Free speech organization Speech First recently filed a lawsuit against the university’s “bias incident” policy. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. It alleges that the policy violates the students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The lawsuit can be found here.

Speech First asserted that Indiana University’s “bias incident” policy hinders open discourse and has a chilling effect on protected speech. The policy categorizes a bias incident as “any conduct, speech, or expression, motivated in whole or in part by bias or prejudice meant to intimidate, demean, mock, degrade, marginalize, or threaten individuals or groups based on that individual or group’s actual or perceived identities.”

Per the complaint, this broad definition lets the university police a wide spectrum of speech, barring students from manifesting controversial or polemical opinions. The policy’s enforcement mechanisms consist of tracking and logging incidents, investigating reports, and potentially referring students to receive disciplinary action.

Speech First’s lawsuit contends that the bias incidents policy is a content-based and viewpoint-based infringement on speech, which is unconstitutional as outlined by the First Amendment. The plaintiffs assert that the policy’s expansiveness and vagueness violate the constitutional liberties of Indiana University students, who fear punishments for manifesting their views on controversial topics such as sexual identity, immigration, and racial issues.

The complaint outlines the experiences of multiple anonymous students, identified as Students A through E, who have refused to fully express their views owing to the potential consequences of being reported for bias incidents. These students hold political views that are often fringe on the campus, and they fear that their speech will be deemed as biased, thereby leading to administrative punishment against them. 

Speech First believes that Indiana University’s bias incidents policy establishes a surveillance state on campus, where students must engage in self-censorship to avoid being reported and investigated. The complaint pushes for a declaratory judgment that the policy is unconstitutional and is looking to obtain a permanent injunction to halt its enforcement.

More actions like these are needed to restore free speech on campus. As long as people comply with censorship measures, free speech will continue to be assaulted on campus. Silence is complicity at this point.