A version of this letter was sent to Regent Ganahl’s cu.edu email in relation to a free speech proposal reported on by the Daily Camera here.

This image of the UMC fountains titled “fountain“ © Inga Munsinger Cotton. Licensed under the CC-BY 2.0 license. May be resized automatically by Medium, see link for original work.

Regent Ganahl,

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to read this. As have been remarked by myself and others before, while I disagree with your politics, you are one of the first regents that I have met that regularly reaches out to students when he or she can.

I recently read and heard about your proposal to strengthen the University’s protections of free speech, and I for one am all for this! More speech protections means more opportunities for students to engage politically, which is desperately needed on any University campus. As an excerpt of the draft of the proposed policy says: “Speech related to political, academic, artistic, and social concern serve vital purposes, both in society and within the university itself.”

CUSG [CU Student Government] Legislative Council’s record would show that when I proxied for a representative on council over the summer, I was quick to ask the then nominated SOAC chair whether she would commit to funding student groups in a viewpoint-neutral manner, consistent with current case-law on the subject and with Chapter 9 and other provisions within the SOAC code. SOAC [Student Organizations Allocation Committee, the branch of CUSG that allocates primarily operational funding for student groups] was keenly aware of this issue, and the now current-chair committed to doing so as she has in the past with controversial speakers like Milo Yiannopolous.

Indeed, when I initially heard of this initiative by yourself and other regents, I was curious as to what additional protections this University would be applying to speech considering that student fees are being used in a viewpoint-neutral manner currently. I sincerely hope that this measure is not meant to regulate Student Government for a problem that doesn’t exist in their realm.

What I hope this measure will mean is an elimination of free speech zones on campus. While enforcement on this provision of CUUF [Campus Use of University Facilities, a policy that applies to the whole of CU-Boulder’s campus] is rather lax when it comes to demonstrations outside of the UMC fountains, it is a tool campus administration can use any time they wish to quash free speech, for any reason they choose. Surely such a policy is not conducive to the free exchange of ideas.

If free speech is truly the concern of this measure, I would assume that it would be a foregone conclusion to allow unscheduled protests or distribution of literature on any part of campus within reason.

Again, thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing what you wish to accomplish with this measure.

Sincerely,

Brady Itkin

*EDIT: An earlier version of the letter published here incorrectly identified the CUSG constitution as a document that mandates viewpoint neutrality in regards to student group funding. In fact, it is the SOAC code which was updated relatively recently. The CUSG constitution provides protection against discrimination based on political belief, but does not specifically mandate viewpoint neutrality in the funding of student groups.