VICTORY:

Almost a year after @SantaAnaCollege enforced unconstitutional speech codes against 3 students hosting a “ #freespeech ball” event, newly-enacted district-wide reforms will help protect the First Amendment rights of approximately 53k students. https://www.thefire.org/victory-at-santa-ana-college-deflated-free-speech-ball-spurs-critical-speech-code-reforms-after-pressure-from-students-fire/

The policy changes follow a dogged campaign by members of the Santa Ana chapter of @YALiberty to vindicate their First Amendment rights and the rights of their peers through lasting changes to campus policy.

Last November, their chapter set up a “free speech ball” on campus. But after an hour, an administrator and uniformed campus police officer demanded the ball be deflated.

The Santa Ana administrator claimed that the writing on the ball violated Santa Ana’s code of conduct.

A few days later, the students were charged with violating the Standards of Student Conduct.

They faced potential discipline for violating provisions of the code banning “obscene” expression, “vulgarity,” and “hate speech.”

We wrote an emergency letter to Santa Ana reminding administrators that Santa Ana is a public college bound by the First Amendment — and thus forbidden from punishing students for engaging in peaceful expressive activity.

The college soon cleared the students of all charges.

Even with the charges dropped, the students didn’t stop fighting for free speech.

Represented by FIRE, the student org pressed for permanent revisions to the conduct code to ensure that the codes wouldn’t silence them — or any of the district’s 53,000 other students — again.

Last week, the college district formally revised its policies to bring them in line with the First Amendment, securing a lasting victory for the expressive rights of all students within the district.

It started with a deflated "free speech ball."

It ended up with more freedom for 53,000 students.

https://www.thefire.org/victory-at-santa-ana-college-deflated-free-speech-ball-spurs-critical-speech-code-reforms-after-pressure-from-students-fire/