State Attorney General Rejects Virginia Tech Board's Policy on Campus Speech By MEGAN ROONEY
Nine days after Virginia Tech's governing board established a controversial policy restricting political speech on its campus, the state attorney general's office declared that the new rules violated constitutional rights to free assembly and free speech. The Board of Visitors subsequently scheduled a meeting next month to discuss the policy. In the meantime, the institution will disregard the new policy and continue to follow its old one.
The board's policy prohibited from meeting on the campus anyone who had ever participated in or advocated "illegal acts of domestic violence and terrorism." The policy also required that all requests for campus meetings be submitted for the president's approval 30 days in advance.
William H. Hurd, solicitor general in the Virginia attorney general's office, soundly rejected the language as well as the spirit of the policy in a four-page letter to the president of Virginia Tech and the head of the Board of Visitors.
"The regulation is not limited to outside speakers or even to the use of meeting rooms," Mr. Hurd wrote. "It also applies to faculty and students and to the use of all locations on campus, including common areas where members of the university community often gather for informal discussions. This goes too far."
"Second," he continued, "even if the new regulation were limited to outside speakers, it would still be invalid. The regulation ... also prohibits use of university facilities by those who 'have participated' in such acts in the past, regardless of whether the proposed meeting is intended to condone or condemn such activity or to talk about some entirely different topic."
"Third," he wrote, "even if the new regulation were limited to outside speakers wishing to advocate illegal acts of domestic violence or terrorism, the regulation would still run afoul of current Supreme Court jurisprudence," which holds that such speech is protected unless it directly incites violence.
Finally, Mr. Hurd concluded, "a university -- of all places -- should be willing, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, 'to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.' For universities to prohibit the use of their facilities for constitutionally protected speech -- based on the perceived illegitimacy or offensiveness of the viewpoint expressed -- is contrary to the role of a university as a marketplace of ideas and violates the constitutional prohibition against viewpoint discrimination."
Lawrence G. Hincker, a Virginia Tech spokesman, said that "many of us are pleased with this result."
"The issue of speech and academic freedom is fundamental to a university community," he said.
Charles W. Steger, the university's president, also emphasized the importance of free speech on a college campus. "As a university, one of our primary functions is to help students develop the capacity to think critically in order to evaluate new ideas, and we have the greatest confidence in our students' ability to do so," he said in a statement.
But John G. Rocovich, head of the Board of Visitors, said that he did not regret the board's having approved the measure and that he does not rule out the possibility of introducing a similar policy at a later meeting. "The idea, as a general proposition, is still a good one," he said.
He added that the board would seek the attorney general's approval of similar resolutions in the future before voting on them.