Widmar v. Vincent (1981)
The Supreme Court ruled public universities could not reject the officiation of a student group which is religious in nature. Students establishing a group of this affiliation were not violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment – the statute the university justified its rejection upon.

The opposing side argued that the officiation and room reservations of a religious group on the University of Missouri (KC)’s campus was unconstitutional as it established religion at the college. The Supreme Court rejected this argument and sided with the Christian students arguing their free speech and public forum rights had been violated.

A public university’s open spaces are open to all, and a school cannot discriminate against the reservations of a particular group simply because of the group’s mission. Furthermore, they cannot reject the establishment of a group because of the group’s mission.

A Public University is a Public forum – A Christian group sought reservations of a hall on campus for 2.5 hours per week. When alerted of what the room would be used for within these time frames, the university rejected their request. The Supreme Court struck down this determination.

SOURCES:
Widmar v. Vincent
Freedom Forum Institute

New Mexico State: Rudolph v. Archuleta (2000)
University had a mere three small areas permitted free speech where generally, very few people populated or passed through (policy established in 1980s). A student was distributing leaflets criticizing this policy in an area outside of the three designated zones and was arrested. The ACLU filed suit on his behalf, arguing these zones suppressed speech. The University changed its policy, allowing free speech – even containing criticism – in any outdoor area on campus was permitted.

West Virginia University: Free Speech Coalition of WVU v. Hardesty (2002)
Free Speech Coalition of WVU v. Hardesty (2002) – Free Speech Coalition collection student groups sued their school over its policy allowing for two free speech zones. Prior steps to resolve the issue involved student and professor protests and the University upping their amount of zones from two to seven. These seven constituted 5% of the campus’ land. The University eventually relented and abandoned the policy.

Texas Tech University Law School: Roberts v. Haragan
A student who wanted to distribute literature on his religious views as it pertained to marriage was isolated to one free speech gazebo. He sued and the University attempted to mitigate the conflict with additional free speech zones. It was unconstitutional, a federal district court said, for the University to require extra permission to speak freely outside of the designated zones.

This violates something called the Lemon Test, a legal assessment established in the Supreme Court case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, over questions of whether or not a law violates the establishment clause of the first Amendment (freedom of religion, primarily). The free speech zones violated all three prongs of the Lemon Test:
1. It did not fulfill a secular policy – it infringed upon religious thought, rather than treating it neutrally.
2. It did not carry a primary effectiveness – there was no legitimate interest to the University, nor the government (which funded the University).
3. It violated entanglement requirements – in that it was very broad and would take excessive governmental intrusion to regulate.

University of Cincinnati: UC Chapter of YAL V. Williams
Students in this group were not allowed to distribute pamphlets all around campus to progress a ballot initiative. The University threatened arrest if the policy was not adhered to. Due to the lack of foot traffic in the free speech zone’s vicinity, the club gathered a mere six signatures. The zone comprised of less than 0.1% of the campus’ property. The policy failed strict scrutiny – another legal test created as a result of Supreme Court precedents. The zone rules did not have a legitimate government interest, nor a narrowly-tailored method to achieve said government interest.

SOURCE:
Freedom Forum Institute

Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995)
The student at UVA, Mr. Rosenberger, requested $5,800 from his university’s student organization budget to fund a Christian magazine. The University refused, reasoning solely that it “primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.” This was against University policy.
The Supreme Court sided with Rosenberger in that the University’s refusal placed a financial burden on his free speech – Christian compositions – and amounted to intellectual discrimination.

SOURCE:
Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia

Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement
The Board of Commissions for this county enacted a maximum fee of $1,000 in order for an organization to host a public activity (parade, protest, etc.) — but also allowed for the county to charge a varied cost depending on how expensive they anticipated it’d be to “maintain public order.”

A Neo Nazi group applied for a permit to stage a protest on the Cumming courthouse steps to express grievance about MLK Jr. Day. The county charged the group $100 for the permit and added on exorbitant amounts for the sake of security. The Neo Nazis sued and won.

Charging $1,000 for a permit or enacting a law that plans to charge this amount, does not have a clear justification and would force governmental entities to assess the content of the speech and make a monetary determination from its judgment. This facilitates discrimination on the grounds of controversiality – which regulates speech. This, therefore, is unconstitutional.

SOURCE:
Forsyth County, Georgia v. The Nationalist Movement

Trigger warnings defined as: “written warnings to alert students in advance that material assigned in a course might be upsetting or offensive.”

National Coalition Against Censorship conducted a large survey in the Modern Language Association and College Art Association of college/university educators:

• 1% of colleges and universities have instituted trigger warning policies.
• 5% of those surveyed reported that students had took proactive steps on campus to get the administration to impose trigger warning requirements for speech.
• 12% reported that they had experienced students complain about a lack of trigger warnings at their school.
• 62% of responding educators think triggers warnings have had and/or will have a negative effect on academic freedom.
• Only 17% of respondents reported that they felt trigger warnings could bring a positive effect to campuses.
  
