|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
In September the United States District Court reached its decision in
the case involving the Policy on Discrimination and Discriminatory
Harassment of Students in the University Environment.
The suit against the university claimed that the policy was vague and
overbroad. The court essentially agreed. It determined that the policy
was vague in the sense that an ordinary person could not know in advance
which speech was prohibited. This vagueness violated the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was overbroad in that some speech
protected by the First Amendment was prohibited by the policy.
The court did not take an "absolutist" position on First Amendment
rights. It agreed that there were classes of speech and conduct that the
university could prohibit in order to protect African American students
and others from harassment. For example, there was a plausible basis for
some restriction in the doctrine of "fighting words." In some cases it
might be possible to sue for "intentional infliction of emotional
distress." Threats of violence and property damage made with the intent to
harass or intimidate the victim because of race could be punished. But the
court added that the university could not prohibit speech because it
"disagreed with ideas or messages sought to be conveyed." Nor could the
university prohibit speech simply because it was "found to be offensive,
even gravely so, by large numbers of people."