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On April 1st, four months after the adoption of the
anti-harassment policy, an anonymous graduate student in the psychology
department brought a legal action against the university. He sought a
permanent injunction against the implementation of the policy. He was
represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The anonymous student was especially interested in biopsychology and
claimed that it was important for him to teach and discuss theories
attempting to explain various differences between sexes and races. Some of
these theories might be seen as racist or sexist by some students, and he
feared that serious treatment of the issues might be a violation of the
current policy. In his view, the policy limited and chilled classroom
discussion. He also believed that the policy should be declared
unconstitutional because it was too vague and too broad.
The issue had now become whether the anti-harassment policy violated the First Amendment rights of some members of the university community. The university argued that it did not. The ACLU argued that it did. The Federal courts would decide.