University’s Punishment of Christian Student Was So Wrong, Even Atheist Group Is Speaking Out
—Headline of an article in The Western Journal on Chike Uzuegbunam’s case before the Supreme Court —
I did everything they told me to do. I moved where they told me to move. I applied for the permissions they told me to get. And still — even with all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted — they told me I couldn’t peacefully express my faith. And then the court said their mistreatment of me didn’t matter. Their threatening me, silencing me, didn’t matter. And though I felt alone, with ADF, I’m not alone. And there are millions of students like me. And for them, I will not be silent.
—Chike Uzuegbunam, in an Alliance Defending Freedom video about Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski—
Key point: When government institutions such as publicly funded colleges and universities are allowed to violate students’ constitutional rights, they almost certainly will continue the practice. They must be held accountable. A student does not lose his constitutional rights when he or she enrolls in a public college or university.
If you have not yet heard of Chike Uzuegbunam, you need to meet him and hear his story. Chike is a courageous defender of free speech rights. He knows what it is like to be shackled with oppressive restrictions on those rights, rights so basic they are recognized as God-given in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the US Constitution.
In Chike’s case, the government not only failed to protect unalienable rights; it also restricted them. In fact, the restrictions were placed on Chike’s freedom of speech and expression at a public, taxpayer funded university. The school effectively rendered null and void his right express his own views. This is unacceptable. This Freedom Matters video from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) explains what happened.
In this one-minute, fifteen-second ADF video, Chike gives a concise explanation of his experience at Georgia Gwinnette College and how he is responding.
Note carefully everything Chike said.
I did everything they told me to do. I moved where they told me to move. I applied for the permissions they told me to get. And still — even with all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted — they told me I couldn’t peacefully express my faith. And then the court said their mistreatment of me didn’t matter. Their threatening me, silencing me, didn’t matter. And though I felt alone, with ADF, I’m not alone. And there are millions of students like me. And for them, I will not be silent.
What did Chike mean when he said, “And then the court said their mistreatment of me didn’t matter.” The Freedom Matters video at the top of this article alludes to what happened, and Chike himself in a Washington Post editorial, explains in greater detail.
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- First, from the Freedom Matters video, we learn that
Chike, and other Americans like him, are fighting back. With the assistance of Alliance Defending Freedom, Chike sued campus officials for violating his First Amendment rights. Administrators, perhaps realizing that they would lose in court, quickly changed the college’s speech policy to make it less restrictive, but they never did anything to make it right with Chike, especially after they silenced him — twice.
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- Chike explains further in his editorial,
In 2013, I enrolled at Georgia Gwinnett College, a public institution in Lawrenceville, Ga. I also became a Christian — a choice that brought me so much joy and purpose that I wanted to share my faith with as many people as possible.…
[I began doing just that on campus; then the college began placing restrictions on me, limiting me to the so-called “speech zones” they’d set aside. Then, even after I complied with their guidelines,] campus police stopped me again. They said someone had complained (I never learned the nature of the complaint), and — speech zone or not — I’d have to stop or face some unspecified punishment. All I was doing was speaking with students about something that mattered to me, the sort of thing I saw others doing in and out of the speech zones every day. Nonetheless, I stopped.
Yet the officials’ directive didn’t seem right to me. I spoke with attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, who helped me challenge the college’s restrictive policies in court, pointing out how blatantly those policies violated First Amendment protections of free speech. On a public campus, the U.S. Constitution protects the right of students to peacefully express themselves, including my freedom to speak about my faith.
On a public campus, the U.S. Constitution protects the right of students to peacefully express themselves, including my freedom to speak about my faith.
—Chike Uzuegbunam—
The college’s first response, in 2017, was to say my speech was in a category that wasn’t protected — that the Constitution somehow didn’t apply to me. Two months later, administrators revised their speech policies, then asked the district court to dismiss the lawsuit because the college shouldn’t be held accountable for subjecting me (and other students) to policies that no longer existed.
After more than a year, the district court dismissed my case, since by then I had graduated and the college had changed its policies. In July 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed with that ruling. It was as though what had happened to me didn’t matter.
What the Courts Rulings in Chike’s Case Mean
What?!? The courts required no compensation at all for Chike from the college that violated his First Amendment rights? Think about the implications of this. The decision of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm the lower court gives countless other public colleges in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida carte blanche to restrict students’ right to free speech — and these schools will have no motivation whatsoever to relent unless they are taken to court. Furthermore, even then the only thing the schools would be required to do would be to loosen the restrictions for other students coming after the the one (or after those) whose rights they initially had violated. And think about this: the “loosened restrictions” would affirm what the Constitution guarantees to every student, and every citizen, in the first place.
