Supreme Court turns away college bias response team challenge as Thomas, Alito dissent

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away another opportunity to weigh the constitutionality of college bias response teams.

Over the dissents of conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the court declined to take up a lawsuit against Indiana University officials brought by Speech First, a group formed to advocate for students’ First Amendment rights.

The group has filed numerous challenges against colleges across the country that leverage bias response teams, which solicit anonymous reports of bias and sometimes refer students for discipline.

The Supreme Court last year turned away a similar lawsuit filed by the group against Virginia Tech, which eventually discontinued its team.

“Given the number of schools with bias response teams, this Court eventually will need to resolve the split over a student’s right to challenge such programs,” Thomas wrote Monday.

“The Court’s refusal to intervene now leaves students subject to a ‘patchwork of First Amendment rights,’ with a student’s ability to challenge his university’s bias response policies varying depending on accidents of geography,” Thomas continued, quoting his similar dissent when the court turned away the Virginia Tech case.

Speech First urged the court to use the Indiana case to resolve the legal question, saying it had deepened a circuit split on whether students have a right to sue when college bias teams chill speech in violation of the First Amendment.

“Precisely because speech codes are often struck down, universities have looked for subtler, more sophisticated ways to chill disfavored speech. Enter the bias-response team,” Speech First’s petition stated.

“Instead of outright banning biased speech, these teams deter it by threatening students with adverse consequences. They also burden it by imposing a series of administrative and other costs on students who commit ‘bias incidents,’” it continued.

Describing Speech First as a “frequent flier of lawsuits against higher-education institutions,” attorneys for the Indiana school officials urged the justices to turn away the case.

“The case is thus not a remotely serviceable vehicle for reaching Speech First’s purportedly split-closing question. No such split exists, and this appeal would lead nowhere anyway,” they wrote in court filings.

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