A law firm representing a UW-River Falls student is threatening to sue the university for limiting students’ rights to free speech.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian law firm, sent UW-River Falls a letter on Feb. 10, notifying the university freshman Sofie Salmon had obtained the legal counsel of the firm due to an incident on campus in fall 2019.
Salmon and a group of her friends organized an event recruiting students to start a conservative student organization on Sep. 6, 2019. The group walked around campus with an oversized beach ball and asked fellow students to exercise their right to free speech by writing messages on the beach ball, according to a letter from Alliance Defending Freedom.
The students were asked to end the recruitment activity by Kristin Barstad, UW-River Falls conference and contract services manager, since they were not a registered student organization and could not gather on school grounds.
A video of this dialogue was published online by the news organization Campus Reform.
Additionally, because they were not an RSO, under university policy they would be treated as an external guest, meaning they would have to leave the campus. Barstad told the group they could move to a city sidewalk on the outskirts of campus if they wished to continue.
“Limiting student speech to a select location on campus is unreasonable and violates the free speech rights of every student,” the letter from Alliance Defending Freedom stated.
After the event, Salmon emailed Barstad asking for the specific university policies prohibiting students from congregating on campus grounds, according to ADF — she received a response from another administrator about how to register a student organization.
UW System policy regulating the use of university facilities states that facility use by people or organizations not associated with an institution may have to pay fees to use the facilities.
“The First Amendment requires public universities to permit students to engage in expression in public outdoor areas without pre-approval requirements and without granting administrators discretion to determine if the content of speech is acceptable or not,” ADF said.
Alliance Defending Freedom concluded the acknowledgment letter by giving Van Galen until Monday, Feb. 24 to make the necessary changes.
In an email to WPR, Beth Schommer, UW-River Falls spokesperson and executive assistant to the chancellor, said any formal response to the letter will be made in consultation with the UW System Office of General Counsel.
