, joking, or merely inconvenient speech simply by citing vague, subjective ‘professional standards.’”
Felkner was a graduate student of social work in 2004 when he was threatened with failing grades if he refused to lobby the Rhode Island General Assembly for progressive policies.
Students in the Social Work Policy and Organizing program were given the option to lobby for social welfare issues or the legalization of gay marriage.