The University of Washington in Seattle is on the hook for paying more than $120,000 in legal fees after settling a lawsuit with the University of Washington College Republicans (UWCR).
The suit alleged that a university policy unfairly discriminated against the group — and other politically conservative campus groups — by charging exorbitant “event security fees” to curtail violent protests from left-wing political activists, according to a press release by Freedom X, based in Los Angeles. (See one such protest in the video below.)
The nonprofit public interest law firm Freedom X, which aims to protect conservative and religious freedom, defended the UWCR in its lawsuit against the University of Washington.
The suit also grabbed national headlines; an editorial in The Wall Street Journal carried the title “Free Speech Gets Expensive.”
Case specifics include an event last February that featured Patriot Prayer, a conservative Christian group from Vancouver, Washington. Political activist Joey Gibson, the group’s founder, made an appearance.
Ahead of the gathering, Freedom X founder, President and CEO William Becker filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the UWCR, claiming the $17,000 security fee was unconstitutional, violating the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Ana Marie Cauce, the University of Washington’s president, was one of several defendants named in the lawsuit. Her bias, at least at the time, is worth noting.
“I encourage you to avoid Red Square and the surrounding area from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday to ensure your own personal safety,” Cauce wrote in an official University of Washington blog post, dated Feb. 9, 2018 — a day before the event.
To be sure, “security” is quickly becoming a convenient tool for suppressing the free-speech rights of conservatives on college campuses nationwide.
The settlement, according to Becker, ends the practice of charging “enhanced” security fees. More importantly, the new policy prohibits the university from collecting fees “based on the content or viewpoint of a speaker’s speech or based on the community’s reaction or expected reaction to an invited speaker.”
“The University of Washington strongly supports a free and open exchange of opinions and ideas,” Victor Balta, a spokesperson for the university, told LifeZette about the issue.
“We have a responsibility to our campus community to ensure that safety and security are maintained during any event held on campus,” he continued, “and we are pleased that the settlement preserves our ability to develop a long-term solution that balances free speech and campus safety without passing the burden of sometimes significant security costs on to all students.”
Becker, who represents the UWCR, hails the settlement as a victory for free speech.
“This settlement should put universities and other public venues on notice that asymmetrical assaults on conservative expressive activities won’t be tolerated,” Becker told LifeZette in an email. “What happened at UW is symptomatic of the political Left’s belief that disruption and violence is the only answer to the conservative message.”
He added, “We see it being played out with socialist activists chasing the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security out of a restaurant, Hollywood actors calling for the boycott of Fox News and elsewhere.”
“At least in public spaces, the First Amendment is our best weapon to counter such political warfare,” he noted. “But the Left’s war on free speech is never-ending and must be fought vigilantly.”
The University of Washington settled with the university’s College Republicans Monday, agreeing to pay $122,500 to make the lawsuit go away.
— R.C.??News (@RCNspeaks) June 21, 2018
In the press release, Becker also said that he and his clients are grateful that University of Washington law professor Eric Schnapper and 22 other UW law professors sent a letter to the university’s president asking for the case to be settled.
Related: 21 Great Pieces of Advice for Today’s College Graduates
“I don’t know if it helped get the case settled,” he said to LifeZette, “but it didn’t hurt.”
He added, “Public universities cannot discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. Oddly, they seem unfamiliar with this principle. Sometimes it takes a good lawsuit with the right facts and a sensible judge to teach them a lesson.”
Note to Cauce: This is a teaching moment. She might want to blog about it.
She should also realize that silencing others with different points of view is costly. In the end, it’s taxpayers who will foot the bill of more than $122,000 for the UW’s egregious policy against conservatives.
Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Paccar Hall…, CC BY 2.0, by Wonderlane; photo credit, article image: University of Washington, CC BY-SA 3.0, by Martin Kraft)
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