FIRE on Facebook in ‘The Boston Phoenix’

FIRE President Greg Lukianoff and Senior Program Officer Will Creeley co-authored the cover story of this week’s edition of The Phoenix in both Boston and Providence, discussing the ever-growing problem stemming from students’ expression on social networking websites like Facebook.com. The article discusses several of FIRE’s Facebook cases, including the recent case at Johns Hopkins University and the ongoing case at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The article points out that even though policing student speech is not a new phenomenon on university campuses, the popularity of Facebook makes it easier for school officials to access exchanges that used to take place in less public settings. As a result, students need to be aware that school officials are likely trawling these sites, and officials need to remember that most “offensive” student speech is often also constitutionally protected, and that FIRE stands ready to fight for students wrongfully censored.