Shoutout to the student group that got our speaker approved after 8 months of red tape

Last week, our campus free speech club finally hosted a civil rights attorney who talked about protest rights on public university grounds. It took us 8 months of fighting with the student activities board, three formal appeals, and a letter from the ACLU to get the okay. The room was packed with about 90 students, and the Q&A went way past the time limit because people actually wanted to hear both sides. I won't lie, I thought we'd just give up after the second rejection back in January. But the group's president kept pushing and even got a professor to sponsor the event. Has anyone else here had to jump through hoops just to bring in a reasonable speaker?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_elizabeth3d ago

90 students packed in for a civil rights lawyer says a lot. That ACLU letter was probably the key, those guys don't mess around.

taylor822d ago

Yeah, that thing about the ACLU letter really caught my eye too. I heard on a local news podcast that the school board got hit with a bunch of public records requests right after that letter went out... apparently they had to hand over all their emails about the speaker ban. Crazy stuff. The whole thing about 90 kids showing up on a Tuesday night is wild, especially for a town this small. Makes you wonder what else is going on behind the scenes that we don't know about.