In the same week that the state Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Roy Cooper to restore and preserve free speech on the states public university campuses, East Carolina University received a top rating for protecting free speech on its campus.

Officials said ECU has earned a green light rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education after changing four campus policies to meet First Amendment standards. FIRE also helped state legislative leaders craft HB 527, which requires the University of North Carolina Board of Governors to adopt a uniform speech policy for all campuses in the UNC system.The bill is intended to prevent universities and campus groups from policies and actions that deter free speech.

In a year surrounded by controversy over free expression and speech on college campuses including ECU the FIRE group and HB 527 are being lauded and scrutinized because of its support from conservative backers, including several organizations supported by the Koch Brothers.

After ECUs Craig Malmrose, a professor in the School of Art and Design, asked the university to revise its yellow light speech codes, administrators at the 29,000-student university revised four policies in accordance with FIREs recommendations, Laura Beltz, a policy reform official with FIRE, told The Daily Reflector. Beltz came to ECU and worked on policy reform with Steve Serck, associate university attorney.

Four ECU speech policies had earned FIREs yellow light designations due to ambiguous wording that led to free speech restrictions, Beltz said. Two were related to facilities where speech was more restricted, and another was related to computer use policy. The final objection related to the universitys written creed, which made students pledge specific behaviors of civility and common courtesy, Beltz said.

Weve seen those civility requirements used before to police protected speech, so we required a revision to make them more aspirational, rather than mandatory, Beltz said.

The challenges to campus speech have shifted over the years, Beltz said.

We began in the 1990s to deal with the censorship actions of university administrations, but we now see a lot of problems stemming from students calling for censorship, Beltz said. There are a lot of students on the left calling for censorship of views on the right, and it can be disheartening for us. Of course, we want to protect students right to free speech, and when other students are calling for that right to be taken away, it can be frustrating.

FIRE tracks what it calls disinvitations on college campuses, actions taken by students or student-led groups to prevent appearances by speakers with whose views they strongly disagree. In March, a group of ECU students protested the campus appearance of controversial conservative commentator Tomi Lahren.

On the other end of the protest spectrum,19 members of the ECU band rested on a knee during the anthem at the opening of Saturdays game with the University of Central Florida. Chancellor Cecil Staton issued a release shortly after the protest that supported the students right to free expression. The protest and Statons reaction produced outrage from fans who threatened to pull their support from the university.

Beltz thinks much of the confrontation over speech results from the new world of social media, in which something said on a campus that a few students once found offensive now can instantly become viral and draw worldwide calls for censorship.

Virginia Hardy, ECU Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, issued a statement following the changes that led to the new green light designation.

At ECU we are committed to free speech and freedom of expression on our campus, said Hardy. We want our students, faculty, staff and guests to feel comfortable exercising their rights and exploring their ideas. Allowing the opportunity for freedom of expression and civil discourse around differing views has always been, and continues to be, a mainstay of institutions of higher learning.

ECU joins Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and the campuses at Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Greensboro as universities in the state with FIREs green light designation and 32 other colleges and universities that earn a green light rating because their written policies do not imperil student and faculty expression, according to FIREs Spotlight database.

House Bill 527, written by Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, also directs the Board of Governors to form a Committee on Free Expression. That body would enforce the speech policy across all UNC campuses. The bill is headed to Gov. Roy Coopers desk for his signature.

The bill is a solution in search of a problem, but free speech always should be a priority for public universities, Sarah Gillooly, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, told the Carolina Journal last week.

In the rare circumstances where there is an issue with the stifling of free speech on campus, appropriate remedies exist and are working, Gillooly said.

Contact Michael Abramowitz at mabramowitz@reflector.comor 252-329-9507.

Continue reading here:

ECU changes policies to bolster free speech - Daily Reflector - Greenville Daily Reflector