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“The University of California’s board of regents has delayed voting until May on a controversial policy proposal that would restrict faculty from using some university websites to make opinionated and political statements, such as opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

“The proposal would ban faculty departments and other academic units from using the homepages of their department websites to make ‘discretionary statements,’ which the proposal defines as comments on ‘local, regional, global or national’ events or issues and not related to daily departmental operations.” …

Full article at EdSource.  See also: Kalven Principles.

The University of California Free Speech Alliance is pleased to announce a major AFSA initiative to protect free speech.  AFSA is filing an amicus brief  (friend of the court brief) urging the US Supreme Court to review an egregious ruling in which an appeals court ruled that "Bias Incident Response Teams" do not chill speech.  Contact us to review this brief and join this effort by signing the brief.

The brief will focus on how universities are using student surveillance software to collect and record bias complaints that will remain in the record system without verification, ready to show up whenever an administrator wishes to investigate a particular student. AFSA members have already been working on this problem outside of the legal system, compiling materials students can use to question what their institution is doing and to ask it for their individual files. 

AFSA groups have been widely successful at advocating for free speech on and off campus.  Alumni at Davidson pressured faculty to affirm a Freedom of Expression statement. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Free Speech Alliance (MFSA) hosted a civil debate regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion  (DEI) policies, just a few years after Dorian Abbot, a Professor at the University of Chicago who opposed DEI, was uninvited from the campus due to his views.  The University of North Carolina the Board of Governors approved a ban on compelled political speech. In February 2023, UNC trustees voted unanimously to establish the School of Civic Life and Leadership.