Speaker 1: Kevin Shaw was handing out Spanish language copies of the
Speaker 1: Constitution at Pierce College in Los Angeles when a university
Speaker 1: official told him he had to stop. I should have
Speaker 1: said a college official. That's a community college. Shaw, it seems,
Speaker 1: was outside the school's designated free speech zone, a space
Speaker 1: about the size of three parking spaces on the fo
Speaker 1: Acre campus. School. School policy says people looking to distribute
Speaker 1: material or obtain signatures must get a permit, must stay
Speaker 1: within the free speech zone, and must do the work
Speaker 1: between nine am and seven pm. Shaw, who's the president
Speaker 1: of a libertarian student group, sued and now he has
Speaker 1: a powerful ally. The Trump administration this week filed papers
Speaker 1: supporting Shaw and saying the policy is unconstitutional. With us
Speaker 1: to talk about the case is enriqi ar Mijo. He's
Speaker 1: a professor at Elon University Law School in North Carolina. Enrique,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Let's start with that. The papers
Speaker 1: filed by the administration. UH just this week. What's the
Speaker 1: argument that the Justice Department department is making for why
Speaker 1: this policy is unconstitutional? Well, Attorney General Sessions kind of
Speaker 1: forecasted the Justice Apartment's involvement in this case a few
Speaker 1: weeks back when he gave a speech at Georgetown University
Speaker 1: talking about the what he viewed and by extension with
Speaker 1: the Dustic Department, views as unconstitutional free speech zones on
Speaker 1: public college campuses. The basic argument is that setting out
Speaker 1: a space within the campus where students can speak violates
Speaker 1: the First Amendment right of those students, Enrique, Have courts
Speaker 1: in the past ruled on these free speech zones and
Speaker 1: whether or not they are violations of the First Amendment
Speaker 1: that they have? There are a few cases on free
Speaker 1: speech zones, and unlike in a lot of other areas
Speaker 1: of free speech law, Um, the students here have an
Speaker 1: unblemished record. I believe every federal court to look at
Speaker 1: a free speech zone at a public university has found
Speaker 1: it to be unconstitutional and just really based on this
Speaker 1: basic idea that the whole point of the university is
Speaker 1: to expose students to different perspectives and and it violates
Speaker 1: the First Amendment rights of student speakers to kind of limit, um,
Speaker 1: when they can say what they want to say. Well, Enrique,
Speaker 1: what's the best argument that that a college or university
Speaker 1: can make in defense of a policy like this? Well, Um,
Speaker 1: there are many good ones. Uh, the school. Certainly at
Speaker 1: the K through twelve level, public schools have been successful
Speaker 1: in arguing that UM the restriction of speakers doesn't violate
Speaker 1: the First Amendment on the ground that that speaker or
Speaker 1: that speech raises some kind of UM material disturbance with
Speaker 1: respect to the educational function of the school. So a
Speaker 1: student can stand in the middle of an algebra test
Speaker 1: and say, uh, I prost test algebra. I think it's wrong,
Speaker 1: or I think it's bad, or I think we should
Speaker 1: be learning something else. But but those are the kind
Speaker 1: of disruptions that really go to the actual day to
Speaker 1: day teaching and operation of the university. Free speech zones
Speaker 1: courts of uniformly found are not that kind of disruption
Speaker 1: where where the court will accept interference with students speech
Speaker 1: in this way. There seems to be a trend. Lawmakers
Speaker 1: in Colorado and Utah have approved bills that ban free
Speaker 1: speech zones. Do you see a trend in across the
Speaker 1: nation in in banning the zones and expanding UM protections
Speaker 1: for free speech on public campuses. I do, and I
Speaker 1: think that's a good thing, and it really is kind
Speaker 1: of in a larger context of some things that have
Speaker 1: happened UM at Berkeley, and it's some other schools where
Speaker 1: it's kind of a very much a hot topic on
Speaker 1: college campuses right now, the idea that campuses should not
Speaker 1: discriminate UM with respect to who student groups bring on
Speaker 1: campus and how the speakers are treated. Uh. In my view,
Speaker 1: this is a very positive thing for the First Amendment because,
Speaker 1: after all, as I said, and as the cases have said,
Speaker 1: the whole point of college is to really exposed students
Speaker 1: to different perspectives and and and and the college administrators
Speaker 1: and community college administrators should really see that as as
Speaker 1: their primary goal here. All right, let me try to
Speaker 1: give my best defense of this policy. Um. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: the government does have the ability to to regulate the time, place,
Speaker 1: and manner of speech. And even though this areel on
Speaker 1: this campus is both very small and designated as a
Speaker 1: free speech zone, it doesn't mean you can't speak other places.
