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First Amendment

The First Amendment guarantees free speech and religious liberty to all citizens. Compelled speech policies, such as pronoun mandates, are a violation of free speech. The draft Title IX regulation would harm both of  these rights. Related areas of concern include bias reporting systems and DEI policies.

FREE SPEECH

The proposed rule would curtail free speech by broadening the definition of sexual harassment to include “unwelcome sex-based conduct” that can be evaluated “subjectively and objectively.”

Reports

• House Committee on Education: Freedom of Speech and Its Protection on College Campuses
• FIRE: 2022-2023 College Free Speech Rankings

Legislation

• Campus free speech laws have been enacted in 23 states: AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, IN, IA, KY, LA, MO, MT, NC, ND, OH, OK, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, and WV.
• Model Policies:
  • American Legislative Exchange Council: FORUM Act
  • FIRE: Model Campus Free Expression Act
  • Goldwater Institute and Speech First: Freedom From Indoctrination Act
  • Speech First: Protecting Students from Bias Reporting Systems

Lawsuits

• FIRE: Current Lawsuits
• Favorable Decisions:
  • University of Idaho
  • Geary County Schools School Board
  • FIRE: Freedom of Expression and Speech Codes

PRONOUN MANDATES

Once the legal definition of “sex” is expanded to include gender identity, students can demand that teachers and other students call them by their preferred pronouns. But compelled speech is not free speech. In a Wisconsin case, a 13-year-old boy refused to use a fellow student’s preferred “they” and “them” pronouns, resulting in a Title IX complaint against him.

Based on its unlawful 2021 Title IX regulation, the Office for  Civil Rights has begun to enforce pronoun mandates:

1. New College, Florida: “The federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is looking into conservative activist Christopher Rufo for, among other things, ‘misgendering’ a diversity official at Florida’s New College.”
2. Taft College, California: “OCR’s investigation also reflected that the college received repeated notice that the student alleged experiencing almost daily harassment including through faculty misgendering the student, but the college did not respond to these allegations to confirm their occurrence or redress the harm the student reported experiencing.”

Legislation

• Laws banning pronoun mandates have been passed in 10 states: AL, AR, FL, IA, IN, KY, MT, ND, TN, and UT.
• Florida model law

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

• Rachel N. Morrison: Education Department Proposes Rescinding Religious Student Group Protections

• First Liberty Institute: Religious Liberty Concerns with Title IX

• Legal Victory: U.S. Judge Upholds Title IX Exemption for Religious Schools
  • Decision

OTHER TITLE IX PROBLEM AREAS

• Due Process
• Women’s Sports
• Parental Rights
• Domestic Violence
• Gender Transitioning

Return to the Stop the Gender Agenda page.