Here’s how Cliff Maloney put it in an opinion piece last fall in the Washington Times:
[U]nder the 11th Circuit’s reasoning, there is nothing to stop Georgia Gwinnett College from going back to treating students the same way it treated Chike. In practice, this ruling allows colleges to turn unconstitutional censorship policies on and off to dodge liability in court.
Under the 11th Circuit’s reasoning, there is nothing to stop Georgia Gwinnett College from going back to treating students the same way it treated Chike. In practice, this ruling allows colleges to turn unconstitutional censorship policies on and off to dodge liability in court.
—Cliff Maloney—
Chike’s case has now made it to the Supreme Court. The name of the case is Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski: “The defendant…is former GGC president Stanley C. ‘Stas’ Preczewski, and other school officials. (Preczewski retired from this position in 2019. There are no indications this lawsuit played a role in his decision.)”
Oral Arguments Presented
On Tuesday, January 12, the court heard oral arguments in this important case. Michael Gryboski of the Christian Post reported,
Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the plaintiffs, argued before the high court that the students [Chike and co-plaintiff Joseph Bradford] “lost forever the chance to get those days back and speak their message to their peers.”
“No policy change can ever restore that lost opportunity,” said Waggoner, “the appropriate remedy to redress those past times is nominal damages.”
According to an article published by ADF about Chike’s case, “Nominal damages are a small money award that legally recognizes someone’s rights were violated.” Gryboski continues,
“For centuries, English and American courts have awarded nominal damages when no future threat exists, even after a plaintiff waives compensatory damages.”
In response, Justice Clarence Thomas asked if the plaintiffs were “only asking for a dollar or nominal damages” if that seems “to undermine the real and substantial requirement?”
“I don’t think so,” responded Waggoner. “This court has held that vindicating constitutional rights is of the highest importance and that it is an injury in and of itself to have the government engage in misconduct and not redress that injury, no matter how insignificant the damage award might be.”
Freedom of speech is a bedrock right for every citizen in a free society. As Benjamin Franklin observed, “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”
Learn more about this important case. The ADF article we cited above that explains what nominal damages are provides quotes from the points ADF attorney Kristen Waggoner made in her oral arguments before the court. Another ADF article carries a video of Waggoner responding to questions about the oral arguments soon after she offered them.
In the audio track below (taken from the video embedded at this address), Waggoner gives a “birds-eye view” of the case and summarizes why it is so important.
Note that Waggoner said that “thankfully, we not only have common law history, over 200 years of history with the courts, and even early English courts are on our side, but also have [siding with us] the majority of circuits in the United States.” Here are the details:
It is the position of six circuits that when a government changes a policy, doing so doesn’t moot the damages claims. Two circuits hold that such claims are mooted if the government modifies a policy it has never enforced against the plaintiff.
However, the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit alone holds that, in the words of the petition, “absent compensatory damages, government officials are never liable for violating constitutional rights if they change their policy after being sued.”
Pray for the outcome of this case, that Georgia Gwinnett College will be held accountable for restricting Chike’s free speech rights. Consider supporting Alliance Defending Freedom, financially as well as in other ways. ADF is working hard to preserve religious liberty and other bedrock American ideals that are under assault today. Finally, give thanks to God for Chike and his courageous stand, Ask the Lord to compel others to join him. The need is great.
As ADF’s Freedom Matters video on Chike’s case emphasizes,
How many other publicly funded schools in America still routinely violate their students’ free-speech rights? How many college students are still silenced when they try to share their beliefs? And how many are still deprived of the right and the opportunity to hear ideas that could change their lives? The answer is far more than you can imagine.
Visit Chike Uzuegbunam’s website: https://magnifyingchrist.net.
Pronunciation guide: Chike Uzuegbunam (CHEE’-kay Oo-zah-BUN’-um), Preczewski (Preh-SHEV’-skee), Langhofer (LANG’-hoff-ur)
Copyright © 2021 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
top image credit: image comes from this ADF video
Here is an additional, longer ADF video explaining Chike’s case.
My daughter graduated from there. We will be praying for ADF and this opportunity.
Thank you, Kipper! It is apparent that God already is using this situation for good in many ways, one of which is informing Americans about the pervasive threat to religious liberty and free speech in our country. Thanks for your prayers for this important case.