The College Fix

Though Humboldt State University is on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s “red light” list of the most speech-restrictive schools – for giving housing staff broad authority to remove “offensive” posters from dorm rooms – that advocacy group doesn’t know the half of it, Marcy Burstiner, chair of the school’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, writes in The North Coast Journal:

FIRE’s “red light” doesn’t hit on HSU’s policy that prohibits you from posting any fliers on bulletin boards on campus without first getting an official stamp. Or the amplified sound policy, which limits microphones to the lunch hour and only on the student quad. Or the limitations on chalking: To be able to write messages or draw pictures in chalk on the pathways, you need a permit and you have to commit to cleaning off the scrawls after the permitted day is over.

FIRE didn’t tackle the administration’s attempt last year to keep the student newspaper from distributing issues after it reported the names of students who were stabbed at a party. It didn’t mention administrators’ attempts to keep student reporters from interviewing prospective students after the tragic Orland bus crash last year. And it didn’t note the administration’s many attempts to keep the student press out of important policy and funding meetings or make it difficult for student reporters to get interviews with administrators.

Following Modesto Junior College’s $50,000 settlement with FIRE for restricting a student from passing out copies of the Constitution, Burstiner says, Humboldt State could find itself hit with a similar suit:

I don’t think there is a conspiracy to silence students at HSU. Instead, I think the university tries too hard to make the place feel warm and safe.

Read the full opinion piece here.

h/t FIRE

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