Board of Regents should remember its freedom of expression policy
The policy reads well, but the regents have caved to outside pressure to silence some disfavored opinions
NOT SURPRISINGLY THESE DAYS, free speech on college campuses is back in the headlines.
That makes it worthwhile to highlight the seven-page policy the Iowa Board of Regents wrote to proclaim how it values and protects freedom of expression at the three state universities.
Before getting to that, it is important to note the regents did not start with blank slate when they crafted their policy.
First, they and their policy must comply with the First Amendment, which became part of the Constitution when the lands of Iowa still belonged to France. Second, any sidestepping of the First Amendment could prove expensive for government administrators who discriminate among speakers based on the content of their speech.
We see this more clearly now after two Iowa public school teachers, in Creston and Oskaloosa, sued their employers after being fired or threatened with termination in the wake of the death of activist Charlie Kirk. Both teachers allege school officials violated their First Amendment free-speech rights over their Facebook posts about Kirk.
ON ITS FACE, the regents’ freedom of expression policy reads well. It says the policy conveys the board’s commitment to the principles embodied by the First Amendment and the Iowa Constitution. The policy provides a guide to students, faculty and staff at the universities in Ames, Cedar Falls and Iowa City.
Recent events, however, reveal troubling proof the board’s First Amendment pronouncements are not self-evident to current board members and university administrators they supervise.
For example, the policy states, “The Board’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation must not be suppressed merely because the viewpoints presented are considered by some or even most members of the campus community to be unwelcome.
“… It is not the responsibility of the universities to shield individual members of the campus community from viewpoints they may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive. Rather, it is the responsibility of individual members of the campus community to make these determinations for themselves and to respond, not by seeking to suppress speech, but to openly and vigorously debate those viewpoints that they oppose.”
The policy continues: “Employees are free to express personal opinions on their personal social media accounts, consistent with the First Amendment and its application to public employees.”
WHILE SOUNDING INSPIRING, and in harmony with what the Founders sought to protect with the First Amendment, actions can speak louder than words. And recent actions suggest the regents do not embrace the constitutional bedrock that freedom of expression and the First Amendment constitute.
Last month, the board met in a closed session to discuss the freedom of expression policy in the context of another social media post about Charlie Kirk, this time by a financial aid adviser at Iowa State University who is but one of the more than 10,000 ISU employees.
The private meeting lasted two and a half hours, supposedly to review the employee’s job performance as a lower-level worker making less than $50,000 per year.
The regents exited their private discussion and gave the schools two weeks to investigate each complaint about employees’ social media postings. They ordered the suspension with pay of any worker who was the subject of such a complaint while investigations ensued. And the regents authorized the school presidents to fire any employee who violated the freedom of expression policy.
TWO IRONIES FLOW from the closed session and the employee termination mandate.
First, it is choice that the people of Iowa, along with students and employees, were shut out from listening to what regents President Sherry Bates later described as a “robust discussion” of the limits of freedom of expression at the state universities. Robust, but secret.
Then, there is what happened to the employee who was the subject of the closed session.
That employee was (note the past tense) Caitlyn Spencer. When Kirk was murdered, she took to her personal social media account as a private citizen after her work hours and posted her personal opinions about him. She noted Kirk’s opposition to limits on gun ownership and opined that he “got what was coming and I’m happy he’s rotting in hell now.”
Her posting went viral once supporters of Kirk learned she worked for a public university. They demanded her firing.
And the Board of Regents and ISU President Wendy Wintersteen complied — succumbing to the heat and pressure despite their policy saying, “It is not the proper role of the Regent universities to shield individuals from speech protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which may include ideas and opinions the individual finds unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive.”
In her termination letter to Spencer, Wintersteen wrote, “… your conduct and continued employment has caused, and is reasonably likely to continue to cause, significant disruption, harm, and adverse impact to the efficient and effective operations of the university.”
THE FOUNDATION FOR Individual Rights and Expression is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought. FIRE offered the following analysis in a court brief in another school case involving freedom of speech and the assertion that an employee’s social media comments caused disruption — the same term Wintersteen used in her letter to Spencer:
FIRE said in its court brief, “The disruption must be of the classroom, not the teacher’s lounge or the local community; the complaints must come from studentsand parents, not teachers and outside community members; and the disruption must be caused by the speaking employees themselves, not outraged community members who cause a ruckus.”
Sadly, Wintersteen and the regents demonstrated that ruckus or not, they prefer robust expediency rather than forceful principles that encourage and protect campus speech, even speech with which we disagree.
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Thanks for your thorough discussion of the issue. Freedom of Speech was better protected in 1968-69. Legislators wanted an Econ Professor at the U of I fired for his anti-war 'commentary' that started each class session. It was sort of like listening to Johnny Carson monolog. Needless to say, for an Econ Class...it was VERY popular!
Thank you for writing this. I have three degrees from ISU, all earned in the 1980s. I have never been more disappointed in the university administration than I’ve been the last few years and the decision to fire the financial aid employee is not consistent with the values a university should hold.