2024-02-28 09:00:08
Free speech for me, but not for thee. From Fox News:
The Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) filed a federal lawsuit against UNM for attempting to charge students over $5,000 in security fees for hosting women’s sports activist and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines as a speaker. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Turning Point USA chapter at the university and the Leadership Institute, an organization that supports conservative student organizations with event planning.
Gaines, the director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute and a former Division I athlete who competed against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, was set to speak “about her experience competing against a transgender athlete” and as someone “who advocates for the protection of women’s opportunities in sports.”
Gaines being billed to speak for the TPUSA chapter prompted UNM to inform students that the event would require heavy security presence and provided an initial quote of over $10,000 to cover a security fee.
SLF sent UNM a letter before the event warning them that imposing security fees or costs based on an assumption of how people would react to a person’s speech violates the First Amendment.
They added that making such judgments on speakers’ viewpoints is “never constitutional.” According to the complaint, SLF argued that UNM officials “engaged in viewpoint and content discrimination when they required Plaintiffs to bear the cost of security based on the officials’ subjective assessment of the crowd’s potential reaction to Ms. Gaines’ speech.”
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