One has to wonder if the IRS targeting of conservative groups will have any impact on college politics. Students at Georgetown seem fairly concerned with free speech.

Susan Kruth of The FIRE reports.

Students Focus on Free Speech in Georgetown Elections

As Georgetown University students await clarification of the school’s policies governing campus expression, candidates for president and vice president of the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) are putting freedom of speech and association at the forefront of their campaigns, demonstrating that these rights are a priority for the student body. While the four two-person teams propose different strategies for protecting speech on campus, all of them have made efforts to address this critically important issue.

The Georgetown student newspaper The Hoya reported yesterday that three teams spoke with H*yas for Choice President Abby Grace “to discuss how best to promote free speech policy on campus.” H*yas for Choice recently brought more attention to the clash between Georgetown’s promises of free expression and its practices of censorship after Georgetown police officers forced the group to stop tabling in their chosen location in Healy Circle on January 20. On Tuesday, the Hoya editorial board endorsed Thomas Lloyd and Jimmy Ramirez for the GUSA and pointed to a problem all students should be concerned about:

Lloyd and Ramirez have articulated precisely what they see as the current policy’s biggest flaw: the culture of “self-censorship” it engenders. Lloyd notes that, as a leader in GU Pride, he is bothered by campus advocates who suppress their own thoughts out of fear of university retribution. This hesitancy from campus activists represents a graver problem than the mere confusion over existing policies.

Lloyd and Ramirez are right to recognize that the “chilling effect” of vague and overbroad policies on student speech is just as serious a problem as direct censorship by administrators.