{"id":5573,"date":"2015-05-28T15:37:02","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T20:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=5573"},"modified":"2015-05-28T15:37:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T20:37:02","slug":"texas-student-sues-after-college-bans-gun-rights-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/05\/28\/texas-student-sues-after-college-bans-gun-rights-sign\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Student Sues After College Bans Gun Rights Sign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Don&#8217;t Mess with Texas, all you gun grabbing Lib-tards..we will SUE your ass!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/05\/sanderssign.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5574\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/05\/sanderssign.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"sanderssign\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Original Link:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2015\/05\/28\/texas-student-sues-after-college-bans-gun-rights-sign\/?intcmp=latestnews\">\u00a0http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2015\/05\/28\/texas-student-sues-after-college-bans-gun-rights-sign\/?intcmp=latestnews<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Texas college student filed suit against her school this week, saying her constitutional rights were violated when she was shooed off the quad for displaying a pro-Second Amendment sign.<\/p>\n<p>Nicole Sanders, 24, who attends Blinn College, a two-year public college in Brenham, Texas, said she and a classmate at the 18,000-student school were holding signs near the student center in February when they were told to move. Sanders&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/cts.vresp.com\/c\/?FIRE\/932e6ff80d\/75e8344737\/3f5b41192d\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign read<\/a>, \u201cDefend Gun Rights on Campus,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/cts.vresp.com\/c\/?FIRE\/932e6ff80d\/75e8344737\/bf67164093\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">and the other said \u201cLOL,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0with President Obama\u2019s logo as the \u201cO.\u201d The pair was trying to attract members for a student group they were forming, a chapter of Young Americans for Liberty.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders claims a college official accompanied by three armed campus police officers approached and said someone had complained that their display was offensive and that they wouldn\u2019t be allowed to do it again unless they got \u201cspecial permission.\u201d According to Sanders, the official added that it was unlikely such permission would be granted to advocate for gun rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you have to get a permit before you can speak, it shuts down ideas \u2013 everything gets censored through the administrators,\u201d Sanders, who is studying political science, told FoxNews.com. &#8220;It&#8217;s unconstitutional for a public university to limit speech to one area of campus. I think that college should be a marketplace of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;When you have to get permit before you can speak, it shuts down ideas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Nicole Sanders, Blinn College student<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There was an option, Sanders says she was told. She and her classmate, Chris Bradford, who is not part of the suit, could display their signs at a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cts.vresp.com\/c\/?FIRE\/932e6ff80d\/75e8344737\/197368ce9f\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cfree speech area\u201d<\/a>\u00a0off to the side of the campus center, roughly the size of two parking spaces, where few would see her.<\/p>\n<div>\n<section class=\"mod-25\">\n<header>\n<h2>More on this&#8230;<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"video-ct\">\n<article>\n<h3>How the left is silencing free speech<\/h3>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cYou only get so many people there,\u201d Sanders told FoxNews.com.<\/p>\n<p>Her lawsuit, which is being filed in federal court in Austin with the help of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), also alleges that her ceramics professor, David Peck, tried to intimidate her into not suing the school. The suit alleges that he warned her that he would \u201cprotect me and mine\u201d from accusations against Blinn College and that Sanders \u201cbetter think\u201d before taking further action.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related\">\n<h2>Blinn College student Nicole Sanders, (l.), is suing after school officials told her she could not display the sign shown at right in a heavily-trafficked area of campus. (Courtesy: FIRE\/Jenifer Morris)<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p>Peck did not respond to a request for comment Friday. University spokesman Jeff Tilley said the school is evaluating its policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe certainly will take this opportunity to evaluate our policies as they are written and as they are applied by faculty and staff,&#8221; Tilley said. &#8220;We will evaluate whether any misunderstandings may have occurred. Because of our commitment to our students and to the law, we are confident that we will be able to resolve any concerns that have been raised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tilley said the school has a policy not to discriminate based on politics, but that it can have reasonable restrictions to ensure order.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBlinn College is allowed to implement what the courts call \u201ctime, place and manner\u201d regulations to ensure that the operations of the college, including classes in session, are not disrupted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>First Amendment legal experts say Sanders has a strong case if they can show other types of speech were permitted in the same area.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If they can prove that they were specially denied because they were for gun rights, then it would be unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination,\u201d Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA who specializes in the First Amendment, told FoxNews.com.<\/p>\n<p>He added that it also was unconstitutional in another way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn government property, even in an airport outside the security cordon, bans on leafleting and other &#8216;low footprint&#8217; speech would be unconstitutional,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite that, such bans are common on universities. Volokh attributes that to a bureaucratic mindset.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cColleges are government institutions. They are run by people who see their primary job as making everything run smoothly, with a minimum of complaints and a minimum of upset. It takes publicity, and often a lawsuit, for them to realize \u2018Well, there is this legal rule that we need to be following,'&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>FIRE often files such lawsuits, and recently won a case against the University of Hawaii, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefire.org\/u-hawaii-settles-lawsuit-handing-constitutions\/\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tried to ban\u00a0<\/a>students from handing out the U.S. Constitution in most areas of campus, and only reversed course after being sued.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders&#8217; lawyer is optimistic about this case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBlinn College thinks it\u2019s acceptable to have a free speech zone that is the size of a parking spot,&#8221; FIRE lawyer Catherine Sevcenko said. &#8220;But the Constitution\u2019s free speech zone is the size of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>The author, Maxim Lott, can be reached at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maximlott.com\/\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.maximlott.com<\/a> or at<a href=\"mailto:maxim.lott@foxnews.com\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">maxim.lott@foxnews.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t Mess with Texas, all you gun grabbing Lib-tards..we will SUE your ass! &nbsp; Original Link: \u00a0http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2015\/05\/28\/texas-student-sues-after-college-bans-gun-rights-sign\/?intcmp=latestnews A Texas college student filed suit against her school this week, saying her constitutional rights were violated when she was shooed off the quad for displaying a pro-Second Amendment sign. Nicole Sanders, 24, who attends Blinn College, a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,74,1405],"tags":[507,1446,1447],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}