An Indirect Chilling of Free Speech?

It's about time these Maoist groups were reined in.  They are just Leftist thought police

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the University of Michigan could be dampening free speech on campus by allowing a group that helps students who have experienced potentially prejudicial acts to operate at the institution.

Speech First, a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties watchdog, sued Michigan last year, asking for an injunction to halt the activities of the university’s Bias Response Team, which helps investigate incidents deemed racist, sexist, hostile to LGBTQ students or otherwise offensive to certain groups of people. Similar teams are common at other colleges and universities, but their functions vary.

Speech First claimed in its lawsuit that the Bias Response Team is illegal because it could potentially deter students from making statements or engaging in protests that some on campus might find offensive but might be protected under the First Amendment.

A U.S. District Court judge initially denied the injunction last year.

Michigan officials had successfully defended the response team, saying it could not discipline students who were behaving in ways perceived to be prejudicial. The group merely provides support for those on campus who felt they had been the targets of biased acts, the university argued in court filings. For instance, the team may reach out to an affected student to discuss an incident and discuss if the student wants to file a formal complaint with the university or campus police.

Team members can ask a student who engaged in the potentially offensive speech to voluntarily meet with them, but they cannot force the student to do so, the university stated in court filings.

Speech First noted, however, that the team can refer incidents to campus law enforcement, the Office of Student Conflict Resolution or the mental health counseling center.

In a 2-to-1 decision, the three-member U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit determined the team’s ability to make these referrals “is a real consequence that objectively chills speech.”

The case will now be returned to the lower court, which will once again consider Speech First’s injunction.

“The referral itself does not punish a student -- the referral is not, for example, a criminal conviction or expulsion. But the referral subjects students to processes which could lead to those punishments,” Judge David McKeague wrote for the majority. “The referral initiates the formal investigative process, which itself is chilling even if it does not result in a finding of responsibility or criminality.”

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