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OPINION: Southeastern Legal Foundation President Kim Hermann pledges to represent students whose First Amendment rights are violated on campuses: ‘You have a voice. We are here to ensure you can use it.’
The widow of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, just days after his death, powerfully proclaimed: “You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world. You have no idea.”
Every college student or parent of a college student — current or future — must take note of Charlie Kirk’s murder. It happened on a college campus; a place where freedom of speech is supposed to be most valued and revered; a place where contradicting ideas and the ability to debate and think critically used to be sacred.
To all current college students and their parents, this message is for you: Let you be the ones who have been “unleashed,” as Erika Kirk declared. Let you be the ones who learn and fight for your constitutional right to speak freely on campuses and in your classrooms.
As President of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, we are proud to offer students our free guide to civil discourse on college campuses.
You don’t lose the freedom to speak and debate when you cross the threshold of a college campus or a classroom. Now, more than ever, we need students to know they are allowed to challenge their professors and peers.
They may not suppress your voice, or your organization’s ability to gather, just because they do not agree with your political views. Sometimes this comes in the forms of burdensome “free speech zones” or “security fees” — but it is still wrong if unequally applied to a targeted group that school dislikes or does not agree with.
You are allowed to push back on teachers or administrators who cheer Charlie Kirk’s death, for example. You are allowed to debate those who think biological men should enter girl’s locker rooms or males should compete against females in college sports.
Your First Amendment rights protect you, and when they are violated, we want to know.
Contact us at [email protected] or @SLF_Liberty on X.com, and we can represent you in litigation against any university, college, or high school that tramples your First Amendment right to free speech. You have a voice. We are here to ensure you can use it.
Our organization has fought and won these types of cases against colleges before, and we will do it again. At Westfield State University in Massachusetts, we fought and got the TPUSA chapter recognized after the student government rejected the students’ application because of TPUSA’s conservative values and the alleged “stress” the SGA claimed its presence could cause.
At the University of New Mexico, we fought and won a case where the university sought to charge an absurdly steep “security fee” to host an event with Riley Gaines.
At the University of North Georgia, we fought for students to be able to us the pronouns of “he” or “she” without facing claims of alleged “sexual harassment.”
Parents of college and high school students, we need you to be educated on constitutional protections, too. We have resources online.
Because of the deep indoctrination of gender ideology under the federal policies of Title IX for several years, there are still many biases in K-12 school and university policies, and we cannot root them out and shut them down unless we know about them.
So, please speak up and when your rights do not prevail, please contact us.
Students are allowed to speak their minds and to disagree, as long as that speech does not incite violence. In fact, these principles are not only enshrined in our U.S. Constitution, they are uniquely American and if we do not stand up to protect them now, they may disappear from the world entirely.
Our collective call in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination is to be warriors for truth, goodness, freedom, and peace.
At the Southeastern Legal Foundation, we will continue to do our part to ensure that the freedom of speech is cherished and protected, both in the courtroom and on college campuses.
We are proud to have trained thousands of TPUSA students over the years on their First Amendment rights to ensure that they have the tools to be free thinking and outspoken Americans.
Charlie’s legacy is one of peaceful debate and a friendly exchange of ideas. May every young person in America be unleashed to make that the mark of their generation. That will be the best way to honor Charlie Kirk for laying down his life for God and country.
Kim Hermann is president of Southeastern Legal Foundation.
MORE: ‘I really feel for Kirk’s loved ones’: Professor apologizes for assassination comments
