Passing out the Constitution on campus isn’t the benign activity one might expect, especially when egged on by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The group provides a pocket-size “Student Activist Edition” of the Constitution, which includes directions on how to hand it out and what to do if you get stopped: “Refer administrators to the First Amendment (p. 43)”; “Consider taking a video of the conversation”; “Contact FIRE for further assistance.”

On Constitution Day — the day delegates signed the document, Sept. 17, 1787 — a student Army veteran at Modesto Junior College in Modesto, Calif., was prevented from distributing copies and told to make an appointment to use the “free-speech zone,” a small, remote area available only certain hours of the day (three states now prohibit public colleges from designating only certain areas as free-speech zones). Likewise, at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, student members of Young Americans for Liberty, a national libertarian group, were ordered back to their table after handing out copies.

It’s hard to imagine that such activity could rise to the level of infraction, but both are cases FIRE filed suit over, and settled for a combined $100,000.

Then there are free-speech balls. On Freedom Day (April 13), the Young Americans at the University of Delaware stacked up their Constitutions for distribution and inflated their ball, on which passers-by write whatever strikes their fancy. For one student, that was the word “penis” and accompanying illustration. A police officer told them to remove the word and image. FIRE shot off a letter.