A biased administration forced to uphold free speech

Fighting the good fight

[Reprinted from Issues & Views May 17, 2004]

Finally, after a year-long legal hassle, Steve Hinkle, a white student at California Polytechnic State University, has won his case. In an apparent desire to punish Hinkle, the administration of Cal Poly charged him with "disrupting a campus event," after he merely posted a flyer to a bulletin board. [See full story here.]

What actually got Hinkle into trouble was not the posting of the flyer, but its content, which advertised a forthcoming campus event featuring the black conservative Mason Weaver. Posting such a flyer in the Multicultural Center was said to "offend" certain students of color, whose politics do not tend in the same direction as that of Weaver, or Hinkle.

The school's biased administration closed ranks with the complaining students and agreed to slap Hinkle with the charge of "disruption" for doing nothing more than pinning up an announcement. He was also ordered to write letters of apology to the "offended" students, which he refused to do. Administrators then warned him that his refusal "could lead to severe disciplinary penalties." Such penalties would be entered on his permanent college record.

When the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) was contacted by Hinkle, its officers wrote in his behalf to Cal Poly's president Warren Baker. The request for the school to drop the "disruption" charges was rejected, and FIRE, in conjunction with the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), filed a federal lawsuit. The suit asked the court to overturn the school's punishment of Hinkle and to clear his record of any wrongdoing. The complaint also sought a ruling on the school's capricious interpretation of "disruption," since the administration's interference with Hinkle's right to protected speech -- posting said flyer -- was unconstitutional.

The lawsuit was filed in September 2003, and the university decided to settle this month. We learn from FIRE:

Under the settlement, Cal Poly agrees to clear the incident from Hinkle's disciplinary record and pledges not to interfere with Hinkle's right to post promotional fliers. Cal Poly also repudiates its overbroad definition of "disruption" and agrees that "disruption" actually must be willful and must "materially and substantially disrupt a University activity or the orderly operation of the University."

FIRE's Chairman Alan Charles Kors declared:

We are pleased that free speech has been upheld at Cal Poly, but we truly are stunned that this university fought so desperately to deny a student's most fundamental rights. Cal Poly's example sends a warning to university administrators everywhere who deny rights and legal equality: You will fail in the court of public opinion; you will fail in the courts of law; and you will be held accountable by the citizens whose freedom you hold in contempt.

Learn more about the status of cases currently represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization dedicated to preserving liberty on college campuses.

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