Tag: FIRE

  • More Campuses Earn “Green Light” Free Speech Ratings From FIRE

    More Campuses Earn “Green Light” Free Speech Ratings From FIRE

    The number of colleges and universities with written policies that do not seriously threaten student expression are on the rise this year, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 19th annual “Spotlight on Speech Codes” report, published Tuesday.

    Since 2006, FIRE has grouped hundreds of public and private higher education institutions into three overall categories based on their campus speech policies: green, yellow and red lights. This year, 73 of the 490 (14.9 percent) colleges and universities surveyed received a green light ranking—meaning their policies don’t threaten free expression—compared to 63 last year. It’s the highest share since 2012, when just 3.6 percent of institutions earned green-light ratings. 

    For the first time in 19 years, the number of green-light colleges outnumbered those in the red-light category (14.7 percent), reserved for institutions with policies that “clearly and substantially restrict free speech,” according to the report. Last year, 20 percent of institutions received a red-light rating.

    Although political and institutional responses to campus protests related to the Israel-Hamas war reignited debate over free expression last year, the report attributed the decrease in red-light ratings to colleges and universities revising their policies related to harassment, hate speech and bias-reporting systems. Specifically, the report said that while bias-reporting systems have become popular over the past decade, they “have invited students to report protected speech simply because it offends them,” turned academic institutions into “referees of political and academic speech,” and created a “chilling effect on campus expression.”

    Lawsuits, free speech advocacy—from students, alumni and groups like FIRE—and lawmaker scrutiny have all spurred changes in recent years.

    “Over a dozen institutions have either substantially revised or eliminated entirely their bias reporting systems,” the report said. “Others have significantly reduced the prominence of their bias reporting teams, either by reducing the number of places on their website the team is mentioned or by requiring students enter their credentials to access the policy information.”

    FIRE rated the majority of institutions—337, or 68.8 percent—as yellow, meaning they “maintain policies that impose vague regulations on expression.” And eight colleges—including Baylor University, Brigham Young University and Hillsdale College—received a warning rating for “clearly and consistently stat[ing] that they hold a certain set of values above a commitment to freedom of speech.”

    Over all, private colleges have more restrictive policies than public colleges. Just 10.6 percent of public colleges earned red lights compared to 28 percent of private colleges—and only 7.1 percent of private colleges earned a green-light rating, compared to 17 percent of public ones.

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  • FIRE statement on FCC approval of Skydance-Paramount acquisition

    FIRE statement on FCC approval of Skydance-Paramount acquisition

    On July 25, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission approved Skydance’s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global and its subsidiaries, including CBS. The agency allowed the deal to move forward after receiving assurances the new company would provide “fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage” and would not establish programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion. The deal had previously come under scrutiny from the Trump administration over his disputes with CBS about its coverage of the 2024 election.

    The following statement is from FIRE Legal Director Will Creeley.

    This has been an unconstitutional shakedown from start to finish. Per the First Amendment, federal law, and longstanding precedent, the FCC has no business dictating the editorial choices of media outlets or conditioning merger approval on the viewpoints a network chooses to air. 

    But yesterday, Chairman Carr crowed over his shameful success doing just that. No federal bureaucrat should ever be allowed to play-act as our nation’s editor-in-chief.

    The chairman’s hypocrisy is staggering.

    Less than a year ago, Brendan Carr, if you could take him at his word, seemed to understand that the First Amendment bars the FCC from operating as “the nation’s speech police.” But he’s more than happy to wear that badge now.

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  • FIRE statement on Columbia University’s settlement with Trump administration

    FIRE statement on Columbia University’s settlement with Trump administration

    On July 24, 2025, Columbia University announced that it reached an agreement with the Trump administration to restore federal funding that was revoked over allegations of its handling of anti-Semitism on campus. As part of the deal, Columbia will pay a fine and change numerous campus policies related to campus protests, including restrictions on demonstrations and new disciplinary procedures.

    The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Legal Director Will Creeley.

    FIRE sounded the alarm months ago about the administration’s blatant disregard for federal law in its response to allegations of discrimination at Columbia. Yesterday’s agreement can’t be separated from the unlawful pressure campaign that produced it.

