Iowa Regents Must Follow and Uphold Their Own Free Speech Rules
When the Iowa Board of Regents announced on September 17 that Iowa’s public universities should investigate and discipline employees over social media posts reacting to Charlie Kirk’s death, the response came fast, sweeping, and unmistakably moralizing.
The press release condemned the posts as “unacceptable” and authorized university presidents to take “immediate action, up to termination.”
But there was something missing from that statement: the Regents’ own policy.
Policy 4.2, the Board’s Freedom of Expression rule, is clear, deliberate, and rooted in constitutional law. It says:
- Universities must allow speech even when it is unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.
- Universities may not punish speech based on viewpoint.
- Employees speaking on personal accounts retain First Amendment protections.
In short: Speech that shocks or offends is still protected speech.
That is exactly why the First Amendment exists.
Yet the Board’s statement did not cite which specific policy rule the posts allegedly violated.
It did not distinguish between celebrating violence (which is not protected) and criticizing public figures (which absolutely is).
Nor did it refer to the legally required test for public employee speech – the Pickering balancing standard – which asks whether the speech disrupted workplace operations, not whether it generated complaints online.
Instead, the response was immediate, punitive, and framed as a moral judgment, not a legal one.
The hastily-written and incorrect September 17 Board of Regents statement caused the staff of Iowa’s three universities to begin searching through employees’ personal social media accounts, resulting in the unjust firing of an Iowa State University employee.
This is how institutions unintentionally move from governance to reaction.
Why This Matters – Even if You Disliked the Comments
You don’t have to defend what anyone said to defend the rules that protect all speech. If a university punishes speech simply because it is unpopular, offensive, or harsh, then:
- Political speech becomes risky.
- Faculty and staff begin self-censoring.
- The classroom becomes narrower.
- Students learn to be silent rather than thoughtful.
A campus where speech is safe only when it is comfortable is no longer a university.
This is not about Charlie Kirk. It is about why universities exist.
The Regents Need to Correct Course
This is not a call for leniency. It is a call for procedural integrity. The Board of Regents must:
Reaffirm Policy 4.2 publicly, including the part that says universities are not responsible for shielding people from offensive viewpoints.
Require investigations to evaluate actual policy violations, not emotional reactions.
Clarify that personal social media speech is protected unless it constitutes true threats or workplace harassment.
Ensure that standards apply consistently across all speech – left, right, and everything in between.
Because if enforcement becomes viewpoint-dependent, free speech becomes politics by another name.
The Principle Is Simple
You cannot defend free speech only when you agree with it. You either defend the principle, or you don’t.
If Iowa’s public universities are to remain real institutions of inquiry – instead of extensions of whichever faction shouts the loudest – then the Regents must uphold their own policy, even when doing so is uncomfortable.
Especially then.
