{"id":730,"date":"2017-10-28T18:19:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T18:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/campuscounselnewengland\/?p=730"},"modified":"2020-07-31T13:27:55","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T13:27:55","slug":"court-finds-computer-use-policy-may-violate-first-amendmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/campuscounselnewengland\/2017\/10\/28\/court-finds-computer-use-policy-may-violate-first-amendmen\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Finds Computer Use Policy May Violate First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently decided<\/a>\u00a0that a university\u2019s Computer Usage Policy may violate professors\u2019 First Amendment right to free speech.\u00a0 Objecting to a faculty-created blog that was often critical of university administration, Chicago State University sent a cease-and-desist letter to a faculty member, claiming that the blog lacked the \u201ccivility\u201d and \u201cprofessionalism\u201d that the university expected of its faculty.\u00a0 The faculty member interpreted that letter as an attempt to invoke the university\u2019s Computer Usage Policy, which prohibited \u201cany communication which tends to embarrass or humiliate any member of the community.\u201d\u00a0 The faculty member challenged that policy on First Amendment grounds, arguing that, on its face, the policy infringed on their free speech rights.<\/p>\n

The Court agreed with the faculty member, at least at the summary judgment stage of the case.\u00a0 The Court noted that the language of the Computer Usage Policy was similar to other language in university speech codes that other courts had struck down.\u00a0 The university argued that its technology resources were a \u201cnon-public forum,\u201d which would grant wider leeway for speech restrictions.\u00a0 The Court, however, found that the university had not made an adequate evidentiary showing that its technology resources were a \u201cnon-public forum\u201d and ruled that a jury would ultimately have to decide the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently decided that a university’s Computer Usage Policy may violate professors’ First Amendment right to free speech.  Objecting to a faculty-created blog that was often critical of university administration, Chicago State University sent a cease-and-desist letter to a faculty member,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-first-amendment","tag-computer-usage-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCourt 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