Dive Brief:

• A Philadelphia-based free-speech advocacy group, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is suing four universities for restricting First Amendment rights — and it says it plans to file dozens of similar lawsuits.
• Current lawsuits target Iowa State University and Ohio University for banning certain T-shirts; Chicago State University for trying to shut down a faculty blog; and Citrus College in Glendora, CA, for limiting where a student could collect signatures for a petition.
• The group's president, Greg Lukianoff, says universities are fostering a generation of people “who think that they should be protected from anything they see as unwanted or disagreeable,” The New York Times reported.

Dive Insight:

It’s surprising that more First Amendment lawsuits haven’t already been filed, considering the level of free-speech restrictions on today’s campuses. As many have noted, including the foundation, the level of vitriol directed at planned commencement speakers who held views that students or others were in disagreement with has escalated in recent years, and higher ed institutions have generally capitulated to their objections. Nearly 60% of public universities and colleges restrict rights that are guaranteed by the First Amendment, according to the foundation. In response to the lawsuit allegations, Iowa State says its T-shirt ban was in defense of a university trademark and Ohio University denies that it banned T-shirts.