Protection of student speech and association rights

Section 112(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1011a(a)) is amended— (1) by redesignating paragraph (2) as paragraph (3); and (2) by inserting after paragraph (1) the following: (2) It is the sense of Congress that— (A) every individual should be free to profess, and to maintain, the opinion of such individual in matters of religion or philosophy, and that professing or maintaining such opinion should in no way diminish, enlarge, or affect the civil liberties or rights of such individual on the campus of an institution of higher education; (B) no public institution of higher education directly or indirectly receiving financial assistance under this Act should limit religious expression, free expression, or any other rights provided under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; (C) free speech zones and restrictive speech codes are inherently at odds with the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; (D) bias reporting systems are susceptible to abuses that may put them at odds with the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and (E) no public institution of higher education directly or indirectly receiving financial assistance under this Act should restrict the speech of such institution’s students through improperly restrictive zones, codes, or bias reporting systems..