Georgia on track for campus free speech
A new Georgia bill is on track to become one of the most far-reaching campus free speech laws in the nation, and it's based on the Goldwater Institute model.
Stanley Kurtz explains in National Review:
Georgia State Senator William Ligon has filed SB 339, a campus free-speech bill based on the template published by Arizona’s Goldwater Institute. (I co-authored that model along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher.) The Goldwater proposal, already the most comprehensive legislative prototype, was recently updated to include provisions on speaker security fees and free-association rights for student organizations. So the Georgia bill is on track to become one of the most far-reaching campus free-speech laws in the nation. (An updated white paper explaining all provisions of the expanded Goldwater model can be found here.)
On filing SB 339, Sen. Ligon warned that today’s college campuses were becoming “politically correct speech zones,” and noted that last year two Georgia state universities had earned a rebuke from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) for unconstitutional restrictions of student speech. Ligon added, “The Georgia Legislature needs to ensure that our public colleges and universities protect the rights of all students and speakers to peacefully express their viewpoints without fear of being shouted down by protesters or reprimanded for what the administration deems as politically incorrect speech.”
