Third Circuit Vindicates Free Speech (Again)

We read:

"Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a resounding decision in favor of free speech by invalidating several unconstitutional speech codes. In McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands, the Court struck down campus policies banning expression that is “offensive,” “unauthorized,” or which causes “emotional distress.”

The Court reasoned that such prohibitions were so “hopelessly ambiguous and subjective” that they could be used by university officials to arbitrarily silence protected speech, a danger the First Amendment does not permit.

The decision reaffirms what the Supreme Court has been saying for decades: state officials cannot prohibit expression simply because it angers or offends someone. Period. And this is especially true on campus—the proverbial “marketplace of ideas.” Having now stricken three school speech codes this decade, the Court of Appeals has sent a clear message that students’ First Amendment rights are alive and well in the Third Circuit.

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