The Legislature states that public higher education institutions should protect free speech and expression on campus.
The Legislature makes the following findings: (1) Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, recognizes that all persons may speak, write, and publish their sentiments on all subjects, and that “no law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of speech....” (2) Alabama’s public institutions of higher education have historically embraced a commitment to freedom of speech and expression. (3) The United States Supreme Court has called public universities “peculiarly the marketplace of ideas,” Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 180 (1972), where young adults learn to exercise those constitutional rights necessary to participate in our system of government and to tolerate the exercise of those rights by others, 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.” Healy, 408 U.S. at 180. (4) The United States Supreme Court has warned that if state-supported institutions of higher education stifle student speech and prevent the open exchange of ideas on campus, “our civilization will stagnate and die.” Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 250 (1957). (5) A significant amount of taxpayer dollars is appropriated to public institutions of higher education each year, and all public institutions of higher education should strive to ensure the fullest degree of intellectual and academic freedom and free expression and recognize that it is not their proper role to shield individuals from speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, including ideas and opinions the individuals may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive. (6) Freedom of expression is critically important during the education experience of students, and each public institution of higher education should ensure free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation by students. (7) The 1974 Woodward Report, published by the Committee on Free Expression at Yale, the 2015 report issued by the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago, and the 1967 Kalven Committee Report of the University of Chicago articulate well the essential role of free expression and the importance of neutrality at public institutions of higher education to preserve freedom of thought, speech, and expression on campus. (8) It is a matter of statewide concern that all public institutions of higher education provide adequate safeguards for the First Amendment rights of students, and promote, protect, and uphold these important constitutional freedoms through the re-examination, clarification, and re-publication of their policies to ensure the fullest degree possible of intellectual and academic freedom and free expression.