Georgia Senate Bill 339 was signed into law on May 8th, 2018, and was designed with the intent of promoting discourse and ensuring that the right to free speech is not deliberately infringed upon by people on college campuses in Georgia. This particular bill does so by requiring any college, or organization within a college, that invites a speaker to its campus to draft and implement a security policy that ensures that any speaker on campus is not heckled, helping to ensure that the speaker is heard by those assembled to hear him/her speak. It also protects the student’s right to free speech by eliminating a college’s ability to set free speech zones. This elimination essentially prohibits the university’s power to set conditions for the students, thus providing the students more freedom to express their protests and general speech. While the intent behind the creation of the law may be in relation to speakers, it was also designed with the intention of protecting the student’s rights to freedom of speech and press, as it eliminates a college’s ability to confine one’s speech to any particular area. This creates an interesting dilemma, as the bill brings into question what types of speech should be suppressed.
In the most literal reading of the U.S. Constitution, there is no circumstance in which anyone’s freedom of speech may be abridged. However, in 1919, the law’s interpretation was revised in Schenck v. United States, where it was ruled that in the event that speech creates a “clear and present danger,” it would be deemed illegal. Furthermore, while the premise might have been more dubious than the yelling “fire” in a crowded theater scenario as it is most notably remembered for today, Schenck set a precedent for many cases dealing with the issue of free speech. One case in particular that additionally limited the scope of free speech was Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), in which the Supreme Court ruled that speech would not be illegal unless it was intentioned toward “inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action.” This was done in reaction to a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally where the prosecuting party claimed that members were encouraging others to engage in imminent and apparent violence. However, the Court ultimately ruled in favor of the KKK rally organizer and orator, as his words did not incite any actual crime. To this effect, the law permits people to be advocates for violence so long as the people listening do not actually commit the violence within a discernible period. Another justification behind the decision was that it helps the marketplace of ideas so long as it does not call for a specific illegal action, as calling for illegal action is not protected. When put within the framework of an organization like the KKK, the law was seemingly enacted to protect radical movements and groups, so long as such movements and entities did not incite actual violence. However, in contrast to the prior example, Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for breaking the law in a movement that strove for the attainment of desegregation. To this effect, both malicious and well-intentioned movements, regardless of how radical they may seem at the time, are equally protected under the law so as to ensure that the marketplace of ideas does not stagnate. However, creating a law that ensures freedom of speech by restricting freedom of speech is unlawful. Moreover, if the speech is determined to be intended to suppress another’s speech, it then directly contradicts the intention of the 1969 decision to have an uninhibited free market of ideas.
Furthermore, it is important to note that heckling is protected by the First Amendment, in line with the guarantee of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. Consequently, as long as heckling follows an institution’s restrictions on time, place, and manner, neither the government nor any other entity may infringe on a group’s right to heckle. Section 1, Part 1D 20-3-48 (a)(5) of Georgia Senate Bill 339 gives such assurances that the time, place, and manner must fall within the university’s own guidelines, so as not to impose a government ruling on what the time, place, and manner, must look like on campus (aside from being indiscriminate to all speakers and students on campus).
Another issue created by Georgia Senate Bill 339 concerns the culpability of the university for the heckling as opposed to the culpability of the individual heckler. While an individual remains responsible for his/her actions, the school becomes simultaneously responsible for its failure to maintain order. The state of Georgia views any situation where order is not maintained within the college as a scenario in which the university is negligent, and therefore, where a peaceful assembly and a speaker’s right to free speech are not upheld. This shifts the provision of disciplinary action towards the students to the universities themselves instead of to the state, which means such action will vary from college to college, despite such action responding to essentially the same grievances under state law.
On a smaller scale, what the bill does, in essence, is eliminate free speech zones, which is viewed as a good solution by some and a destructive measure by others. A free speech zone on a college campus can simply be defined as an area created by an institution where speech is prohibited from being infringed upon in any way. Typically, these areas are created by a university when enough pressure is put on the institution to give students a space where they are free to express themselves to the fullest extent possible. However, some argue that free speech zones could be seen as a small box stowed away on a corner of campus that prevents students from being disruptive with their opinions and quashes such students’ ambitions of being heard. The bill eliminates such zones, but requires a student’s free speech to be done in such a manner that it does not disrupt the free speech of others, which is the same standard that invited speakers are held to.
The reality of the law’s legality is that it greatly depends upon which standard of the law that the court is expected to uphold and the lens by which it is presented. From the perspective of someone concerned with restrictions on an individual’s right to free speech, it is unconstitutional, as the speech is not typically intended towards criminal action. On the other hand, from the perspective of defending the right to assembly, the bill is constitutional, as it enables people to gather peacefully wherever they may please so long as they do not lend themselves or others to immediate violence. While the law can be framed in many ways, the language of the law is consistent with its intention, as it was created to defend people’s rights to free speech and assembly rather than allow an individual to abuse his/her own free speech to limit the free speech of others.