    The reforms themselves require Columbia students to commit to laudable values like free inquiry and open debate. But demanding students commit to vague goals like “equality and respect” leaves far too much room for abuse, just like the civility oaths, DEI statements, and other types of compelled speech FIRE has long opposed.

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  • FIRE amicus brief: First Amendment bars using schoolkid standards to silence parents’ speech

    FIRE amicus brief: First Amendment bars using schoolkid standards to silence parents’ speech

    Does the First Amendment protect passive, nondisruptive political speech of adults in a public forum? Under longstanding precedent and common sense, the answer is yes, of course it does. Yet a federal district court in New Hampshire ratified a viewpoint-based removal of parents from a high school soccer game. So FIRE filed an amicus brief in the appeal from that decision, explaining how the court went astray.

    In September 2024, as a form of silent protest against allowing a transgender athlete to play on the opposing girls’ soccer team against Bow High School, parents Kyle Fellers and Andy Foote donned pink “XX” wristbands during halftime. After about 10 minutes, school officials approached, along with a police officer, and demanded that the two parents remove the wristbands or leave the game.

    Worse, when the parents invoked their First Amendment rights, the officials threatened to arrest them for trespassing despite having no evidence that the wristbands, as opposed to the school officials’ conduct, was causing any disruption of the soccer match. Nor is there any evidence the transgender athlete saw the wristbands.

    So when a federal district court rejected the parents’ constitutional challenge to their treatment, it made two key mistakes.

    First, it held censoring their message was not viewpoint discrimination — even though the record shows Bow High School officials explicitly cited what they perceived as the protest’s “exclusionary” views while allowing “inclusive” messaging. That is, they objected to the wristbands’ gender identity messaging because they found it offensive, while at the same permitting other displays, including those celebrating LGBT causes.

    That is textbook viewpoint discrimination, and is simply unconstitutional in any kind of forum, full stop. As the Supreme Court ruled in the 2001 case Good News Club v. Milford Central School, “When a restriction is viewpoint discriminatory, we need not decide whether it is unreason­able in light of the purposes served by the forum.” 

    Second, the court imported precedent applicable only to K–12 students in school into its forum analysis, and misapplied it to the speech of adults. Although it acknowledged this is not a student speech case, the court looked to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which affords school officials some authority to regulate student speech that substantially causes disruption or invades the rights of others. But Tinker has no role in analyzing adult speech in a public forum.

    The district court compounded that error by developing a test based on its reading of the First Circuit decision in L.M. v. Town of Middleborough to justify censorship of the parents’ passive protest as demeaning towards a visiting student. But L.M. involved student speech — not adult speech — and used reasoning that doesn’t apply here. 

    Even if Tinker did apply (it doesn’t), L.M. relied solely on its “substantial disruption” standard to hold demeaning statements might eventually lower test scores and cause “symptoms of a sick school,” while disclaiming reliance on “rights of others” under Tinker. Despite that, the district court centered its L.M.-based analysis on how the protest here might invade the visiting athlete’s rights, not that it would disrupt school functions. 

    Had other students or adults actually engaged in what both the school district and district court feared may occur — essentially, discriminatory harassment — school administrators are already empowered under Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education to counteract conduct that is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive … that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.” 

    All told, as FIRE explained to the First Circuit, it is unwise to further dilute First Amendment protections by applying L.M. to adult speech. By sanctioning Bow High’s viewpoint discrimination against passive political protest and bastardizing student speech principles to silence adults, the district court’s decision would give administrators expansive authority over protected adult expression. That unwarranted and dangerous outcome is why the First Circuit should reverse on appeal, to protect First Amend­ment rights against erosion and abuse.

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  • FIRE statement on Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upholding age verification for adult content

    FIRE statement on Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton upholding age verification for adult content

    Today, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold Texas’s age-verification law for sites featuring adult content. The decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton effectively reverses decades of Supreme Court precedent that protects the free speech rights of adults to access information without jumping over government age-verification hurdles.

    FIRE filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that free expression “requires vigilant protection, and the First Amendment doesn’t permit short cuts.” FIRE believes that the government’s efforts to restrict adults’ access to constitutionally protected information must be carefully tailored, and that Texas’ law failed to do so. 

    The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere. 

    Today’s ruling limits American adults’ access to only that speech which is fit for children — unless they show their papers first.

