Originally published February 4 2006
North Carolina students challenge the notion of free speech zones on college campuses
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Allison Jaynes and Robert Sinnott, two students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, have been charged with campus violations after staging a protest outside of free speech zones on campus, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has entered the debate on the students' behalf.
Two University of North Carolina at Greensboro students face disciplinary hearings for staging a protest about the campus "free-speech zones" outside the free-speech zones.
The students, Allison Jaynes and Robert Sinnott, helped organize the rally of about 40 people Nov. 16 on a lawn in front of the campus library, according to the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has intervened on the students' behalf.
When a school official told Jaynes to move to a free-speech zone, she refused and was later charged, along with Sinnott, with a campus violation.
"Our concern (about free-speech zones) is that it's another way for them to be able to filter speech on campus," Jaynes said on Dec. 16.
If students want to hold an assembly in any other part of the campus, they must make an advance request and a school official will review it, university attorney Lucien Capone said.
Capone would not speak directly about Jayne's or Sinnott's cases but in a letter to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said the campus valued "freedom of speech as one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution and as the best means for arriving at truth and mutual understanding."
"By the same token, we believe that reasonable time, place and manner regulations are essential to preserving that right lest there be free speech for no one," Capone wrote.
Capone said Dec. 16 that Chancellor Patricia A. Sullivan last month had called for the creation of a committee of staff, faculty and students to look at the campus' outdoor-assembly policy.
If the school has not changed its policy, Jaynes said, she plans another protest next semester.
"We've gotten a great response from the community because of this and I think it's very important that everyone is aware of this," Jaynes said.
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