  SOURCE:
  NCAC.org
  
  An abortion debate was shut down at Oxford due to potentially triggering aspects of the debate and speakers.
  
  Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc.
  
  Parade organizers held a St. Patrick’s Day parade each year, and on a particular year, the IAGLBGBI wanted to march. The city ordered the parade organizers to include the IAGLBGBI on grounds against discrimination as it pertains to sexual orientation. The parade organizers sued, and the Supreme Court sided with them. The Court argued that the intention of the organizers was not to discriminate against LGBT individuals, rather their message. Thus, their exclusion of the gay float did not violate discrimination law, it was merely attributed to their free speech rights in not having their expressive message forcibly altered by government intrusion.
  
  SOURCES:
  The Oxford Student
  Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc.

Gulf Coast High School’s SFLA affiliate “Sharks for Life” was indefinitely deemed unrecognized by the public school district’s student organization pool. ADF Counsel Michael Ross wrote the school a letter, addressed to the school board, superintendent, and assistant principal. In the letter, verbal testimony of two faculty members being threatened with termination by the assistant principal for their potential advising was documented, and a demand for the group to be recognized was also included.

The assistant principal involved made the argument that the issue ought not to be discussed at all in a high school and claimed that the first flyer Sharks for Life designed was “too political and controversial” — despite the word “abortion” not being on it once.

SOURCE:
TheCollegeFix.com

ADF Counsel Ross also cited the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Prince v. Jacoby:

High schooler Tausha Prince’s Bible club was only recognized as a Policy 5525 Club instead of an Associated Student Body organization – limiting her benefits and resources as a club. The school argued her club’s aim violated their Act used to determine which clubs receive ASB status.  One of these is forcing students to partake in religious activity.  The school claimed Prince’s group did this and violated the Establishment Clause of the 1^st Amendment as well. The 9^th Circuit sided with Prince.

The Equal Access Act “guarantees public secondary school students the right to participate voluntarily in extracurricular groups dedicated to religious, political, or philosophical expressive activity protected by the First Amendment when other student groups are given this right.”

There are standards schools have to meet to be protected under the EAA, including 1) public status, 2) receiving of federal funding, 3) establishment of a “limited public forum” where the school allows other non-curriculum (special interest) groups operate under a privileged status. Gulf Coast High School fits all three of these, having almost 80 special interest clubs

SOURCE:
FindLaw.com

Wherever other student groups are permitted to meet or hold events, as are Students for Life groups.

Widmar v. Vincent (1981) [see “Public Forum”]

SOURCE:
Widmar v. Vincent

The Equal Access Act (EAA), passed by Congress in 1984 and upheld by SCOTUS in 1990, declares it is “unlawful for any public secondary school that receives federal funds and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings.”

Defining “limited open forum”: this is created whenever a public secondary school opens space to non-curriculum- related groups, only during non-class periods.

SOURCE:
Freedom Forum Institute

Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS)

The Department of Education uses the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to publish the purchases and transactions of any schools who receive federal funding. As this is public information – much like university professors’ political donations (FEC), all citizens, including college students, have a right to view this and question it.
Institutions are not permitted to use student fees for activities external to the organization (implies that students have the right to know if this is illegally occurring)

SOURCES:
James G. Martin Center
IPEDS
Van Stry v. State

Students have rights and are entitled to the protection of "due process" at all times - especially if it is applied to other groups with different viewpoints. 

Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995)

Ronald W. Rosenberger, a University of Virginia student, asked the University for $5,800 from a student activities fund to subsidize the publishing costs of Wide Awake: A Christian Perspective at the University of Virginia. The University refused to provide funding for the publication solely because it "primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality," as prohibited by University guidelines.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 opinion, held that the University's denial of funding to Rosenberger, due to the content of his message, imposed a financial burden on his speech and amounted to viewpoint discrimination. The Court noted that no matter how scarce University publication funding may be, if it chooses to promote speech at all, it must promote all forms of it equally.

SOURCE:
Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995)

Esteban v. Central Missouri State College

Esteban was put on disciplinary probation and subsequently scholastic probation due to student demonstrations he partook in considered to be “riots” and “disturbances” by the college. He was orally made aware of his charges, but the Court determined that the remarks accusing Esteban of profane language in response to him being read his charges was hearsay and therefore inadmissible. Furthermore, a mere spoken notice of Esteban’s charges violated due process, the Court determined that the potential for legal ramifications by a university onto a student must be written. From this ruling, the Court determined that students have due process guarantees, and these must be established and manifested before any student is suspended for any reason.

SOURCE:
Esteban v. Central Missouri State College

See the section above: "Faculty and staff cannot be fired for sponsoring a pro-life student group."