YAF and our partners at Alliance Defending Freedom have achieved a decisive victory for free speech. After a two-year-long lawsuit, Palm Beach State College (PBSC) has agreed to revise its speech policy so that students no longer need permission to express themselves on campus.

   

In 2010, college officials denied Young Americans for Freedom members permission to distribute Heritage Foundation literature at a student organization fair and also prohibited them from handing out information within the "free speech zones" on several PBSC campuses. The officials cited PBSC's speech policies as their reason.

Although college policy demanded that speakers obtain permission to hand out materials 24 hours in advance, PBSC informed the leader of YAF that it actually completely banned literature distribution. PBSC policies further denied constitutionally protected rights by requiring advance permission from the dean two weeks prior to off-campus events held on weekends or past 9 p.m. on weekdays. At least two adult college staff members also had to be present at these activities, among several other stringent restrictions.

In January 2011, the college agreed to a court order that temporarily froze its problematic policy. The settlement in Young Americans for Freedom v. Bryant in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida replaces the speech-restrictive policy with a revised one that better protects student speech.

 

According to the revised policy, students no longer need permission to speak or distribute literature on campus, nor must students confine their speech to designated speech zones.

"From its absolute ban on literature distribution by students to its limited 'free speech zones' to its regulation of student group meetings--even when off campus--Palm Beach State's policies were among the most offensive to the First Amendment," said lead counsel Rick Nelson, one of nearly 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom. "But now they have taken a much better course in permanently removing these burdensome restrictions on First Amendment-protected liberties."

The university is supposed to be the marketplace of ideas and this settlement allows YAF activists to participate in that marketplace once again, just as America's founders intended.