The University of Wyoming’s (UW) decision to ban a church elder from operating a table inside the student union raises free speech concerns, lawmakers and legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
UW restricted Laramie Faith Community Church elder Todd Schmidt’s ability to reserve a table in the student union after he put up a sign which identified a biological male student who is currently in the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, the Cowboy State Daily reported. Schmidt’s sign was considered discrimination and harassment because it read “God created male and female and [student’s name] is a male.”
… Eugene Volokh, a distinguished professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the DCNF that while universities do retain the right to regulate speech inside of buildings, once that space becomes a public forum, policies must be applied neutrally regardless of viewpoint.
Alexa Schwerha | “University’s Ban Of Church Elder From ‘Public Forum’ Raises Free Speech Questions, Lawmakers And Legal Experts Say” | December 14, 2022
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Wouldn’t the question of whether Todd Schmidt is a memebr of the students union, or, at least, of the university, be relevant here?
I mean, if someone were to post on the WSC students’ union notice board “R Scott Clark is one of them total Calvinists”, wouldn’t it make a difference whether the poster was a WSC student or a local Methodist lay preacher?
member
John,
The University of Wyoming is a publicly-funded (i.e., tax-funded) institution. This means that members of the public can be on campus.
Further, school authorities open their campus to speakers/preesenters/representatives of other points of view. This is a regular feature of life on American university campuses.
If they are discriminating on the basis of the content of the speech, they are in trouble under our constitution.