Table of Contents
Catching up with āCoddlingā part twelve: Protecting the brand and apolitical censorship ā The 'big middle' of Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās cases

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EDITORāS NOTE: This is part 12 of a multi-part series updating developments since the publication of āā (2018).
Earlier in this series:
⢠Part One: Introduction
⢠Part Two: Trigger warnings, social media, and mental health
⢠Part Three: Censorship from the right
⢠Part Four: Political polarization
⢠Part Five: Paranoid parenting
⢠āCoddlingā Caveat #1: Social media
⢠Part Six: U.S. income stratification
⢠Part Seven: Paranoid parenting with Kate Julian
⢠Part Eight: Free play and childhood independence
⢠Part Nine: Bureaucratization, administrative bloat, and tuition
⢠Part Ten: Corporatism and free speech
⢠Part Eleven: Bias response teams
Future articles can be found here.
When I talk to people about Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās work theyāre often surprised when I say that a lot of Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās cases involving students are not your stereotypical examples of right-on-left or left-on-right censorship of political or āpolitically incorrectā speech. While those kinds of cases certainly do exist, itās extremely common for a case to involve speech with little political valence ā so common that I call this the ābig middleā of Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS cases.
This dovetails directly from what I discussed in my tenth CUWC installment on the āStrong Corporatism Theory:ā that ā[h]igher education is harmed any time universities choose concerns like ranking, donations, staff morale, tuition dollars, federal grants, fear of liability, etc, over teaching and research goals.ā In the following examples from Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās case history and reporting from over the years, you wonāt find an obvious pedagogical motivation, a motivation to please ācustomersā (i.e., students), or an attempt to impose a political orthodoxy. Here, you just have a university protecting its ābrandā or punishing students and faculty that annoy or inconvenience its administrators.
Political and apolitical censorship collide at Collin College
If youāve been following Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās work for the past few months, you may have heard about the dumpster fire of administrative censorship that landed Collin College on our 2021 list of the 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech. If not, buckle in.
It started in October 2020, when faculty member Lora Burnettās scathing tweets about Vice President Mike Pence in media outlets. The school was then contacted by at least one state legislator urging her termination, which they were more than happy to oblige using a pretext Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS is all too familiar with ā weāre not firing her for speech, weāre just not renewing her contract. (When Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS requested the records of correspondence with state legislators about Burnett via open records law, Collin College stonewalled, as corrupt university administrations are wont to do.)
What seems like political censorship could also be the university using a political excuse to excise inconvenient faculty.
So you had all the trappings of a classic Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS case of politically-motivated censorship. But not so fast! As it turns out, Burnett had been a thorn in the side of Collin Collegeās administration, criticizing President H. Neil Matkin for the collegeās reopening plan under COVID-19. Why do we think this contributed to her termination? The giveaway is that Collin College fired two other critics for criticizing the collegeās COVID-19 reopening plan and union organizing at the same time.
Motives can be mixed in these cases, and what seems like political censorship could also be the university using a political excuse to excise inconvenient faculty. Or, if youāre unprincipled enough to fire a professor (or three) for speech, maybe you donāt care all that much about what kind of speech you fire someone for.
Shut up and let our Public Relations department do the talking
A number of brand-obsessed universities have had an idea that must have sounded brilliant in the boardroom: āWhat if we could keep our faculty and staff from speaking to the press and have the press talk to our public relations arm instead?ā While it has obvious appeal from a marketing perspective, it does have the minor flaw that itās wholly incompatible with the First Amendment and academic freedom.
The dreaded āMedia Policyā ā As recently as January 2020, Central Washington University had a policy requiring prior approval for all questions before allowing student media to speak to a staff member ā it now claims that it respects student mediaās First Amendment rights but time will tell. Until reforming the policy with Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās help in early 2019, Loyola University Chicago maintained a policy requiring all questions from media ā including student media ā for staff and faculty to be referred instead to University Marketing & Communications. In 2012, Chicago State University implemented a policy requiring all faculty communication with the media to go through CSU media relations. Arizonaās Pima Community College tried a similar policy in 2015.
