WATCH: Defending students' free speech rights in the COVID era

Speech First Executive Director Cherise Trump spoke with Campus Reform about how university speech policies often trample students’ First Amendment rights.

Examples include free speech zones, professors’ biased grading, increased security fees, and flyer bans.

Trump also discusses these policies in the context of COVID-19 measures, which have been used as a barrier for students’ free expression.

”This starts to beg the question, are they using these new mandates to target conservative clubs or organizations on campus,” Trump said.

Speech First is an organization that “protect[s] students’ free speech rights on campus” by focusing on “advocacy, litigation, and education.”

Trump also sounds the alarm on “bias response teams,” which multiple colleges utilize. 

”Bias response teams are anonymous reporting systems on campus where students can report on one another, essentially tattle on each other, for unwanted speech, unwanted jokes, or things they just got offended by,” Trump explains.

Watch the full interview above.

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