    After today, adults in the State of Texas must upload sensitive information to access speech that the First Amendment fully protects for them. This wrongheaded, invasive result overturns a generation of precedent and sacrifices anonymity and privacy in the process.

    Data breaches are inevitable. How many will it take before we understand the threat today’s ruling presents?

    Americans will live to regret the day we let the government condition access to protected speech on proof of our identity. FIRE will fight nationwide to ensure that this erosion of our rights goes no further. 

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  • FIRE to court: AI speech is still speech — and the First Amendment still applies

    FIRE to court: AI speech is still speech — and the First Amendment still applies

    This week, FIRE filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in Garcia v. Character Technologies urging immediate review of a federal court’s refusal to recognize the First Amendment implications of AI-generated speech.

    The plaintiff in the lawsuit is the mother of a teenage boy who committed suicide after interacting with an AI chatbot modeled on the character Daenerys Targaryen from the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones. The suit alleges the interactions with the chatbot, one of hundreds of chatbots hosted on defendant Character Technologies’ platform, caused the teenager’s death. 

    Character Technologies moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing among other things that the First Amendment protects chatbot outputs and bars the lawsuit’s claims. A federal district court in Orlando denied the motion, and in doing so stated it was “not prepared to hold that the Character A.I. LLM’s output is speech.” 

    FIRE’s brief argues the court failed to appreciate the free speech implications of its decision, which breaks with a well-established tradition of applying the First Amendment to new technologies with the same strength and scope as applies to established communication methods like the printing press or even the humble town square. The significant ramifications of this error for the future of free speech make it important for higher courts to provide immediate input.

    Contrary to the court’s uncertainty about whether “words strung together by an LLM” are speech, assembling words to convey messages and information is the essence of speech. And, save for a limited number of carefully defined exceptions, the First Amendment protects speech — regardless of the tool used to create, produce, or transmit it.  

    As we told the court, it’s important to answer questions about the First Amendment’s application quickly and fully. Not just to minimize the impact on the parties to the case, but to avoid uncertainty about the First Amendment’s reach that would chill expression more broadly. 

    That clarity is especially important when the case presents novel issues about an emerging technology. Early decisions in cases about new expressive technologies influence the development of jurisprudence, sometimes becoming accepted “defaults” for decades. For example, the development of Section 230 jurisprudence was heavily influenced by the early Zeran v. America Online case, which still provides the generally accepted interpretation of that law nearly two decades later. Fortunately, the Zeran court got it right. But if the decision in Garcia has a similar impact, expressive rights are in serious trouble.

    Delaying review of the district court’s decision will chill a great deal of expression while the case otherwise winds toward an appealable decision — particularly given the implications of holding AI outputs are not speech. If that endures, the government would have vast power, without any constitutional limit, to regulate what we may say, how (and how effectively) we may say it, and even what we know and how we may learn it.

    Whether AI output is speech is a question with profound implications. If it is not speech, plaintiffs will be able to impose liability for the distribution of ideas in a way that courts have steadfastly rejected for other forms of media. 

    The district court’s analysis bypassed these issues and gave the First Amendment question far less consideration than it deserved. This warrants the immediate intervention of an appellate court to approach this issue with a level of rigor befitting the paramount constitutional principle at stake. 

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  • VICTORY: New York high school to strengthen First Amendment protections following FIRE lawsuit

    VICTORY: New York high school to strengthen First Amendment protections following FIRE lawsuit

    CHAPPAQUA, NY, June 25, 2025 — The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression agreed to drop its First Amendment lawsuit against Chappaqua Central School District after the district’s board of education adopted a robust First Amendment regulation that will protect the constitutional free speech rights of its students.

    FIRE sued the district in 2024 on behalf of O.J., an LGBTQ+ student suspended for violating the district’s “hate speech” definition in its code of conduct because he used the words “faggot” and “twink” in a rap song recorded in his friend’s home after school. In the song, O.J. rapped the refrain, “faggot, fart, balls.” The song also included another person’s lyrics, which contained violent imagery. After O.J.’s friend uploaded the song to a music-sharing website, the school received three complaints and promptly suspended the student.