Universities tried to head off possible embarrassment by restricting RAs and other staff members from speaking to members of the press.
COVID-19 press restrictions ā As colleges started bringing students back to campus and faced public scrutiny for their public health protocols, a number of universities tried to head off possible embarrassment by restricting RAs and other staff members from speaking to members of the press. We heard of restrictions of this kind at University of Missouri, Louisiana State University, University of Virginia, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Frostburg State University. To their credit, after Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS reached out, UVA and UNC (both āgreen lightā-rated schools) along with Mizzou changed or clarified their policies to make clear RAs could speak to the press without censure. Read more about COVID-19-related speech restrictions in Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās excellent report on COVIDās impact on free speech rights on campus.
Attack of the parking case
A āgenreā of apolitical case we often see is the āstudent was mean about parking and needs to be punishedā case. While many of them havenāt been public cases (Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS keeps many cases private either at the request of the student or professor or because we believe publicity would not make a just outcome more likely), hereās a sampling of some of the parking cases we have taken public.
Valdosta State University ā If youāve read my work, youāre likely familiar with this 2007 case, as I used as the centerpiece of my 2012 book, ā,ā but it bears repeating because itās a classic illustration of the petty, image-obsessed, and censorious administrator. Environmentalist and student Hayden Barnes found himself unceremoniously expelled and removed from his dorm. His crime? Protesting the construction of a new parking garage by posting on Facebook a collage that included calling it the āZaccari Memorial Parking Garage.ā While the comment was a sarcastic reference to Valdosta President Ronald Zaccari saying the parking garage will be part of his legacy, Zaccari claimed the āmemorialā part was a threat and that Barnes was a āclear and present dangerā to the campus. Barnes was eventually reinstated after intervention from the Board of Regents and, after an 8-year legal battle, received a $900,000 settlement.
If you get summoned to a student conduct meeting for paying a parking ticket with nickels, you annoyed someone who definitely deserved it.
University of Georgiaās 2010 āā email and Western Washington Universityās 2011 āā personal check memo are two great parking-related cases that I wonāt recount in full here, as I mentioned them very recently in my article about a podcast I did with Iona Italia and Audibleās censorship of the profanity section in the audio version of my book āā (note: Audible is !)
And check out the of this student at Wichita State University who was summoned before Student Conduct and Community Standards in 2018 for paying a parking ticket with (in part) 600 nickels. This was not a Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS case, as it resolved in the studentās favor before our intervention was necessary, but I salute the student nonetheless ā if you get summoned to a student conduct meeting for paying a parking ticket with nickels, you annoyed someone who definitely deserved it.
Censorship via trademark abuse
In the genre of cases most obviously about the protection of branding and corporate identity at the expense of student speech, weāve seen all manner of cases where universities misapply trademark law to crack down on critics or to distance themselves from student groups. Trademarks exist to prevent confusion in the marketplace, and in the higher-ed context, trademarks can be used to ensure people do not misrepresent themselves as speaking on a universityās behalf or to be its official representatives, but you wonāt find that in these cases.
Iowa State University ā ISU hastily drew up a trademark policy in 2012 to keep members of the universityās student chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML ISU) from making a t-shirt saying simply āNORML ISU Supports Legalizing Marijuana.ā The policy was meant to keep student groups from associating the ISU name with promoting ādangerous, illegal or unhealthy products, actions or behaviorsā and ādrugs and drug paraphernalia that are illegal or unhealthful.ā The shirts, which advocated a political position, were firmly protected by the First Amendment, and did not run afoul of ISUās legal trademark rights. But donāt just take our word for it ā in 2014, the students filed suit with Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās help and were victorious, winning nearly $1 million in damages and fees.
Universities misapply trademark law to crack down on critics or to distance themselves from student groups.
