Protecting Free Speech On College Campuses

What happens on campus does not stay on campus, it moves into the broader culture and we see that happening today. Many of the unconstitutional laws that we are fighting today beginners policies on college campuses this week were excited to share with you an excerpt of an inspiring speech given by Tyson long haul for it NC families. Major speakers dinner in Charlotte North Carolina on October 19, 2018. Tyson serves as senior counsel with alliance defending freedom in its director of ADF's center for academic freedom. As John said I'm I'm a ADF, the director of the Center for academic freedom and at the center.

Partnering freedom we defend the freedom of speech and association of students and faculty so that everyone can freely participate in the marketplace of ideas without fear of government censorship.

Now when you think about that marketplace of ideas, something a great concept right. The Supreme Court has repeatedly referred to our colleges and universities as marketplaces, ideas, in other words, are universities you will be exposed to all kinds of different ideas worldviews and and different philosophies and then you get to choose which one you believe is true or correct almost every college has some statement on their website discussing how they're going to provide you a first-class education and expose you to different ideas.

I want you to imagine you're a high school senior and you're in the process of choosing a college. If you attended graduations, which I'm sure you all have you heard speakers tell them that they can be anything they want to be and to explore their dreams.

You go to other websites and after reading their websites and hearing the speeches. You might think. Man, that's awesome. I can change the world and my school wants to help equip me to change the world. So you're all excited to begin your education, you arrive on campus and you're told that you must attend diversity training, then the instructor talks starts talking about gender identity and explains that gender identity is different than biological sex and that sometimes the two don't match just because someone is born a biological male does not mean that his gender identity is male in his gender identity may be male and maybe female and maybe both at the same time or maybe neither so you think back to the statements on the University's website about how they want to teach you to think critically and how it's important to explore all kinds of different ideas and viewpoints in respect different perspectives. See raise your hand a safe. I'm not sure that I agree. I believe that God created humans as male and female, and that your biological sex does not change just because you feel something different. I feel like if I'm forced to call a male or female that I be something speaking something that's untrue will address everyone with respect and I don't think that I should be forced to speak something that's untrue instead of someone getting an inspirational speech about how that's an interesting perspective and let's dialogue about this. Today's universities are in bad shape when we get to know them or not what they seem from the outside. We think marketplaces of ideas and bastions of free speech, but in reality they are remarkably closed to the ideas outside of the mainstream liberal campus orthodoxy. The mood on most college campuses is if you are offended by something that someone else says or does, and you shouldn't have to be exposed to it in my daily work. I hear stories like this all the time I hear about conservative and religious students and faculty members being completely harassed and shouted down for simply speaking a different perspective.

If you want to examine an important social issues such as abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage, or gender identity from a Christian worldview. Those views are not welcome. This is where we had ADF center fragment freedom come in. We exist to protect students and faculty's personal rights of public universities. So in our work. What we see is policies that are used to stifle student speech so the first one is a is a speech code so a speech code is a policy which essentially prohibits speech that is uncivil or derogatory or hurtful. Now, as John said, I have five kids and we can all agree we should not engage in uncivil or derogatory or hurtful or demeaning speech and and I do as I'm sure you do. We can all encourage our kids not to engage in those types of behaviors. But the First Amendment protects uncivil, demeaning and derogatory speech. And the reason to protect such speech is because the determination as to whether speech is uncivil, demeaning or derogatory is subjective. Everyone can have a different perspective on that in a different opinion on that subject, as fallible humans were prone to label anything that is different than ours, uncivil, derogatory or demeaning.

That's were more likely to punish speech that we disagree with, and we agree with. So the First Amendment prohibits and forbids the government from punishing speech based on its content or viewpoint. So let me give you real-world examples she gave was a boon to get was a student at Georgia Gwinnett College. He loved to share the gospel. That's what he did during his free time he went to an open area campus we start sharing the gospel and the University officials that you can't do that you don't have permission, you must be in a speech zone as a guide under the speech Sony reserves a speech going. Does the speech so after begins preaching the speech only stop them from speaking. They said some students complained in your violating the policy which quote prohibits disturbing the peace or comfort of others. We filed a lawsuit challenging that policy, but here's the here's the crazy part about this. The University initially defended the speech code and stated that his cheek a speech sharing the gospel was unprotected speech like fighting words and could be prohibited now. We quickly disabuse them of that notion, and they rejected and remove that position because they knew they were wrong, but it's amazing that a date government actually put that forth and make that argument. So the second kind of policy we come into contact with his speech zone policies or prior restraints, so a speech zone is a policy that prohibits students from engaging in expressive activities in the outdoor areas of campus and they limited to accepting a very small zone. There's also some policies were they just call prior restraints and they basically said look, the outdoor areas of campus yet that prior permission before engaging in the in in expressive activities in the outdoor areas of campus that these types of policies are unconstitutional because requiring prior permission to engage in speech disables spontaneous and anonymous speech in these types of policies also typically grant University officials discretion to determine who gets to speak and where they get to speak that type of discretion is forbidden by the First Amendment because it allows the government to regulate speech based on its content or its viewpoint. I know many of you might be thinking while I'm not in college or I don't have kids in college so those don't issues don't really affect me, but the center fragment freedom with a saying what happens on campus does not stay on campus, it moves into the broader culture and we see that happening today. Many of the unconstitutional laws that we are fighting today begin as policies on college campuses. To illustrate this dog briefly discuss five major religious liberty issues that were currently fighting in other areas ADF you're listening to policy matters in a resource from family to listen to our radio show online, and for more resources that will be a voice of persuasion in your community to our website and see family.org so the first issue has to do with creative professionals can the government use nondiscrimination laws to force creative professionals and artists who serve all people, but will not express all messages to create speech or are the violates their conscience. Number four I talk about the next category conscience issues I want to emphasize a critical distinction at the heart of these cases is the difference between declining to serve people because of who they are and declining to create custom expressive items because of the messages they convey, or the event they celebrate. This distinction is the difference between objecting to the who that is asking versus the what that is being requested creators of expression who object to the requested message should be protected, but those who object to the Persian person should not. These cases are not just about protecting people like Jack who do not support same-sex marriage. If the state has the power to compel speech. It can use it to punish not just people like Jack but also those who support same-sex marriage. So, for example, the government can punish a lesbian graphic designer who refuses to create a flyer for religious that opposing same-sex marriage. Thus, the consequences of this issue should be concerning to everyone, not only those who hold conservative religious views. The second issue conscience issue in the US is an attempt by states to force pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion.

