Speech First files suit against University of Michigan: ‘Bias Response Teams are fundamentally un-American’
I am so glad that Students and Professors are fighting the Progressive move to stifle free speech and pick and choose what others can and cannot say. This has gone way to far. I cheer those that are fighting back.
Legal fights are breaking out across the nation over university policies that curtail the free speech of students and academic freedom of professors.
The advocacy group Speech First last week filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan challenging the constitutionality of the school’s Bias Response Teams and content-based restrictions on speech.
Nicole Neily, president of Speech First, said the University of Michigan’s attitude toward free speech is representative of the higher education landscape.
“Bias Response
Teams are fundamentally un-American and have no place on college campuses,” Ms. Neily said Tuesday in a statement. “We have an epidemic on our hands in the higher education system — universities are establishing rules and protocols that create a dangerous environment in which free speech protections under the First Amendment no longer exist.”
A spokesperson for the University of Michigan declined to comment.
The lawsuit says the university’s Bias Response Team has investigated more than 150 “expressions of bias” since April 2017.
“In connection with these investigations, the BRT has acted aggressively to censor what it considers ‘expression of bias,’” the lawsuit says. “For example, the BRT has taken down signs, removed flyers, confronted faculty members, erased speech on whiteboards, and interrogated students accused of expressions of bias (whom the University calls ‘offenders’).”
The lawsuit argues that the determination of bias is “completely subjective,” citing the university’s declaration that the “most important indication of bias is your own feelings” and that bias-related incidents “do not always result in unfair treatment that violates nondiscrimination laws.”
“Under this regime, the most sensitive student on campus effectively dictates the terms under which others may speak,” the lawsuit contends.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...e-speech-bias/