[Wsssc] {Disarmed} FW: Education Department moves to create new regulations about campus free speech

[Joe Holliday]

Colleagues: FYI below. Stay tuned for more details.

                             [Joe]
[Compass]
Joe Holliday
Director, Student Services
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
jholliday at sbctc.edu<mailto:jholliday at sbctc.edu>• o: 360-704-4334 • f: 360-704-4418
sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> • Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> • Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>



Education Department moves to create new regulations about campus free speech

By Michael Stratford

11/20/2019 03:46 PM EST

The Education Department is planning to draft new federal rules to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order on campus free speech, according to the agency’s latest rulemaking agenda released<https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201910&RIN=1840-AD45> Wednesday.

The new rules will “ensure that postsecondary institutions that receive Federal research or education grants comply with free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment (for public entities) and with stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech (for private institutions),” the department wrote.

That language echoes the directive to federal agencies that Trump signed in March . "If the university doesn't allow you to speak, we will not give them money,” Trump said at the time. “It's very simple."

It’s not clear exactly how the department will go about creating the new regulations.

Many campus conservatives have cheered Trump’s executive order. But other Republicans, including Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), have cautioned against creating new federal restrictions to address any problems with free speech on campuses.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last year said she doesn’t believe “government muscle” should be used to address campus free speech issues. “A solution won’t come from defunding an institution of learning,” she said at the time.

In June, DeVos said that the Education Department was still working on how to implement Trump’s executive order and suggested the process had been bogged down by federal bureaucracy.

The new campus free speech policies will be part of a package of higher education regulatory changes that also includes new rules governing religious exemptions to Title IX and how faith-based organizations participate in federal education programs.

The department’s regulatory agenda did not provide details about the specific changes the Trump administration plans to make. It said only that the new rulemaking was aimed at making sure the department was “implementing its programs and activities consistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution and the requirements of federal law, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

The regulatory agenda lists November 2019 as the target date for the Education Department to release proposed regulatory language, though federal agencies frequently do not meet those time estimates.

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