From preventing invited speakers from being heard, as at UC Berkeley, to instructors inflammatory and intimidating political rants, as at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, obstacles to free speech on college campuses seem to be an epidemic.

The latest example comes from Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills, where student Kevin Shaw, president of his schools Young Americans for Liberty chapter, was confronted by the dean of students in November when he tried to pass out Spanish-language copies of the U.S. Constitution on the campus main walkway. Shaw was told he must apply for a free speech permit and remain in a minuscule free speech zone which comprises about 616 square feet of the 426-acre campus, or else he would be removed from campus.

Shaw noted that the schools administration apparently did not have any qualms about an anti-President Trump protest that took place around the same time, in which students shouted through bullhorns and flooded the same walkway where he had attempted to distribute copies of one of our nations founding documents.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is now representing Shaw in a lawsuit challenging the free speech zone policies of Pierce College and the Los Angeles Community College District. It is the first lawsuit in the organizations new Million Voices Campaign, which seeks to strike down unconstitutional speech codes across the country.

When I attempted to hand out copies of the Constitution that day, my only intention was to get students thinking about our founding principles and to inspire discussion of liberty and free speech, Shaw said in a statement from FIRE. I had no idea I would be called upon to defend those very ideals against Pierces unconstitutional campus policies. This fight is about a students right to engage in free thinking and debate while attending college in America.

We hope they are successful. As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 1972 Healy v. James decision, state colleges and universities are not enclaves immune from the sweep of the First Amendment. Particularly on a public campus, the free exchange of ideas and critical thinking should be celebrated, not stifled and shoved away into a tiny corner.

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At Pierce and other colleges, 'free speech' zones must go - LA Daily News