The FIRE blog points to a few recent examples of free speech and due process violations in higher education.

Colleges Rush to Violate Free Speech, Due Process in Response to Speech Controversies

PHILADELPHIA, April 9, 2015—In the wake of the University of Oklahoma’s unconstitutional decision to summarily expel students involved in a racist fraternity chant, colleges and universities across the country are in a “race to the bottom” to violate the rights of students at the center of campus controversies involving speech deemed offensive, heedless of either context or the precedent set by censoring unpopular speech.

Last week, the University of South Carolina (USC) suspended a student who used a racial slur when writing a list of reasons “why USC WiFi blows” on a white board. Shortly after a photo of the student writing the list was posted to social media, USC President Harris Pastides issued a statement saying the university had “taken appropriate actions to suspend [the] student and begin code of conduct investigations”—displaying a “sentence first, verdict afterwards” mentality straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Last month, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania expelled three students who allegedly made racist comments during a campus radio broadcast. Administrators failed to provide a recording or transcript of the statements, instead arguing that “context really doesn’t matter once you see what was said”—a false argument that raises more questions than it answers. Bucknell invoked “administrative action” to expel the students for supposedly violating the student code of conduct, again with no sign of any hearing.

“Colleges have seized on the University of Oklahoma’s unconstitutional actions as a signal that they have an ‘all clear’ to toss free speech and basic fairness out of the window,” said Robert Shibley, Executive Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). “While these punishments might earn temporary plaudits from the press and public, neutering freedom of speech will look a whole lot less clever when the censors’ own unpopular opinions inevitably come under attack.”