Ohio Administrative Code › Title 3341 - Bowling Green State University › Chapter 3341-1 - Contracts › Section 3341-1-12 - Ohio public policy on principles of free speech

Current through
			 all regulations passed and filed through July 1, 2024
(A)
								Policy
			 purpose
This university policy affirms the
				public policy principles as set forth in section3345.0215 of
				the Ohio Revised Code which requires each public university in Ohio to adopt a
				policy on campus free speech that is consistent with and adheres to the
				principles set forth in section
				3345.0215of the Ohio Revised
				Code.
(B)
								Policy scope
The protections under section
				3345.0215of the Ohio Revised
				Code, which are reflected in this policy, apply to all students, student
				groups, and faculty. The obligations under section
				3345.0215of the Ohio Revised
				Code, which are reflected in this policy, apply to all employees (faculty and
				staff included).
(C)
								Definitions
"Faculty" or "faculty member" means any
				person, whether or not the person is compensated by the university, and
				regardless of political affiliation, who is tasked with providing scholarship,
				academic research, or teaching. For purposes of this policy, the term "faculty"
				includes tenured and nontenured professors, adjunct professors, visiting
				professors, graduate student instructors, and those in comparable positions,
				however titled. For purposes of this paragraph, the term "faculty" does not
				include persons who primary responsibilities are administrative or managerial
				unless the matter involves a course in which the person is the instructor of
				record.
"Student" means any person who is
				currently enrolled on a full-time or part-time basis at the
				university.
"Student group" means an officially
				recognized group at the university, or a group seeking official recognition,
				comprised of admitted students that receive, or are seeking to receive,
				benefits through the university.
(D)
								Policy
			 principles
In accordance with the public policy
				and the laws of the state of Ohio, the university affirms the following
				principles:
(1)
									Students have a fundamental constitutional right to
			 free speech.
(2)
									The university is committed to giving students broad
			 latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, learn, and discuss any issue,
			 subject to division (E) of section
			 3345.0215of the Ohio Revised
			 Code.
(3)
									The university is committed to maintaining a campus as
			 a marketplace of ideas for all students and all faculty in which the free
			 exchange of ideas is not to be suppressed because the ideas put forth are
			 thought by some or even by most members of the institution's community to be
			 offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal,
			 traditional, radical, or wrongheaded.
(4)
									It is for the
			 university's individual students and faculty to make judgments about ideas for
			 themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress free
			 speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they
			 oppose.
(5)
									It is not the proper role of the university to attempt
			 to shield individuals from free speech, inclduing ideas and opinions they find
			 offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal,
			 traditional, radical, or wrongheaded.
(6)
									Although the
			 university greatly values civility and mutual respect, concerns about civility
			 and mutual respect shall never be used as a justification for closing off the
			 discussion of ideas, however offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent,
			 disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical, or wrong-headed
			 those ideas may be to some students or faculty.
(7)
									Although all
			 students and all faculty are free to state their own views about and contest
			 the views expressed on campus, and to state their own views about and contest
			 speakers who are invited to express their views on the campus of a state
			 institution of higher education, they may not substantially obstruct or
			 otherwise substantially interfere with the freedom of others to express views
			 they reject or even loathe. To this end, the university has a responsibility to
			 promote a libely and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation and protect
			 that freedom.
(8)
									The university hall be committed to providing an
			 atmosphere that is most conducive to speculation, experimentation, and creation
			 by all students and all faculty, who shall always remain free to inquire, to
			 study and to evaluate, and to gain new understanding.
(9)
									The primary
			 responsibility of faculty is to engage an honest, courageous, and persistent
			 effort to search out and communicate the truth that lies in the areas of their
			 competence.