The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen not to review a case involving bias response teams at universities, sparking dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. The decision leaves unresolved national discrepancies in how students' free speech is protected on college campuses.
The Daily Caller reported that on Monday, Justice Thomas voiced his concerns about the ongoing confusion regarding students’ rights to free speech at university campuses. This came as the Supreme Court declined to hear the case Speech First, Inc. v. Pamela Whitten, which challenged a bias response team at Indiana University.
The case stems from complaints by Speech First, an advocacy group, asserting that bias response teams at universities suppress free speech, especially on controversial topics like gender identity and immigration. The members of Speech First argued they feared retaliation for their expressed views.
Without a Supreme Court judgment, students across the U.S. find themselves navigating a "patchwork of First Amendment rights," as described by Thomas in his dissent.
Nationally, over 450 colleges and universities have established bias response teams, which monitor and address incidents of perceived bias on campuses. These teams have been both supported as protectors of campus safety and critiqued as censors of free debate.
The petition from Speech First highlighted that these teams operate near the constitutional boundaries, often leading to divided opinions in lower courts concerning their legality and impact on free speech.
According to the petition, the existence of these teams and the resulting judicial division necessitate Supreme Court intervention to establish clear guidelines for colleges and universities.
Highlighting the critical nature of the issue, Thomas noted the widespread use of bias response teams and predicted that the Supreme Court would eventually have to address the inconsistency in students' free speech rights. He criticized the Court's refusal to intervene now, suggesting that it leads to variable rights depending on geographical location.
"Given the number of schools with bias response teams, this Court eventually will need to resolve the split over a student’s right to challenge such programs," Thomas emphasized in his statement on Monday.
The refusal to hear this specific case, according to Thomas, leaves important questions about the First Amendment unanswered, contributing to the confusion over what is protected speech and what is not on college campuses.
This is not the first time Justice Thomas has dissented from the Supreme Court's decision not to delve into the issues surrounding bias response teams. He previously dissented in a similar case involving a bias response team at Virginia Tech.
In that prior dissent, Thomas argued that dismissing such cases without thorough examination increases the risk of eroding free speech rights under the guise of enforcing campus safety and inclusiveness.
Meanwhile, the legal landscape remains unsettled, with more cases likely to arise as students continue to challenge these teams, keeping the issue relevant and pressing for future judicial review.
Free speech on college campuses has long been a contentious issue, fraught with debates over where the line between hate speech and free speech is drawn. The role of bias response teams in this debate is particularly controversial, seen by some as necessary oversight and by others as an overreach that stifles free expression.
With no Supreme Court rulings on college students' free-speech rights since 2010, advocates and critics alike are watching closely for any signs of the highest court in the country stepping in to provide definitive rulings.