Adds to existing law to establish provisions for the protection of certain speech on college campuses.

This legislation protects our first amendment rights to free speech on public campuses of higher education. This legislation makes clear through definitions would correct previous misunderstandings of the role that higher education must play in preserving the free expression of speech on campus. The United States Supreme Court stated, in Healy v. James, that public universities act as “peculiarly the marketplace of ideas,” where young adults learn to exercise the constitutional rights necessary to participate in this system of government and to tolerate others’ exercise of the same rights, and there is “no room for the view that… first amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.” The United States Supreme Court also warned in Sweezy v. New Hampshire that if public universities stifle student speech and prevent the open exchange of ideas on campus, “our civilization will stagnate and die.”