Those pro-life centers exist to encourage women experiencing unplanned pregnancies to choose life for their babies is obviously an affront to those sinners conscience to force them to point the way to abortion so we just litigated this issue before the US Supreme Court and we won thanks to God's grace. The court made it clear that it is compiled, it is a compel speech violation for the state of California to force pro-life pregnancy centers to point the way to abortion a number of other states like Hawaii and Illinois have enacted laws similar to California's.

But those laws are all somewhat different. So we need to continue to litigate those cases in order to strike down those laws. The next set of conscience issues in America involves other concerns facing healthcare professionals like doctors and nurses. There are efforts to force those professionals to violate their conscience while practicing medicine so three examples.

Some governments have tried to force doctors and nurses to participate in abortions, contrary to their faith. Second, some governments have enacted laws mandating that pharmacists dispense abortion inducing drugs in violation of their conscience. There are also efforts to force healthcare professionals to perform cosmetic procedures that are part of a person's efforts to change their sex and gender.

The fourth issue is adoption agencies, faith-based adoption agency specifically over the last 15 years, a number of states of forced faith-based adoption agencies like Catholic charities to stop their adoption and foster work on behalf of vulnerable and neglected children. Those states did this because those religious organizations wanted to make child placements according to their faith and because of their religious beliefs about marriage, they were unable to place children in households headed by same-sex couples. Now keep in mind that there are countless other adoption agencies. In those days the place children with same-sex couples, but those states still decide to drive out the faith-based agencies reducing the number of agencies that can place kids in loving homes does nothing but hurt the children that the state is supposed to be helping in a final issue is is pronouns issue of pronouns.

There are a lot of laws require people to speak, pronouns and similar sex identifying terminology that conflicts with their conscience. New York City has a law that forces employers to use an individual preferred name, pronoun and title regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth, anatomy, or the sex indicated on the individual's identification. This too poses a crisis of conscience for people who believe that sex is a fixed biological reality rather than a changeable social construct were currently were to be filing a lawsuit about a professorship fairly shortly that is being punished for violating one of those policies. So what's the take away from all this information well. As with much of life. There is good news and there's bad news. The bad news is there a lot of problems, our liberties, our faith, our way of life is under attack, and the enemy is in it to win it. But here's the good news. When we show up to fight we can win. We had two huge victories of the sprinkler in this last session. Nobody gave us a chance and masterpiece. We won. We have nine Supreme Court victories in the last seven years that the center fragment freedom. We won more than 480 victories the last 12 years and have an almost 90% winning percentage.

We can win these battles. If we as Christians will stand and fight, because we have truth on our side. ADF can't do this alone. And we don't do this alone. That's why were called the alliance we rely on our alliance. We rely on organizations like the North Carolina family policy Council to fight those battles in North Carolina and in other states like this across the country. All those issues I just brought up there all being addressed through state legislation. Those are important important battles.

We rely on people like you to support our work and to be our hands and feet. I know these are not easy battles. But remember, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the rulers of darkness of this world do not make political opposition. The enemy, they are not our enemy. Abraham Lincoln was the president at one of the most divisive times in our country and he said do I not destroyed my enemy when I make them my friend Sweet have to make a decision. How are we going to respond to the tax our freedom.

This country not know you all care about liberty and freedom.

He wouldn't be here.

I really really appreciate it and I recognize the warm in this fight how little I can do and how little ADF can do. We can fight the legal battles but working a lose in the culture. Unless we have people like you out there engaging their neighbors engaging their neighborhoods engaging their churches and speaking the truth in love because we know we are on side of truth and God said that the gates of hell will not overcome our church so thank you for what you guys do really really am thankful to be here tonight. You've been listening to family policy matters production of NZ family to listen to our radio show online, and for more valuable resources and information about issues important to families in North Carolina go to my website and see family.org and follow us on Twitter and Facebook