By Kristi Graunke, Legal Director ACLU of North Carolina
Democracy is a practice — one that depends on our ability to freely think, speak, and dissent. Across North Carolina, those freedoms are under threat. Colleges and universities in our state have increasingly bowed to pressure from politicians, becoming battlegrounds where the boundaries of free speech are manipulated to stifle critical speech.
That’s why, on Thursday, October 23, we sent an open letter to leaders of public colleges and universities urging them to reverse policies that undermine constitutionally protected rights to freedom of speech and association. We issued this letter in the spirit of our ongoing commitment to academic freedom and in recognition of the critical role free speech plays on campuses, particularly amid the threats to democracy we face today.
Recent events at NC universities amplify a troubling trend of censorship and chilled speech, violating these institutions' obligations under the First Amendment. On September 29, UNC-Chapel Hill administrators placed Asian and Middle Eastern Studies professor Dwayne Dixon on administrative leave due to his past affiliation with a now-disbanded political group. The move came after an outside agitator posted on social media about a flyer found at Georgetown University purportedly linked to the group, which he used to call for Dixon’s termination. Despite no evidence that Professor Dixon was involved with flyers posted at a university hundreds of miles away, UNC-CH leaders swiftly placed him on leave and prohibited him from speaking or associating with any UNC-CH community members, past or present. Professor Dixon was later reinstated, but only after UNC community member protests and an ACLU-NC demand letter. Our open letter warns that such disciplinary actions can have an immediate and profound chilling effect on speech and association.
The textbook violation of the First Amendment in Professor Dixon’s case comes as other institutions adopt policies that pay lip service to free speech while creating a climate of fear. At NC State, for example, media staff circulated a “best practices” guide for faculty social media use, warning them to “[b]e sure that what you post will not come back to haunt you or the university” and to avoid content considered “profane, libelous, obscene, threatening, abusive, harassing, hateful, defamatory or embarrassing to anyone.” The guide states that First Amendment protection may not apply depending on the post’s “impact on the university.” As our letter notes, this effectively tells employees they must censor themselves when speaking in their capacity as private citizens — or risk losing their jobs. Sweeping warnings like this, with ambiguous standards of what is “appropriate” and protected, sow fear and discourage the exercise of free speech by all members of the university community.
NC State administrators also recently banned an invited speaker, Palestinian-American author Hannah Moushabeck, from reading her children’s book at a university-sponsored event, claiming it violated neutrality policies because it didn’t “show two sides to the story.” Yet, both the Constitution and NC State’s own free speech policies prohibit restricting speech based on content or viewpoint. NC State’s selective application of the neutrality policy here undermines its purpose, which is to protect a diversity of viewpoints, not sanitize the expression of unaffiliated speakers.
Our letter situates these incidents within a broader pattern of university leaders censoring content related to equity and difficult topics in U.S. history, seemingly in response to partisan pressure from the General Assembly. These actions followed mass student protests in support of Palestinian rights, including one on UNC Chapel Hill’s campus during which students and community members established an encampment in August 2024. UNC-CH forcibly cleared the encampment, violently arresting students and community members, and banning them from campus. We subsequently filed a lawsuit challenging UNC-CH administrators’ ongoing punishment of individuals involved in the protest.
These incidents represent a dangerous erosion of civil liberties and civil rights, underscoring the urgent need to defend free speech as essential to a functioning democracy. University community members have long been at the forefront of social movements, carrying forward a legacy of fighting to ensure that the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution extend to those historically excluded and marginalized. Leaders of NC colleges and universities must choose courage over ideological compliance. Free speech is not a partisan issue; it is the foundation of higher education.
