{"id":65400,"date":"2019-12-09T16:11:26","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T16:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/does-fort-lewis-colleges-sexual-harassment-policy-restrict-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T14:01:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:01:37","slug":"does-fort-lewis-colleges-sexual-harassment-policy-restrict-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/does-fort-lewis-colleges-sexual-harassment-policy-restrict-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Fort Lewis College\u2019s sexual harassment policy restrict free speech?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College\u2019s sexual harassment policy was called into question this week by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for restricting free speech. The college says its policy encourages students to come forward early.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A study of more than 400 colleges released this week called into question Fort Lewis College\u2019s sexual harassment policy, saying it restricts students\u2019 right to free speech.<\/p>\n

FLC\u2019s sexual harassment policy states: \u201cSexual harassment is defined as unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education<\/a>, also known as FIRE, a nonprofit focused on protecting free speech rights, focused on FLC\u2019s policy for its broad use of language that could be used to unfairly limit expression. But FLC said the policy, revised this year, is designed to encourage students experiencing sexual harassment to come forward early before a situation becomes extreme.<\/p>\n

FLC was one of two institutions in Colorado that received a \u201cred light\u201d from FIRE \u2013 a rating given to an institution that \u201cclearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.\u201d The other ratings are a \u201cgreen light\u201d for policies that don\u2019t imperil freedom of speech and a \u201cyellow light\u201d for policies that restrict a limited amount of speech or could be used to restrict speech because they are vague.<\/p>\n

The foundation has been rating schools since 2006 and has seen the number of \u201cred light\u201d policies decline each year, said Laura Beltz, an attorney with FIRE.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the most clearly unconstitutional on their face,\u201d she said of schools with a red light rating.<\/p>\n

Adams State University in Alamosa was the other Colorado college to receive the rating.<\/p>\n

FLC\u2019s policy is problematic because it is broader than the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s legal standard for harassment and could be used to investigate or punish speech that is protected by the First Amendment, Beltz said. It is so broad it could be applied to a single off-color joke, she said.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court defined peer harassment in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education<\/a> in a far more limited way as behavior that is \u201cso severe, pervasive and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims\u2019 educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution\u2019s resources and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students can face harsh punishment for overly broad harassment policies, Beltz said.<\/p>\n

In one case, a student attending the University of Oregon in 2014 shouted, \u201cI hit it first\u201d \u2013 a reference to having sex with someone \u2013 to a couple outside her dormitory. She was charged with five conduct violations that were later dropped when FIRE became involved, according to the foundation.<\/p>\n

FIRE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group with ties to right-leaning organizations, according to SourceWatch<\/a>, published by the Center for Media and Democracy.<\/p>\n

FLC Title IX Coordinator Molly Wieser said the school\u2019s response to sexual harassment situations is educational and leaves room for free speech and respectful communication.<\/p>\n

Without a comprehensive sexual harassment policy, students would be unlikely to report incidents that cross personal boundaries, and opportunities to do informal education would be missed, Wieser said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents would likely wait until situations were extreme and quite damaging to seek help,\u201d she said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

Often, students reporting potential sexual harassment want guidance about how to handle the situation on their own, she said.<\/p>\n

Students can also ask the college to act as a mediator to set boundaries if they feel harassed. In those cases, students generally agree about what happened, but they disagree about what the speaker intended, Wieser said.<\/p>\n

Students accused of sexual harassment have the opportunity to explain their intentions and hear from a third party about how certain statements may have been perceived.<\/p>\n

Students are encouraged to think about communicating in a way that achieves a positive objective. They are also educated on what \u201cno\u201d looks like and how to interpret indirect statements or actions as disinterest.<\/p>\n

The education is intended to prepare students for the future, Wieser said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who know how to identify and articulate their own boundaries, and people who can recognize and respect the personal boundaries of others, will be happier and I think, healthier,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The spelling of Molly Wieser\u2019s name has been corrected. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018red light\u2019 rating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1175,132,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91378,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65400\/revisions\/91378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65400"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}