Speaker 1: It just means that you can't distribute things everywhere on campus,
Speaker 1: and it means you can't obtain signatures everywhere on campus.
Speaker 1: So why isn't there at least an argument that this
Speaker 1: is just a time, place, and manner restriction. Well, the
Speaker 1: doctrine of time, place, and manner, which as you say,
Speaker 1: is really aimed not just um not at speech, but
Speaker 1: in the form that that speech takes, so that the
Speaker 1: argument there is as you said, Uh, it's okay to
Speaker 1: pass um bands on leafleting because the concern there is litter,
Speaker 1: not what's in the leaflet. Well, I think those arguments
Speaker 1: tend to fall apart um in in college environments of
Speaker 1: open campuses, where students are interacting on a range of
Speaker 1: other issues and talking about all kinds of other things
Speaker 1: as well. And and when, of course look at these things,
Speaker 1: they actually start um with the whole idea of a
Speaker 1: free speech zone. And and federal courts have often said, um,
Speaker 1: does that not necessarily, by implication mean that the rest
Speaker 1: of the campus is an unfree speech zone? Uh? And
Speaker 1: and and once the once an opinion kind of starts
Speaker 1: like that, you know that the that the restriction in
Speaker 1: question is doomed to fail. Enrique. And in some of
Speaker 1: the cases earlier in the year, there were invitations to
Speaker 1: controversial speakers and the schools wanted to limit the appearance
Speaker 1: to certain places because they feared there might be some
Speaker 1: violence in that area. Is the school in the have
Speaker 1: a better case or are they in the right very much. So,
Speaker 1: I mean for for for the Attorney General to get
Speaker 1: involved in this particular cases is honestly a bit of
Speaker 1: a lay up. I mean, the the speech at Georgetown
Speaker 1: talked about a lot of things. Student didn't just talk about,
Speaker 1: UH this free free free speech zones had talked about
Speaker 1: the the incidents that you're referencing, the free speech week
Speaker 1: at Berkeley and some of these much more contentious issues
Speaker 1: uh where where where speakers have been invited by uh
Speaker 1: student groups and have been shouted down, and they've been protests,
Speaker 1: and some of those protests have turned violent. UM and
Speaker 1: and university administrators are in a very tricky position. They
Speaker 1: have very limited resources. So some of them, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the bigger schools can say, okay, we can
Speaker 1: handle um several hundreds and dollars worth of security to
Speaker 1: basically secure the speaker and the people who want to
Speaker 1: listen to speakers right to speak. But it gets a
Speaker 1: lot more difficult when you have smaller campuses, smaller public campuses,
Speaker 1: who bring on speakers who are controversial and who tend
Speaker 1: to elicit kind of very very adverse reactions and sometimes violence.
Speaker 1: And I think what school administrators are finding is they're
Speaker 1: being critiqued for it. But if they very narrowly um
Speaker 1: state that the reason for kind of provoking an invitation
Speaker 1: is not because of what the speaker is going to say,
Speaker 1: or not even really because the speaker is controversial, but
Speaker 1: because we are not equipped to keep our students safe
Speaker 1: in the event of violent protests, then the First Amendment
Speaker 1: question has become a lot more complicated. And I would
Speaker 1: actually be surprised if the Trump administration got involved in
Speaker 1: one of those cases. Despite what the Attorney General said
Speaker 1: at Georgetown, We're gonna have to leave it there. I
Speaker 1: want to thank our guest, Enrique Ramiko, professor at Elon
Speaker 1: University School of Law. That's it for this edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law. We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks to our technical
Speaker 1: director Chris try Comy and our producer David Sutterman. You
Speaker 1: can find more legal news at Bloomberg Law dot com
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