The trouble with ‘dignity,’ Texas campuses have free speech after dark again, journalists unite to reject pentagon press pool plan, & more!

Bringing you the latest free speech news (10/19/25)

Stories of the week

• The trouble with ‘dignity’ by

  Dylynn Lasky
  &
  Bobby Ramkissoon

“Dignity” can mean many things: (a) the inherent value of the human person; (b) the social honor one commands in the eyes of others; (c) the inner self-respect that resists humiliation; or all the above. These meanings both overlap and collide. Which, then, is a university to enforce: the idea of respect, the appearance of respect, or the feeling of respect?

There is no objective way to make this decision. And when a rule depends on subjective perception, it cannot be applied fairly. What one dean calls satire, another may label cruelty. What one student finds invigorating, another experiences as demeaning. And all of these people may be completely in earnest. Under such conditions, enforcement becomes a matter not of principle but of preference.

• VICTORY: Federal court halts Texas’ ‘no First Amendment after dark’ campus speech ban

“Texas’ law is so overbroad that any public university student chatting in the dorms past 10 p.m. would have been in violation,” said FIRE Senior Attorney Adam Steinbaugh. “We’re thankful that the court stepped in and halted a speech ban that inevitably would’ve been weaponized to censor speech that administrators disagreed with.”

This week in ERI

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This week in

Expression

• Pentagon’s press badge policy unites journalists by offending the Constitution by

  Adam Goldstein

• College free speech faces a new threat by

  Sean Stevens

Finally, as we’ve previously noted, attempts to sanction scholars have reached record highs, underscoring growing tension between higher education and political forces. What’s particularly striking is that many of these efforts are being spearheaded by government actors, both at the state and federal levels. Legislators and public officials are increasingly targeting faculty members for speech they deem controversial or politically charged, often under the guise of combating bias.

This week on

So to Speak

• This week,

  Nico Perrino
  was joined by his colleague, FIRE Senior Scholar of Global Expression
  Sarah McLaughlin
  to discuss her new book, Authoritarians in the Academy.

This week in FIRE’s blog

• Act now: Condemn IU’s censorship of student media by William Harris

FIRE in the press!

• UR won’t explain why an Eastman student was expelled (Rochester Beacon) by Jessie Appleby & William Harris

London Calling: Ronnie’s First Amendment Roundup

• Fellowship of University Christian Students v. Eltife

Federal court enjoins new Texas law restricting campus speech because, “The First Amendment does not have a bedtime of 10:00 p.m.”

(with thanks to guest author JT Morris)

A federal district court has granted a preliminary injunction against Texas’s “Campus Protection Act” that imposes sweeping bans across the University of Texas System on a host of First Amendment activity, including–but not limited to–a ban on nearly all protected speech between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. A diverse group of Texas university students and a pro-freedom advocacy group sued to stop the Act from silencing protected expression. In granting their motion for a preliminary injunction, the court held they have standing to bring a pre-enforcement challenge against the Act and the university policies that implement its bans on expression, because the “threat of future enforcement is substantial.” Next, it held that because the Act’s bans require students to “first determine if their activity or speech is commercial or non-commercial,” it is a content-based restriction on speech requiring the government to overcome strict scrutiny. The court then had little trouble holding the government is unlikely to show the Act’s sweeping bans on protected speech at public universities are “the least restrictive means of achieving a conducive and safe learning environment.” For instance, it pointed out how the ban on speech between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. prohibits non-commercial speech even if non-disruptive, but permitted commercial speech, “even if such speech is disruptive.” “The First Amendment does not have a bedtime of 10:00 p.m.,” the district court recognized. It likewise recognized that banning invited speakers, amplified sound, or drumming during the last two weeks of any academic term failed to meet strict scrutiny, because those bans are not limited to only disruptive activities. For the same reasons, the Court held the Act’s sweeping bans likely violate the First Amendment on their face for being overly broad. FIRE represented the plaintiffs in their suit.

International free speech stories of the week

• Man fined for burning Qur’an in London wins appeal against conviction (The Guardian) by Matthew Weaver

Mr Justice Bennathan said that while burning a Qur’an might be something “many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive”, the right to freedom of expression “must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb”.

• Student arrested after chanting about putting Zionists ‘in the ground’ (BBC)

• Yemen: Human Rights Lawyer Arrested (Human Rights Watch)

Video of the week

The Trump administration’s attempted deportations of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others in the United States with green cards or student visas has raised the question, “what First Amendment rights do non-citizens in the United States have?” The first episode in FIRE’s new series, “1AX” — as well as FIRE’s lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio — set out to answer that question once and for all.