speech which violates a non-discrimination policy is not protected by the First Amendment

[Rick Duncan]

Here is an interesting link to FIRE on line, concerning an issue described in these excerpts:
 
"William Paterson University in New Jersey has convicted student employee Jihad Daniel of “discrimination” and “harassment”—without due process—for describing homosexuality as a “perversion” in a private response to a professor’s unsolicited announcement of a university event that promoted a positive view of lesbian relationships.  
“William Paterson’s punishment of Mr. Daniel is a direct attack on freedom of speech,” remarked David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which intervened on Daniel’s behalf. “For the university to convict a student of ‘harassment’ for sending a single, non-threatening e-mail dangerously trivializes real harassment.”....
 
FIRE wrote President Speert on July 5 to protest William Paterson’s unlawful actions and to remind this public university of its obligations to protect students’ constitutional rights. FIRE pointed out that the university’s decision “blatantly contradicts decades of Supreme Court decisions clarifying unlawful harassment and protecting freedom of expression,” and that “William Paterson and its administrators cannot simply choose to ignore the First Amendment when it becomes inconvenient.”
 
On July 15, New Jersey Attorney General Peter C. Harvey responded to FIRE, asserting that “speech which violates a non-discrimination policy is not protected” by the First Amendment. Harvey also denied that the university had violated Daniel’s due process rights, and stated that “the recommended penalty against Jihad Daniel will stand as issued,” subject to yet another appeal by Daniel."
 
Does everyone agree with the thoughtful conclusion of General Harvey? 
 
Rick






Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered."  --The Prisoner
		
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