CDT Joins Letter Criticizing Censorship of Political Speech at State University

CDT joined with eleven other leading civil liberties groups in calling on Michigan State University (MSU) to reverse a penalty imposed on a student government leader for engaging in political speech while using the campus e-mail system. Using a rule against sending “spam,” the university penalized the student for writing to a few hundred specific faculty members to protest a proposed change in the MSU academic calendar. The student’s e-mail was a focused and careful political statement about university policy, but MSU nevertheless treated it as abusive. The joint letter calls on MSU to lift the penalty on the student and to withdraw the “spam” rule that prohibits political speech.