Amicus Brief: Speech First v. Shrum

Speech First, a member organization defending student speech rights, sued Oklahoma State and its officials because three of the school’s policies violate the First Amendment: its harassment policy, bias-incidents policy, and computer-use policy. The university filed a motion to dismiss for lack of standing because Speech First didn’t identify its affected members. Specifically, the university argued that an association lacks Article III standing if its complaint identifies standing members only by pseudonyms. The district court granted the motion to dismiss on those lines in the absence of Tenth Circuit precedent to the contrary—despite legions of other district and circuit courts going the other way.

Although this case originally centered (and hopefully will again eventually) on issues of campus speech, its current focus before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is on the equally important issues for impact litigation through associations. MI has joined the Young America’s Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom on a brief that looks at the importance of anonymity when dealing with politically sensitive issues, and challenging heavy-handed administrative practices, on college campuses.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

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