Dive Brief:

• Two students who say the University of Hawaii at Hilo stopped them from handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution have filed a lawsuit against the school.
• The students, Merritt Burch and Anthony Vizzone, are members of the Young Americans for Liberty. University officials stopped them from handing out the Constitution during a January event, citing campus rules that prohibit members of organizations from approaching and soliciting students.
• Burch and Vizzone’s lawsuit claims that their First Amendment rights to free speech were violated.

Dive Insight:

Watch out for that Constitution — it could give young people the wrong ideas. The lawsuit also claims that the University of Hawaii unconstitutionally restricts access to areas of the campus with a rule that requires seven-days’ notice for permission to speak, the Huffington Post reported. Students who don’t receive the university’s permission can access the “free speech zone” at the edge of the campus, which is out of the way and hard to access. And it’s small — a quarter of 1% of the campus. The University of Hawaii says it is reviewing its policies and how they are enforced, and that it is committed to free speech.