AUSTIN, Texas—Lawsuits at two Texas universities are reshaping the landscape for free speech on college campuses and raising the question of university bias against pro-life student activities.

At the University of Texas, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization, filed suit on behalf of a student group that alleges students' rights to free expression were violated when an exhibit sponsored by Justice for All, a Wichita, Kan.-based pro-life organization, was first denied and then heavily censored. A similar lawsuit against the University of Houston resulted in a favorable ruling, although some say the university is still abiding by its unconstitutional limits on free speech.

At the center of the controversy is Justice for All's graphic display of images, including a 15-foot photo of an aborted fetus, which is testing the traditionally open climate of free speech on campus.

“We're trying to create opportunities for pro-life students to stand up and speak on behalf of these babies and change people's minds,” said Jim Spencer, general counsel for Justice for All.

But some university administrators think they're going too far.

UT-Austin

Justice for All and the student pro-life group of the same name first tried in December 2000 to reserve an area of the University of Texas-Austin campus often used for student expression. The exhibit was reportedly banned as “inappropriate,” although university officials say that was never the case.

That is “not accurate,” said Patricia Ohlendorf, vice president for institutional relations and legal affairs at the university. “The student group had asked to put it up in an area where we don't normally have exhibits … and we offered an alternative location.”

But refusing access of any student group to any area of a public university is still a violation of free speech, according to Spencer. The lawsuit alleges that this restriction, along with others that require prior approval of all student speech activities, denies students' First Amendment rights.

“The first problem was that the university denied students the use of Tower Hall,” Spencer said. “The second problem is that after they allowed it to be set up in another part of campus, they censored it.”

During the February 2001 exhibit officials required Justice for All to remove contact information for crisis pregnancy centers and help lines, deeming it “improper solicitation” and in violation of the university policy that prohibits any on-campus solicitation. Justice for All alleges that during this same time, other pro-abortion organizations were allowed to distribute literature with solicitation information.

During another Justice for All event, university officials did nothing to quiet a student protest or a professor with a bullhorn who attempted to disrupt the exhibit.

This past September the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of the student group Justice for All against the University of Texas and its president, Larry Faulkner.

“The university has taken its policies—which already restrict peaceful expression—and used them to ban the pro-life message while encouraging opposition views. UT cannot play favorites with the First Amendment,” said Benjamin Bull, lead attorney on the case and chief counsel for Alliance Defense Fund. The lawsuit seeks policy changes and monetary damages.

Following the controversy, the university commissioned a task force to re-evaluate the freedom of expression policy. In October the task force recommended that the university stop using the term “free-speech zone” and instead institute “amplified sound zones.” The task force also said students should no longer be required to obtain written permission to hold public assemblies.

“The committee clarified that the whole campus is really a free-speech zone,” Ohlendorf said.

Houston

The University of Houston relies on a similar concept with several areas designated as “free-expression” zones for “potentially disruptive” expressive activities. No student group is allowed to hold exhibits or displays in any other area, according to university spokesman Mike Cinelli, because of the disruption it could cause to classes and students in the library.

However, that's exactly where Justice for All, invited to campus by the Pro-Life Cougars, held its exhibit in March 2001. Cinelli blamed that on a “clerical error” and said the person responsible for processing the application was not aware that Butler Plaza is a non-expressive zone.

Jeff Slade was a college student at the time and president of College Republicans, which worked with the Pro-Life Cougars. He remembers limited protesting the first year and said it was never disruptive.

“The University of Houston is a public university and is getting public funding,” he pointed out, saying that it should be open to all forms of speech. The law student also remembers university-sanctioned pro-abortion displays in the middle of the student center, which is not designated as a free-expression zone.

The following year, Justice for All was denied access to Butler Plaza but allowed to hold a smaller-scale exhibit in a free-expression zone.

“They weren't in the hinterlands. They were in the middle of campus,” Cinelli said.

Regardless, Alliance Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of the Pro-Life Cougars.

In June a judge ruled the university was in violation of students' rights. U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. said that “the unbridled discretion conferred by the university's policy upon its decision-maker … to impose a prior restraint on student expressive activity in Butler Plaza, violates the First and 14th Amendments.”

The “decision-maker” was the dean of students, who in the past had ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from the plaza.

Despite the ruling, university officials instituted a somewhat-revised freedom-of-expression policy that essentially reiterated the designation of only certain areas as “free-expression” zones. Butler Plaza is not one of them, and students still need prior approval to use the zones. The main difference is that the university issued more specific guidelines on the forms of student expression relegated to the free-expression zones.

“There's no question we believe in free speech,” Cinelli said. “We do have concerns about it interfering with our academic mission.”

The University of Houston filed an appeal that was denied in August, and Justice for All was allowed to bring its exhibit to Butler Plaza in September.

But in the latest chapter of events, Pro-Life Cougars again sued the university in October because it refused to allow a student to wear a sandwich board in Butler Plaza that said “Life is Beautiful, Choose Life.” A request to hand out pro-life fliers, however, was approved.

Elizabeth Graham, associate director of Texas Right to Life, said pro-life students will always face opposition on college campuses but must keep fighting.

“When pro-life students work within the system on their campuses, using diplomacy, respect and logic in pointing out inconsistencies in policies granted to other groups and denied to them,” she said, “the administration will have difficulty denying pro-lifers the same privileges awarded other student-interest groups.”

Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.