A coalition of Texas university student groups has sued to overturn a new state law designed to limit campus protests, calling the legislation an unconstitutional ban on a “staggering amount” of protected speech.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed the suit Wednesday in Austin federal court on behalf of the student groups. The petition seeks to shut down Senate Bill 2972, a Republican-championed measure that gives public universities’ governing boards the power to limit where protests can take place on campus and sets blanket bans on when students can engage in free speech activities.
SB 2972, passed in reaction to last year’s campus protests against Israel’s invasion of Gaza, bans “any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution” on Texas’s public university and college campuses between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. — a total of 10 hours daily, the suit states. The law also prohibits other forms of protected expression, from hosting outside speakers to playing percussion instruments, during the end of any academic term, a period that exceeds 90 days annually, the filing also alleges.
Further, the legislation bans the use of microphones and loudspeakers during class hours if campus administrators deem they interfere with campus operations, and it also bars students from setting up encampments and wearing disguises during protests.
“This law gives campus administrators a blank check to punish speech, and that authority will inevitably be used to target unpopular speech,” FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh said in an emailed statement. “Administrators have plenty of ways to prevent disruptive conduct that do not involve such a broad censorship mandate.”
In particular, the lawsuit warns that the law’s blanket ban on free speech during nighttime hours and the end of academic terms could shut down music performances, prayer, student papers or even political discussions among friends.
“Under these new rules, we’re at risk of being shut down simply for posting breaking news as it happens,” Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, editor-in-chief of Retrograde — UT-Dallas’ student newspaper and one of the plaintiffs — said in an emailed statement. “With that threat hanging over our heads, many student journalists across the UT system face the impossible decision between self-censorship and running a story that criticizes the powers on campus.”
The suit names the University of Texas System’s chancellor and all members of its Board of Regents as defendants, along with the presidents of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Dallas.
The petition also points out that SB 2972 marks an abrupt about-face for the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature, which passed a 2019 law requiring universities to ensure that all campus outdoor common areas be available to stage protests, so long as demonstrators obey the law.
The Lege passed that legislation after Texas A&M leaders, voicing safety concerns, cancelled a rally featuring white nationalist Richard Spencer, the Texas Tribune reports. Around the same time, Texas Southern University refused to allow a speech by a Republican Texas lawmaker because it was organized by an unrecognized student group.
“In passing the [2019] law, the Legislature declared, ‘it is a matter of statewide concern that all public institutions of higher education officially recognize freedom of speech as a fundamental right,'” FIRE’s lawsuit states. “Those words echoed the Supreme Court’s from decades earlier: ‘the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital’ than at our state colleges and universities.”
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