    “In the Supreme Court’s decision in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., the Court held that students’ off-campus, nondisruptive speech is protected by the First Amendment,” said FIRE attorney Colin McDonell. “That is true even when the speech receives criticism.”

    In communications with the district, O.J.’s father cited Mahanoy and argued the school could not punish his son for his off-campus speech because it did not disrupt the educational environment. When this proved unsuccessful, O.J.’s father reached out to FIRE for assistance. On April 15, 2024, FIRE sued the district on behalf of O.J. and his father in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York.

    After commencement of the lawsuit, FIRE and the district worked together to craft a First Amendment regulation that would protect its students’ rights to express themselves both on and off school campus, consistent with and reconciled with Mahanoy and the New York State Dignity for All Students Act and its regulations. The district’s insurer also agreed to pay $70,000 to FIRE, encompassing attorneys’ fees, and the district removed the disciplinary action based on the song from the student’s file.

    “With its adoption of a First Amendment regulation, the board of education has affirmed the rights of its students to engage in protected speech on and off campus,” said FIRE Senior Attorney Greg H. Greubel. “We’re pleased that we could work with the board to avoid further litigation and turn this situation into a positive outcome for our client and all students in the district.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

    CONTACT:

    Karl de Vries, Director of Media Relations, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • With help of FIRE, University of Washington professor returns to classroom after bread knife incident

    With help of FIRE, University of Washington professor returns to classroom after bread knife incident

    In Soviet-era Romania, police falsely accused engineer Aurel Bulgac and his wife of espionage and imprisoned him for six months. Seeking refuge in America, Bulgac channeled his passion for physics into a professorship at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he taught without incident for more than 30 years. 

    That would change in the fall of 2023 when Bulgac used a hypothetical involving a small bread knife to encourage students to take the subject seriously. Through a surreal disciplinary process he describes as more nightmarish than Cold War repression, UW banned him from campus and hid evidence to get him to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. Fortunately, Bulgac reached out to FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund, which set him up with legal representation to vindicate his rights and restore him to the classroom.

    Teaching physics on the cutting edge

    In October 2023, during office hours with two students, Bulgac referred to a Japanese yakuza ritual where members cut off a portion of their little finger as an act of atonement or display of loyalty, called “yubitsume”. To drive home his point about taking physics more seriously, Bulgac took out a small bread knife, placed it on his desk, and asked students if they were confident enough in their answers to physics questions to voluntarily cut off their own pinky fingers if they were wrong.

    It was an intense hypothetical, to be sure, but the two students took it as nothing more than colorful hyperbole. They remained in Bulgac’s office, continued in class, and earned good grades.

    One student later told an advisor about the incident, making clear he never felt threatened. Even after the advisor encouraged the student to file a complaint with campus safety, the student declined. The story should have ended here. 

    But administrators were already demanding their pound of flesh. Instead of dismissing the situation as the student wished, UW banned Bulgac from campus, framing the decision as a “form of protection” for Bulgac. The university failed to provide a clear timeline or indication of when Bulgac could return to in-person teaching. And the university never actually told him whether a formal complaint about the situation existed, making it difficult to defend himself. 

    Though Bulgac certainly didn’t expect university administrators to behave like Soviet-era apparatchiks, he knew his rights and fought back with FIRE’s help.

    For nearly a year, Bulgac could not offer in-person office hours, attend scientific seminars, interact with his peers in the department, or work effectively on his Department of Energy research grants. With no end in sight to the university’s investigation, Bulgac was in procedural limbo. So he contacted FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal representation for public university faculty facing administrative discipline. FLDF immediately put him in touch with FLDF attorney Michael Brown of Seattle’s Gordon Tilden Thomas & Cordell LLP. 

    With Brown on Bulgac’s side, the pair got to work.

    Bread knife of Damocles

    The university never actually told Bulgac whether a complaint about the incident even existed, making it difficult to defend himself. Brown had to file open records requests to get any information from the university about the specific allegations. Finally, in early 2024, UW offered to reinstate Bulgac, but only if he took multiple training courses on communication, attended at least 10 coaching sessions with a university-approved instructor, and apologized to the students. Cutting deeper, UW conceded there was no threat—yet still sought sanctions.

