Conservative student can sue over free speech rights, court rules

The L.A. Times reports:

A conservative student activist who was sanctioned for violating a prohibition on harassment can try to hold a California university liable for retaliating against him for expressing his free speech rights, a federal appeals court decided Thursday.

“The First Amendment does not give a free pass to students who violate university rules simply because they can plausibly show that faculty or administrators disapprove of their political views,” Judge William A. Fletcher, a Clinton appointee, wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

But university faculty may be held liable if they seek to “punish and muzzle” a student in retaliation for expressing views they oppose, the court said.

The campus socialists lose one.