Policies and Guidelines

Explore Portland State University’s free speech policies and guidelines, promoting open dialogue while balancing individual rights and community safety.

Definitions

• Academic Freedom — Professors, lecturers and researchers have the professional right to teach, talk, explore and write about topics in their field free from institutional censorship. Learn more about what that means on the Academic Freedom: Policies, Resolutions, and Agreements webpage.
• Civil Disobedience —  Sometimes individuals choose to break rules or laws as a form of peaceful protest. These actions are outside the realm of constitutional protections and can sometimes lead to consequences, such as student conduct, employee discipline, or criminal charges. For example, sitting down in the middle of a street may be an expression of political opinion. The act of blocking traffic may lead to criminal punishment.
• Forum Analysis — Your free speech rights may vary depending on where you engage in your free speech activity. 
• Free Speech — The First Amendment to the Constitution protects speech — no matter how offensive its content. The free expression of ideas is a cornerstone of a democratic society. Harassment, threats and incitement to violence are exceptions to free speech. 
• Time, Place and Manner — Similarly, time, place and manner restrictions refer to content-neutral rules and policies about when, where and how speech can take place. Through the years, court cases have helped shape these restrictions and examples include noise level restrictions, designating where posters can be hung in certain buildings and rules against blocking traffic. 

Forum Analysis

Forum analysis is a legal framework used to determine when and to what extent PSU – as a state actor – may restrict private speech in PSU-controlled spaces without violating the First Amendment.  This typically applies to public property, but is also used in any PSU-controlled space, including virtual spaces like a public college listserv or social media page.  

• Traditional public forums, like a public park, sidewalk, or streets, are places by tradition or common use that the public typically has a guaranteed right of access. While PSU’s ability to restrict speech in traditional public forums is most circumscribed, reasonable time, place and manner restrictions are allowed.  Notably, all streets, sidewalks and the Park Blocks on or near the PSU campus are owned and controlled by the City of Portland and not PSU.
• Non-public forums are spaces where public speech is not typically permitted, such as administrative offices, classrooms, lobbies, or resource centers. PSU may restrict the use of these spaces for its intended purpose, and reasonable restrictions on speech and expressive activity are allowed so long as these restrictions are viewpoint neutral.
• Limited public forums are spaces that PSU has opened up to speech or expressive activities, such as auditoriums, conference and meeting rooms, and athletic facilities.  In a limited public forum, PSU initially sets the parameters of how the publicly owned space is used (e.g. by limiting the space to certain topics or certain speakers).  However, once PSU sets its initial restrictions, if a speaker or type of speech fits within those limits, PSU is subject to the same restraints as a traditional public forum (meaning only viewpoint neutral time, place, manner restrictions are allowed).  Examples of limited public forums at PSU include The Urban Plaza, Montgomery Plaza, SMSU Breezeway, The Walk of the Heroines and Stott Community Field.

Time, Place and Manner

PSU has the right and responsibility to impose time, place and manner restrictions on the exercise of free speech anywhere on campus, even in areas that are traditional public forums.  

These restrictions do not vary depending on the views or ideas being expressed.  Rather, they are about ensuring that speech occurs in a way that does not disrupt the campus’s educational mission or endanger public safety. 

These restrictions must:

• Be viewpoint neutral,
• Be narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest; and
• Leave open ample alternative channels for communicating the speaker’s message