Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski- Appropriate restriction or ban on religious beliefs?

In July of 2016, Chike Uzuegbunam attended Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) in Lawrenceville, Georgia. While attending GGC, Uzuegbunam began the process of disseminating information about his religious beliefs in the form of leaflets in a plaza on GGC’s campus. He was then stopped by one of the defendants, Shenna Perry, who was a Campus Safety and Security Officer for GGC, who informed him that he was not allowed to distribute his religious materials in that specific location. After being stopped and inquiring further about why he could not spread his materials, he was instructed by Catherine Downey, who served as the Head of Access Services and Information commons at GGC, that he was not allowed to distribute any written material outside of GGC’s speech areas. These speech areas required a reservation before use, represented less than 1% of campus, and was only open for 10% of the week.

After receiving this information, Uzuegbunam made three separate reservations for the speech areas in August of 2016. On one of the days that Uzuegbunam had reserved, he was stopped by Corey Hughes, a Lieutenant for the Campus Police, because they had received complaints about Uzuegbunam’s expression of his religious beliefs. Specifically, Uzuegbunam was told that his speech was considered disorderly conduct because it “he continued to speak, he would be subject to prosecution for knowingly breaking GGC was disturbing the peace and tranquility of individuals in the area” and in violation of GGC’s policy. He was informed that if policy. He then stopped speaking publicly, handing out literature, and left the area.

There were two specific policies in place when the event occurred. The first was the Prior Speech Zone Policy which confined public speech to the permitted speech areas on campus. As mentioned before, these areas required reservation and permission from university officials and were only open for a limited time during the week. The second policy was the Prior Speech Code Policy, which prohibited any behavior that could be construed as “disorderly” and disturbed the peace of individuals on campus.

Uzuegbunam filed a complaint against Georgia Gwinnett College arguing that both the Prior Speech Zone Policy and the Prior Speech code policies were both violations of his first amendment right to free speech and first amendment right to exercise his religious beliefs. After receiving the complaint, GGC amended their Prior Speech Zone and Prior Speech Zone policies. These changes included expanding access to speech zones with the creation of two new “public forums”, expand the times that these areas are available, as well as prohibit any GGC officials from denying a reservation request based on the “content or viewpoint of the expression”.

After reviewing the facts of the case, the district court in Georgia sided with the defendants in saying that GGCs policies did not violate Uzuegbunam’s rights to freedom of speech nor his right to freely exercise his religion. He appealed and the 11th circuit court of appeals affirmed the decision of the lower court. This case was granted a writ of certiorari is now pending oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court. More information about this case can be found here.

After reviewing the facts of the case on my own I have developed my own opinion on the case and will pose questions at the end of my analysis that may encourage you to develop your own opinion.
The fact that GGC has taken it upon themselves to implement their own version of time place and manner restrictions, as the Supreme Court has given states the power to do (see Cox v. New Hampshire), is not up for debate. It is reasonable to expect that an academic institution would take steps to ensure that any speech that happens on their campus, regardless of content, does not disrupt the primary purpose of that institution which is to educate their students. Once they amended their policies, GGC showed that they were making an attempt to expand access to public forums so that more people could share their beliefs in a public manner. Looking through this lens, the Prior Speech Zone policy is not a violation of the first amendment right to freedom of speech or free exercise of religion. The freedom to exercise your religion does not also give you the freedom to impose that exercise on others in a public setting.

As it is within the purview of the university to establish time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, it is my position that as long as someone makes a good faith effort to make sure their speech fits within these restrictions, they should be allowed to express that speech. When reserving the speech-area, all applicants are required to also submit any written materials that they plan to distribute or read from. This gives the Campus Police, Access Services, and anyone else to vet the content of the speech to ensure it will not cause harm to the person speaking or anyone listening to the speech, a criterion listed in the Prior Speech Zone policy. Mere discomfort should not be enough to bar someone else from expressing their religious beliefs. If every time someone was uncomfortable or felt disrupted by the content of someone else's speech, there would be very little room for anyone to express their own personal beliefs, whether they have a religious nature or not. The Prior Speech code policy, and more specifically, the way it was enforced in this case is unconstitutional because it places an undue burden on the ability to exercise your religious beliefs. For many religious sects, evangelization is an integral part of being a steward of the faith. I would urge you to think of other displays of religious stewardship, the kippah, the hijab or burka, or the dastar are all displays of religious faith and commitment to the respective religions. If people who wore these items were told that they could only wear them in certain areas, at certain times, and only if it did not "disrupt" anyone else, the ability to express religious beliefs at all would be compromised.