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Florida State Free Speech Zone is Adjacent to Campus Graveyard

Florida State Free Speech Zone is Adjacent to Campus Graveyard

“a small, open platform area for students to use, with university permission”

As if speech zones weren’t bad enough, students at Florida State get to express themselves next to a cemetery.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Code Red: Florida State University banishes speech to graveyard area

Florida State University, a public college in Tallahassee, Fla., holds a red speech code rating, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s campus free speech rating system.

Institutions which hold a “red light speech code rating” are defined as those which have “at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech … In other words, the threat to free speech at a red light institution is obvious on the face of the policy and does not depend on how the policy is applied.”Florida State’s speech code policies restrict where and when students can exercise their First Amendment rights and distribute advertisements for upcoming events.

According to an “open platform” policy, there is a small, open platform area for students to use, with university permission, from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m, for demonstrations. According to a map, there are only two areas where students can peacefully assemble: an area next to the graveyard on campus and a small area on the southeast corner of the Oglesby Union. There is also only one place where students can distribute materials on campus, the “active distribution” area, which is on the Legacy Walk and on specific “posting kiosks.”

Furthermore, “only FSU entities may pass out flyers or advertising materials on campus” and “materials placed on the outdoor posting boards may not exceed 8.5″X11″ in size.”

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Comments

Mario Savio spins in his grave, along with the founding fathers.

Didn’t the founders envision the entire effing USA as a free speech zone?

    Milhouse in reply to MikeyParks. | January 25, 2018 at 11:00 am

    No, they didn’t. They only forbade the new federal government from restricting speech, but they expected state and local restrictions to continue as normal. This only became a problem when the 14th amendment prohibited the states from restricting fundamental rights, of which speech is one.

    It’s obvious that local authorities, who derive their authority from the state, can impose reasonable restrictions on speech. For instance, the middle of a highway at rush hour is not a free speech zone; #Resisters have no right of assembly in that place and time, and those who do so ought to be run down where they sit, or at least arrested and have criminal convictions on their records. Authorities may place reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of speech, so long as they are neutral as to the speech’s content.

    Thus came about the “free speech zone” as an area set aside where people can assemble without disturbing others who are going about their business. Where campuses go wrong is in preventing all speech elsewhere when it is conducted in a manner that disturbs no one, or more commonly by preventing only some speech in this way, while allowing speech they agree with.

“This only became a problem when the 14th amendment prohibited the states from restricting fundamental rights, of which speech is one.”

States infringing on Second Amendment rights being another. Try carrying a firearm on the Florida State University campus. If you are not a LEO, then you will be arrested.