University of California, Los Angeles ā In 2009, UCLA asserted trademark rights to get a critical websites (ucla-weeding101.info and ucla-weeding101.com) taken down, citing a constitutionally-dubious that ostensibly grants state schools total control over use of their names or acronyms. After intervention from Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS, the university backed down⦠only to do the same song and dance targeting the same websites in 2018, implying that the URLs were an unlawful use of UCLAās trademark, and stating that their attention was brought to the matter via an āinquiry.ā Not exactly a plot twist: A public records request from Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS revealed that that inquiry came not from a confused member of the public, but from UCLAās External Affairs team, with the subject line āProtecting the Brand.ā UCLA refused to clarify they would not attempt to enforce their trademark against the site, but the site does still , so take that as you will.
University of California, Los Angeles redux ā In 2018, UCLA hosted a conference put on by the national organization Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS for Justice in Palestine, to and even over a Los Angeles City Council resolution that UCLA cancel the conference. For its part, the university refused to cancel the conference, but before the show went on, UCLA attempted to enforce its trademark to keep the conference from using its acronym (despite how hard that might make it to locate the conference) and remove the bear from a conference poster (despite sharing no visual similarity with the UCLA mascot other than being, you know, a bear). Unlike the others on this list, you could argue this was political censorship through an apolitical method, but I personally suspect that UCLA was more motivated by fear of their brand being associated with a controversy on a hot-button issue than a desire to censor a specific political viewpoint.
Patrick Henry College ā In 2012, the anonymous author of a Facebook page called āQueer at Patrick Henry Collegeā found themself on the receiving end of a scary message from a chancellor of the college who claimed that the page violated the collegeās trademarks and threatened that, unless they removed the name of the college from the page, the college would soon begin legal proceedings to uncover the authorās identity and to seek damages. This all occurred despite no reasonable person taking the Facebook page as speaking on behalf of Patrick Henry College itself. The college dropped it shortly after the situation became public.
Just throw those papers in the trash
As Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS has to explain with demoralizing frequency, newspaper theft is both theft (yes, you can steal something given to you for free ā try going to your favorite local restaurant and taking all of their paper menus, see how they feel about it), and censorship. And like other kinds of censorship, a good amount is done by administrators (particularly admissions staff around admitted students weekends) to protect the universityās brand image.
Radford College ā In 2019, a Radford administrator stole around 1,000 copies of the student newspaper, allegedly because of an insensitive photo used for a cover story about a recently-deceased professor. This photo was unlikely to cause any real offense, as it was provided by the professorās widow herself. Nevertheless, the university has refused to reveal the identity of the censorious administrator, calling it a āpersonnel issue.ā
Newspaper theft is both theft and censorship
University of Massachusetts - Boston ā In 2019, members of the admissions office allegedly stole 200 copies of the student newspaper after failing to get the newspaper to delay publication of an embarrassing story about a dorm hazmat incident until after an admitted students event. When an editor tried to refill another rack, she found the papers flipped over and covered with a jacket.
ā In 2019 (yes, 2019 was an especially bad year for newspaper theft), tour guides removed stacks of newspapers with a cover story about a āfifth alleged rapeā that the tour guides indicated reflected ābadlyā on the university.
Apolitical cases challenge popular narratives about free speech on campus
Media attention can be the difference between a student having their rights vindicated or not.
Apolitical cases of these and other types are a big part of Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās workload. In some years, they might make up the majority of cases that Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOS works on. But, unless you follow Āé¶¹“«Ć½IOSās website or social media religiously, youād be forgiven for having no idea that these kinds of cases even exist, because they get almost no media attention. You generally wonāt read about these cases in The New York Times or see them on Fox News, even though those outlets often cover campus censorship stories. Because they typically only cover cases when the story fits into a culture war, left vs. right narrative, apolitical cases more often miss out on the kind of sunlight that Justice Louis D. Brandeis called āthe best disinfectant.ā Thatās a real shame because media attention can be the difference between a student having their rights vindicated or not.
So what conclusions should you draw here?
- Remember that the situation on campus is complicated and defies easy narratives.
- Be skeptical of anyone who tries to tell you campus censorship is simple or only goes one way.
- Remember that colleges act like big corporations and often act out of corporate interest rather than a pedagogical one.
- Most of all, listen and try to help when students tell you thereās a problem, even if it wonāt score a win for your side of the culture war.
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