The Student Coalition for Social Justice in partnership with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) have a drafted a policy memorandum to revisit the University of Connecticut's speech codes in order to meet First Amendment standards and protect students' free speech rights. We encourage all individuals, UConn students, and student organizations to sign and share this petition in support of the policy recommendations outlined in the memorandum that can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_5hMOJunIleclVCa...

Free speech is a right and privilege entitled to all Americans under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This is something that has commonly been contested at universities across the nation including ours.

UConn currently is rated as a "yellow light" univesity with regards to free speech. As highlighted on FIRE's website "A “yellow light” institution is one whose policies restrict a more limited amount of protected expression or, by virtue of their vague wording, could too easily be used to restrict protected expression" (https://www.thefire.org/spotlight/using-the-spotli...). We at the University of Connecticut can no longer stand by the ambiguous speech codes that do not do an adequate job of protecting students' rights. In a free society such as ours it is imperative that all people are able to express their views without fear, so long as they are not threatening and dangerous.

Please sign this petition as we are looking for signatures to help support this message and to increase its importance on campus so we can bring these policy recommendations to university administrators. Thank you!!

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Twitter: @UConnSCSJ