North Dakota bill would keep universities from canceling speakers for political ideology

GRAND FORKS -- A Senate bill that would strengthen language around free speech on North Dakota college campuses has student leaders at the University of North Dakota questioning what the law would look like in practice.

Senate Bill 2320, introduced by Sen. Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, would require the State Board of Higher Education and each institution to adopt and enforce a policy “affirming” that students have a fundamental, constitutional right to speech. It is also includes a long list of additional requirements regarding free speech zones and security costs associated with speakers.

The legislation would also require that an institution is committed to “giving students the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, learn and discuss any issue.”

The bill states that an institution should be committed to “maintaining a campus as a marketplace of ideas for all students and faculty” where the “free exchange of ideas is not to be suppressed” simply because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even most members of the community to be “offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical or wrongheaded.”

Read more: https://www.inforum.com/news/government-and-politics/966901-ND-bill-would-keep-universities-from-canceling-speakers-for-political-ideology