    Brown countered by explaining why Bulgac’s speech was protected by academic freedom. UW itself defines academic freedom as “the freedom to discuss all relevant matters in teaching, to explore all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression, and to speak or write without institutional discipline.” He also pointed out the university’s hypocrisy in violating its pledge that “faculty members are free to express ideas and teach as they see fit, based on their mastery of their subjects and their own scholarship.”

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    Bulgac’s rhetorical question did not approach the line of being an unprotected, punishable true threat, or a “serious expression” of an intent to commit unlawful violence, and academic freedom gives faculty breathing room to determine how best to approach their own pedagogy.

    In September 2024, the university finally restored Bulgac to the classroom — no apologies or training required.

    “This disciplinary process should have ended with Bulgac’s explanation and the student’s confirmation that he did not feel threatened,” said Brown. “Bulgac’s hypothetical fell well within the zone of academic freedom afforded professors to teach as they see fit, without fear of reprisal from the university administration. As the courts have made clear, that freedom is critical to the proper functioning of universities as places for open and robust sharing of ideas. We were very pleased to work with FIRE to secure a resolution that brought this episode to a close without further damage to Bulgac’s ability to continue to do the important work he has been doing at UW since 1993.”

    Though Bulgac certainly didn’t expect university administrators to behave like Soviet-era apparatchiks, he knew his rights and fought back with FIRE’s help. If you are a faculty member facing punishment for your expression or teaching, contact FIRE. 

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  • FIRE highlights artistic freedom with launch of new YouTube interview series featuring heavy metal and punk’s biggest stars

    FIRE highlights artistic freedom with launch of new YouTube interview series featuring heavy metal and punk’s biggest stars

    Today the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression presents a new video series — “Fire with FIRE” — featuring some of the biggest and up-and-coming names in heavy metal and punk rock.

    Throughout the summer, FIRE will drop a new conversation every other week on our YouTube channel with the likes of:

    Artists can be the canaries in the coalmine. Too often, they are the first to be censored, or worse — much, much worse. 

    In Nazi Germany, the regime destroyed and banned certain art, particularly Jewish art, and labeled it “degenerate.” Jewish artists like Charlotte Salomon — who some argue created the first graphic novel — were sent to death camps and murdered by Adolf Hitler’s thugs.

    The Soviets were no better. Artists who rebelled against the confines of the state-approved artform of “Socialist Realism” were blacklisted, sent to the gulag, or executed. (After the Soviet Union’s fall, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin revived the old regime’s repression of artists, most famously targeting the punk rock and performance art collective Pussy Riot. Most members now live in exile after criticizing Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.)

    In 1973, the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet tortured and murdered Chilean artist and folk singer Víctor Jara for his music and political activism. His murderers pumped him full of bullets and then dumped his body on a public road. Message sent. 

    After the Islamic Revolution engulfed Iran, the ultra-religious government banned Western heavy metal and punk music. The Iranian regime has persecuted, arrested, and thrown in prison musicians daring to play such music. In 2015, for example, the members of the Iranian death metal band Confess were sentenced to years in prison and 74 lashes for blasphemy, disturbing public opinion, and anti-government propaganda. They fortunately escaped to Norway. 

    America isn’t immune to such crackdowns on creative expression either.

    During the McCarthy era of the late 1940s into the 1950s, artists like director, actor, and writer Orson Welles; screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo of “Spartacus” and “Johnny Got His Gun” fame; folk singer Pete Seeger; and many others were blacklisted because of their left-wing politics and Communist ties, real or imagined. 

    In the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI surveilled artists associated with the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. The bureau maintained files on John Lennon, The Monkees, and the proto-punk band MC5. Even the soul and gospel singer Aretha Franklin had a 270-page FBI file, with G-men monitoring her because of her connections to the Civil Rights movement and “Black extremists.” 

    During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center — co-founded by future Vice President Al Gore’s wife Tipper — created a moral panic around heavy metal, punk, and pop artists like Twisted Sister, the Dead Kennedys, and Prince. The PMRC’s crusade led not only to “Parental Advisory” stickers on albums but also to what is arguably Glenn Danzig’s best composition ever, “Mother.” 

    Enter the “Fire with FIRE” interview series. 

    Every two weeks, FIRE will release conversations with six of the biggest metal and punk artists in music right now about their inspirations, their influences, and why free expression not only makes life worth living, but is also essential to a free society. 

