Excerpt: West Virginia’s four-year colleges and universities maintain nearly 100 policies that restrict freedom of speech, according to a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, and the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
FIRE reviewed the speech codes—policies that prohibit expression that would be protected by the First Amendment in society at large—at 17 public or private colleges and universities in West Virginia and found 92 policies that restrict freedom of speech. 47% of those West Virginia institutions earned FIRE’s worst, “red light” rating for clearly and substantially restricting free speech, while just 18.5% of schools earn that rating nationally.