## Facts

- A student organization and its members sought to gather petition signatures on a public university campus to support a proposed state constitutional amendment.
- The university maintained a policy restricting all “demonstrations, picketing, and rallies” to a single designated “Free Speech Area.”
- The Free Speech Area comprised less than 0.1% of the campus grounds.
- The policy required advance notice and administrative approval for planned expressive activity, with notice periods ranging roughly from five to fifteen working days depending on event characteristics.
- University officials informed the students that petitioning could occur only within the Free Speech Area and subject to the notice/permit process.
- The students alleged the policy prevented timely political petitioning and chilled protected speech.
- The students sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and moved for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the location and notice/permit requirements as applied to student speech.

## Issues

1. Whether requiring student speakers to obtain advance approval and confining specified expressive activity to a small “Free Speech Area” constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint under the First Amendment.
2. Whether the restrictions were reasonable time, place, and manner regulations in a limited public forum, including whether they were narrowly tailored to significant governmental interests and left open ample alternative channels.
3. Whether the requirements for preliminary injunctive relief were met (likelihood of success, irreparable harm, balance of equities, and public interest).

## Decision

- The court granted the motion for a preliminary injunction in part.
- The court enjoined enforcement against students of the challenged notice/permit and location restrictions associated with the Free Speech Area policy.
- The court concluded the scheme operated as a prior restraint on core political speech and was not sufficiently tailored to the university’s asserted interests in order and safety.
- The court found plaintiffs showed a likelihood of success on the merits and that the loss of First Amendment freedoms constitutes irreparable harm.
- The balance of harms and the public interest favored protecting student speech on a public university campus.

## Legal Principles

- Permit and advance-notice schemes burdening ordinary, non-disruptive expression can constitute an impermissible prior restraint.
- Public university students retain full First Amendment protections on campus; the need for order does not justify materially diminished constitutional scrutiny.
- In a limited public forum, restrictions must be content neutral, reasonable, narrowly tailored to significant interests, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.
- Confining expressive activity to an extremely small portion of campus, combined with significant advance-notice requirements, may fail narrow tailoring and alternative-channels requirements, particularly for time-sensitive political petitioning.
- Ongoing or threatened enforcement of unconstitutional speech restrictions constitutes irreparable injury for preliminary-injunction purposes.

## Conclusion

The court preliminarily barred a public university from enforcing a policy that limited student advocacy to a minuscule speech zone and required advance permission, holding the restrictions likely violated the First Amendment because they functioned as a prior restraint and were not narrowly tailored while leaving inadequate avenues for student political expression.


Univ. of Cincinnati Chapter of Young Ams. for Liberty v. Williams, No. 1:12-cv-155, 2012 WL 2160969 (S.D. Ohio June 12, 2012)