FREE SPEECH EXPERTS DECISION TO ALLOW

Punya Bhasin News Editor

For Jon Pushinsky, a lawyer and an adjunct professor of law at Pitt who teaches a First Amendment class, the “way to battle hate speech is to counter it with good speech, not to stop the speaker.”

“The University is certainly permitted to express its own opinions,” Pushinsky. “What they can’t do is allow students to express one side of an issue and not allow the other side.”

Throughout the past month, three “antitrans” speakers — Riley Gaines, Cabot Phillips and Michael Knowles — have inspired large protests on campus and spurred conversations about free speech and Pitt’s responsibility to protect LGBTQ+ students. On Tuesday, Pitt’s College Republicans and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute hosted Knowles to debate Brad Polumbo on the topic, “Should transgenderism be regulated by law?” in the O’Hara Ballroom. Knowles recently called for an eradication of “transgenderism.”

Four legal experts offer their opinions on Pitt’s decision to allow the events to continue, despite the University receiving significant pushback from students and lawmakers.

In terms of whether the University could face legal repercussions if it canceled the “anti-trans” events, some first amendment experts have varying viewpoints on the answer, but they agree that the University is upholding the principles of free speech and the First Amendment.

Bruce Ledewitz, a law professor at Duquesne University and a free speech expert, said he believes that the University’s response was “cowardice.”

“I think they’re protecting the idea of free exchange of ideas, and they don’t have the courage to face the student, the trans students, and say, even though genuinely this casts your very identity into question, we still feel that this speaker has a right to speak,” Ledewitz said. “They’re just unwilling to honestly say that and you know, they should honestly say it, because I think the students could respect that.”

When asked if the University was legally able to cancel the “anti-trans” events, University spokesperson Jared Stonesifer said “as a general matter, under the First Amendment, public universities that permit student organizations to invite speakers to campus can’t discriminate against any particular speaker chosen by a student organization on the basis of the speaker’s viewpoint.”

“For this reason, the University generally cannot preemptively reject or block speakers that have been invited to speak as part of campus events hosted by recognized student organizations solely because of the views that may be expressed by the speaker — even if those views may be offensive or run contrary to the values held by the University — so long as the speaker is engaging in constitutionally protected speech,” Stonesifer added.

Ledewitz said he thinks Pitt should uphold the First Amendment by allowing the events to continue. However, he said there isn’t a legal precedent set by specific court cases that forbids a university from making “a judgment call” when it comes to allowing speakers on campus.

“I am not aware of any instance in which a university has been forbidden from making a judgment call that a particular speaker is so offensive, so much advocating illegal conduct or so denigrating the groups of vulnerable people, that this person simply should not be permitted on campus,” Ledewitz said.

He said some universities have made these “judgment calls” to allow or not allow controversial speakers to speak on campus — citing the Penn State Proud Boys event.

Penn State University canceled an event featuring Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes less than an hour before its scheduled start on October 24, citing a threat of violence. Protestors and counter-protesters confronted each other, causing campus police to deem the event too dangerous to proceed.

Daxton Stewart, a lawyer who specializes in free speech and a professor of journalism at Texas Christian University, said Penn State’s inability to provide proper security and decision to cancel the event was handled “poorly.”

“Penn State probably acted negligently or inappropriately in allowing it to go as bad as it did with the security measures, and then also was pretty bad in its shutting down of the speech portions,” Stewart said.

Stewart said there are only narrow exceptions to the First Amendment for public institutions, including obscenity, hardcore pornography, false advertising, directed threats of violence and fighting words — none of which Stewart said legally pertain to the recent “antitrans” events at Pitt.

“The First Amendment is not a right not to