With added protections, Texas House backs 'Campus Protection Act' to regulate free speech
Free speech on college campuses is poised to face new constraints after the Texas House gave preliminary approval to Senate Bill 2972, which will limit students' and employees' permitted expression on campus. The proposal reverses 2019 protections that established common outdoor areas of a higher education campus as traditional public forums.
With an 111-27 vote, the House late Tuesday night overwhelmingly approved an amended Senate Bill 2972, dubbed the "Campus Protection Act," which included more free speech protections compared with the Senate's original version.
Donning a circular state of Texas clock to highlight the few final hours the House had to pass bills on second reading, Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who sponsored the bill, stood behind Rep. Chris Turner to support the Democratic member from Grand Prairie in introducing an amendment to "make sure that our campuses must provide a public forum for free speech" and that nothing in the proposal would contradict the U.S. or Texas constitutions. Leach also issued an amendment clarifying that amplified sound is only prohibited "when there's an intent to intimidate others or to interfere with campus operations," university leadership or police. The chamber approved both amendments.
"I'm taking what could have been a three- or four-hour debate and it's going to be less than five minutes," Leach said as the House approached its 12th hour on the floor. "We've been working collaboratively with many of you here in the body, with our Senate counterparts, with the leadership at our university systems across the state, to guarantee the rights of students and faculty to gather peaceably on our college campuses."
Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, authored SB 2972 to tighten free speech rules on college campuses after pro-Palestinian protests erupted in universities across the country, including at several campuses in Texas, last year calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
More than 150 people were arrested at Texas universities in April 2024 across several pro-Palestinian protests, which organizers and demonstrators asserted were peaceful and lawful. University administrators and lawmakers, however, have accused protesters of being disruptive and antisemitic. In Austin, the Travis County attorney's office dropped all criminal trespassing charges for demonstrators who were arrested during the April 24 and April 29 protests at the University of Texas. At least five students who were arrested have sued UT over alleged violations of their First Amendment rights.
"While the world watched Columbia, Harvard and other campuses across the country taken hostage by pro-terrorist mobs last year, Texas stood firm. UT allowed protest, not anarchy," Creighton said in a statement to the American-Statesman on Saturday about the bill. "No First Amendment rights were infringed—and they never will be."
Creighton's bill removes a provision authored six years ago that established universities as traditional public forums for everyone regardless of viewpoint — a conservative priority that he co-authored. State Republicans enthusiastically backed SB 18 in 2019, which they said protected speech at a time when campuses were wary of controversial conservative voices coming to campus.
Rights advocacy groups from across the political spectrum — from the national chapter of Young Americans for Liberty to the ACLU of Texas and the local chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations — opposed the bill's potential limit on free speech.
"The context of the (SB 18) bill is impossible to extricate from the protections, but it yielded a benefit to all Texans," Caro Achar, engagement coordinator at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said in an interview before the House amendments. "What's difficult about SB 2972 is that it feels more and more that the protections that were extended for all Texans' free speech rights and protest rights were a matter of convenience and viewpoint, and not inherently because they are valued rights, because now we're seeing a bill as the political context around who is being invited to campus or who is protesting on campus has potentially shifted."
Creighton denied that SB 2972 contrasts the 2019 law, saying it builds on the measure by protecting free speech that's peaceful while maintaining "safety and order" and empowering each institution to use "the local tools needed to preserve both free expression and the educational mission."
"Both laws protect the First Amendment rights of students, faculty and staff," Creighton said. "SB 2972 ensures that speech stays free, protest stays peaceful, and chaos never takes hold."
Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, who authored SB 18 in 2019, voted for Creighton's SB 2972 despite it revoking the public forum protection her bill established. She did not respond to Statesman requests for comment on her vote, but in a 2019 news release about SB 18, she said "colleges and universities should provide the opportunity for students to hear others' points of view in a free and unrestrained manner."
Turner said on the House floor that his amendment reinstates critical protections into SB 2972, such as a requirement that institutions must have a public forum for speech. Several Democrats, including Rep. Donna Howard of Austin and Rep. Aicha Davis of Dallas, who are both on the Higher Education Subcommittee, voted for the amended version of the bill.
If the House gives the bill final passage, the Senate will have to review the changes before it is sent to the governor.
"This is how we protect student safety, defend our institutions, and safeguard freedom for generations to come," Creighton said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas House backs limits to free speech at universities
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