Update on this post about roiling student-speech controversies at FIU:
• Two students were suspended for two years over racist comments in an off-campus group chat. One student–who made racist comments–was found to have made “verbal or written abuse, threats, intimidation and/or coercion that objectively endangers the health, safety or well-being of others.” The other–who set-up the group chat, was found to have aided or facilitated the other student’s violation of the code of conduct. They are appealing their suspensions within the university process, as well as the district court decision abstaining under Younger.
• Seven students were found to have violated the student code of conduct prohibition on indoor protest activity; each received a written reprimand and was required to record a video about the policies they were found to have violated. Independent of whether sanctioning the students violates the First Amendment, the sanction might present an independent violation.
Update: FIRE (working from its good litigation side) sent a letter to the university identifying the First Amendment problems with punishing non-disruptive speech. This FIU undergrad who audited my colleague’s First Amendment class understands free speech better than most people in charge on campus.
The district court’s abstention decision in the hate-speech case understood that the students can raise First Amendment issues within FIU proceedings, that FIU proceedings are subject to review in state court, and that court review allows them to raise First Amendment issues. The question to watch is how meaningful these state proceedings prove to be in resolving core constitutional issues.
Further Update: A quick word on what makes this a tricky case: Two doctrines collide–Tinker (particularly the forgiving version that should apply at colleges) principle that universities cannot sanction non-disruptive speech and campus free-speech zones, under which courts defer to university choices to limit protests to certain spaces (and away from other spaces) in the name of a smoothly functioning campus. The blanket rule–no indoor protest–presumes that indoor protest is per se disruptive. The case thus turns on whether the court focuses on the non-disruption or whether it defers to the university’s choices about the use of campus space.