    First up: Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills. What a bloody mess this interview is. Our host Ryan J Downey slices into Spencer’s musical inspirations, why horror movies infest his music and art, and how Disney censored Ice Nine Kills — with Spencer getting the last howling laugh. 


    Like it. Share it. Tell us what you think in the YouTube comments. And let us know who you’d love us to interview in the future!

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  • Salt Lake City eases off crackdown on salty speech after FIRE steps in

    Salt Lake City eases off crackdown on salty speech after FIRE steps in

    This month marks one year since Salt Lake City clocked possibly the shortest public comment in city council history when police removed activist Jenna Martin after only 20 seconds of speaking that began, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

    Martin, who was wearing a keffiyeh pinned in the front like a shawl, then accused Mayor Erin Mendenhall of having police arrest local pro-Palestinian activist Michael Valentine on multiple occasions for “the most bullshit reasons.” 

    The council promptly ejected Martin, who could hardly be described as causing any type of disturbance given that she only had the floor for 20 seconds and her comments were entirely relevant to matters of public concern. But apparently, the council did not like people cursing in front of the mayor. 

    On Aug. 14, 2024, FIRE wrote the council, explaining that the First Amendment protects the public’s right to comment on matters related to the city and its leaders, even if the commentary is less than “respectful,” so long as the speaker is not disrupting the meeting. Pointed criticism is not the same as disruption.

    Mandating respectful discourse is an example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination because the city is sure to enforce the rule only against criticism, not praise. It’s also vague because what qualifies as “respectful” is undefined, constitutes a matter of opinion, and falls to the complete discretion of the same elected officials who are often the subject of that very criticism. The law recognizes that you cannot have the fox guarding the hen house.

    Although not pertinent to Martin’s case, FIRE also warned the council that its unqualified ban on “discriminatory” language is unconstitutional for the same reasons. After FIRE sent  a second letter on Oct. 7, a city attorney acknowledged the council had no basis to eject Martin, confirmed the policy had been revised to comply with the First Amendment, and noted that the city implemented “First Amendment training after receiving FIRE’s notice and plans to continue to reinforce that training.”

    Instead of vague and viewpoint-discriminatory categorical prohibitions on speech, the policy now encourages speakers to “avoid … intimidating or discriminatory language,” “profanity,” “threats,” and “personal attacks.” The policy also now explicitly acknowledges that speakers have free speech rights that the council cannot infringe upon: 

    The Council respects constitutional rights to free speech. It recognizes that some comments may be legally permissible under the U.S. and Utah Constitutions or other federal and state laws. However, the Council reserves the right to address behavior that creates disruption or safety risk or constitutes unprotected speech (such as true threats).

    Salt Lake City’s previous decorum policy highlights a common misconception among elected officials across the country regarding the contours of the First Amendment. While they may encourage the public to be respectful, they absolutely cannot censor or eject a speaker on these grounds. The mere use of profanity does not justify censorship either. FIRE will watch to ensure the city actually enforces the new policy in line with the First Amendment.

    Salt Lake City Council meetings are, at minimum, limited public forums. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that in limited public forums, towns can restrict speech only in a reasonable and viewpoint-neutral manner. For instance, Salt Lake City can decide when the public may speak, and may require comments to be relevant to city affairs — but it cannot cut off the public simply for using profanity or accusing the mayor of an abuse of power. 

    The First Amendment protects not just the content of speech but also the tone and intensity of that speech — an essential part of how people communicate opinions and ideas.

    If Martin can’t hold the mayor accountable for a perceived abuse of authority at a city meeting, where can she voice her grievances? City meetings are supposed to encourage civic engagement and inform the public. Yet FIRE has had to repeatedly hold local government officials accountable for censoring public comments beyond constitutional bounds. Fortunately, we’ve recently secured a couple victories on that front. 

    We commend Salt Lake City for taking corrective action and realizing that salty speech is not a threat to democracy, but a sign of its good health.

    FIRE defends the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — no matter their views. FIRE’s proven approach to advocacy has vindicated the rights of thousands of Americans through targeted media campaigns, correspondence with officials, open records requests, litigation, and other advocacy tactics. If you think your rights have been violated, submit your case to FIRE today.

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