This Gutsy Woman Is Hammering Universities Over Viewpoint Freedom and Cancel Culture, Now Taking The Fight To K-12 Schools – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

Illinois native Nicole Neily, founder and president of Speech First, is doing what’s long overdue to bring freedom of expression back to higher education: She’s suing. And she’s been winning – against her own alma mater, too, the University of Illinois.

Now she has expanded her efforts to challenge the identity-based dogma being taught in K-12 schools with her new organization, Parents Defending Education, which was inspired in part by an Illinois parents’ group.

Her fervency about the Bill of Rights no doubt stems from her heritage. Her grandparents, both Japanese-American citizens born in California, met in the Manzanar War Relocation Center where they were detained during World War II.

I met Neily while on a panel with her recently. The Deerfield, Illinois native is articulate, bright and deadly serious. I spoke with her afterward about Speech First and Parents Defending Education.

First, some background. It was Neily’s Speech First that obtained a favorable settlement earlier this year against the University of Illinois. It, like the universities of Texas and Michigan after lawsuits by Speech First, agreed to back off on a range of speech-suppressing policies and procedures. As summarized by Inside Higher Ed:

Speech First’s lawsuit argued that the bias team and residence hall protocol led to investigations of students who were freely sharing opinions about contested topics, such as their support for Israel or for the university’s controversial former mascot, Chief Illiniwek…. The settlement affirms that the bias team and administrators who enforce the residence hall protocol “have no authority to impose any form of discipline on any student” and “cannot compel students to speak … about bias-motivated incidents.”

Other schools targeted by Speech First with either lawsuits, petition drives or letters reminding administrators of their obligations, have included Iowa State, Stanford, University of Central Florida, Tulane, DePaul, Syracuse, Georgetown, Wichita State and Emory University.

Glennon: Higher education is obviously a target-rich environment for free speech complaints. Are there any particular criteria you apply when choosing who to go after?

Neily: In my mind, the greatest threat to free speech on campus these days is the chilling of student speech. Most universities now recognize that they can’t just prohibit speech they dislike, because they’ll be sued – so instead, they use vague terminology like “offensive” speech, or “biased” language. Those are highly subjective terms; what’s offensive to me might not be offensive to someone else, for example. Students are put in a position where they need to tailor their language to how the most sensitive student on campus might interpret their remarks. Rather than deal with a disciplinary hearing, students make the calculus that it’s just easier to keep their mouths shut and avoid the hassle altogether. So we look for university policies that have been designed to – and have the effect of – chilling student speech. This most frequently happens in the form of overbroad speech codes and bias response teams, but usually where there’s smoke there’s fire – so when we find these policies, we often find other unconstitutional policies on the books, too.

Glennon: Private universities are not subject to the First Amendment so, instead of litigation, you have pressured them in other ways. Have they been responsive?

Neily: Unfortunately, not as responsive as we’d like. That being said, we’ve discovered that once alumni and donors learn about illiberal policies taking place at schools, they often take the initiative to contact the school directly, which definitely makes a big impact. In one of our more recent petition efforts against Emory University, the school agreed to stand up to a cancel culture mob that wanted to rename a building on campus before we even sent our petition to the school. I had a number of major donors of the school email us to let us know they were going to reach out to the school and express their displeasure. So schools are sensitive.

Glennon: I read that you were once active with the ACLU, but that was back in the day when they would represent all sides, left, right and center, and they have since become illiberal. Do you apply any political litmus test to what speech you will protect?

Neily: We’ll defend anyone’s speech who feels that they’re being intentionally chilled or facing viewpoint discrimination. At the moment that seems to be largely students who want to express conservative or religious viewpoints, but that’s not by design. I disagree with some of the opinions that our student members wish to express, but under no circumstances should these students censor themselves or fear disciplinary repercussions.

Glennon: It seems to me there’s reason for a bit of optimism in the fight against the cancel mob. Aside from your wins, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that public university administrators can be held personally liable for First Amendment violations, and the Sixth Circuit last month ruled in favor of a professor who refused to use preferred pronouns. Do you think things are looking up?

Neily: Yes and no. I do think administrators are starting to get the message that there will be consequences if their institutions maintain illiberal and unconstitutional policies on their books, and are taking steps to change those policies accordingly; the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education evaluates about 500 schools around the country on their speech policies, and the number of schools that have really terrible policies has been dropping, so that’s encouraging. I do worry that the culture on campus – which we can’t litigate – is still very hostile to free expression and viewpoint diversity. When I read school’s bias response team logs, reporters often call for their peers to be punished or expelled. Students dox each other to inflict pain on people with whom they disagree. As a result, many students fear their classmates as much – if not more – than they fear administrators. So there’s more work to be done.

Glennon: Litigation isn’t cheap. I assume you are funded by private donors, is that correct?

Neily: Correct – we’re a 501(c)3, so we receive charitable donations from individuals and foundations.

Glennon: Parents Defending Education is you’re new initiative that launched just this week. Tell me about it.

Neily: K-12 schools across the country are adopting toxic new curriculums to force our kids into divisive identity groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. Many schools have already embraced this campaign, and many more are preparing to embrace it.

Parents are fed up but have no means of resisting and often are intimidated into silence. Parents Defending Education is a national grassroots operation that will help parents overcome those obstacles. It allows parents who fear retribution to report incidents anonymously, to post videos, to seek advice, to organize, and to sue.

Glennon: I understand that New Trier Neighbors, an Illinois group that does that, was sort of a model for you. Is that correct? Why?

Neily: Yes, absolutely! In my mind, NTN is the gold standard of community engagement. It’s a group of individuals that care deeply about their community and have organized to raise concerns with their school district in a constructive manner. They bring in great speakers to learn more about issues, and then translate that knowledge into action. America would look a lot different if there was a group like New Trier Neighbors in the 17,000 school districts around the country.

Glennon: Thank you, and best of luck.

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More information about Speech First, including links to where you can share stories about suppression of speech in higher education, is on its website.  Further information about newly-launched Parents Defending Education is here. In particular, for K-12 parents, see their tips here on how to stand up to the cancel mob.

Parents Defending Education has already been filing lawsuits, which are described here. Don’t be surprised if you find it difficult to get a response from them because I expect they will be overwhelmed. Neily told me that she’s been reading through the submissions in their location for submitting complaints added just this week and she said “it’s breaking my heart.”

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.