(Alan Wooten, The Center Square) Removal of flyers associated with Charlie Kirk at a private Christian liberal arts institution in the North Carolina Sandhills has drawn rebuke from a nonprofit free speech organization known as FIRE.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression says removal of law student Justin Booker’s flyers “flies in the face of Campbell’s promise to its students that they have the right to free speech.”
Dominic Coletti, program officer for Campus Rights Advocacy at FIRE, wrote to university President William Downs saying in part, “Booker’s flyer was unquestionably protected by Campbell’s strong and laudable free expression promises, which bar the university from enforcing its policies against expression on the speaker’s viewpoint.”
The Center Square was unsuccessful prior to publication getting comment from the Campbell president.
Kirk was shot to death in at Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10. The next day, Booker later posted flyers that included Kirk and his family and the words “end political violence” in multiple places in the law school.
The flyers were removed on Sept. 12 by Assistant Dean Regina Chavis, Coletti says, and he was told not to post any others. He said the institution cited “one policy that limits posting to designated bulletin boards and bars posting anywhere else within the law school and another giving a dean unfettered power to rip down student posters.”
Colleti, in an email shared with The Center Square, said, “If Campbell is refraining from removing some students’ flyers posted outside of designated bulletin boards, it must refrain from removing all similarly displayed flyers, or be prepared to explain to a community of law students and legal faculty why rules of purportedly general application actually apply only to those with disfavored viewpoints.
“Preferably, the university could further support a culture of free expression by allowing all such displays to remain up and formally expanding the number of areas for expression. This should not be overly difficult since, at least for some of its constituents, this expanded area for expression is already a reality.”
