A necessarily oversimplified excerpt from the >12K-word Stand with Us Center for Legal Justice v. MIT, decided by First Circuit Judge William Kayatta, joined by Judge Gustavo Gelpi and District Judge William Smith (D.R.I.):
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act mandates that "[n]o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving [f]ederal financial assistance." To hold MIT liable for violating this mandate, plaintiffs pursue a hostile environment, or "harassment," theory ….
Because plaintiffs base their claim so heavily on what the protestors said and wrote, we consider first whether plaintiffs' proposed application of a harassment claim under Title VI comports with First Amendment principles….
{[W]e do not construe Title VI as requiring a university to quash protected speech.} In light of [the] overriding interest in open debate, speech made in public that is related to matters of public concern has been given "special protection under the First Amendment" and thus "cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt." Snyder v. Phelps (2011) (internal quotations omitted) (protecting speech of Westboro Baptist Church protestors chanting "God Hates You," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," and "Priests Rape Boys" at a funeral for a deceased soldier); Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist. (9th Cir. 2010) (finding a community college was not required to restrict a professor's emails related to immigration, race, and the "preservation of [a] White majority" because "[t]he Constitution embraces … a heated exchange of views, even (perhaps especially) when they concern sensitive topics like race").
Similarly, the Supreme Court has long upheld "[t]he essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities," warning that "[t]o impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation." … Here, the student protestors engaged in speech on a matter of public concern—the conflict in Gaza—while on the campus of a private university in which they were enrolled. MIT chose to restrict that speech in part and allow it to continue in part. Now, plaintiffs seek to hold MIT liable, under a federal statute, for its failure to curtail that speech even further.
