ACLU Comment on Campus Speech Executive Order

WASHINGTON — President Trump today issued an executive order on campus free speech.

Kathleen Ruane, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, had the following comment in response:

“This executive order doesn’t do much with regard to free speech. Instead, it tells public universities to abide by the First Amendment, as they are already required to do, and private universities to abide by their existing policies. We will closely monitor how federal agencies choose to enforce this order, as that will be critical to assessing the order’s effectiveness as well as its constitutionality. Such scrutiny will be especially critical in light of the partisan nature of the administration’s rollout of this executive order. Censorship and speech restrictions on campus are not partisan issues and they impact students across the ideological spectrum.”