The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3 - 86

Tess Barker * Amanda L. McLittle

Diverse viewpoints are critical to the residential experience and we want individuals
to be able to express themselves, engage, and
challenge each other. the consequence of that
type of environment is that people will have
views that collide with each other. Knowing
how to support this type of environment and
what type of policies to have in place to guide
staff are critical to the work of a housing professional. freedom of speech implications on
policies and guiding our work with residents
often is about understanding the gray areas
and the multiple considerations while also
understanding the clear lines. for example,
we know from Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) that
the first amendment protects the use of nonverbal symbols as a form of expression, but it
"does not protect the use of nonverbal symbols

A housing community must
balance the importance of the
right of freedom of expression
in the housing community with
an acknowledgement that with
free speech comes responsibility.
University housing is a special
context, because students are
not just fellow members of
an academic community but
neighbors as well.

86

to directly threaten an individual, such as by
hanging a noose over their dorm room . . . or to
desecrate private property" (aClu, 2017, p.3).
this includes symbols written or placed upon
the wall of a residence hall.
When walls or halls have become a designated space for expression, residents usually
go through an approval process with housing
administration before using the space, making
it a limited public forum. for example, if a
mural was going to be placed on a residential hall or floor the residents and staff would
receive administrative approval before the
mural goes up, ensuring that it complies with
housing policy and approved topics. therefore,
in this article, we have interpreted walls and
halls generally as nonpublic forum.

General Bulletin Boards
Bulletin boards within housing come in various
forms: publicly accessible boards in entry ways;
boards targeting a specific floor or section of
a hall, perhaps primarily used by an ra; and
boards affixed to resident doors, such as whiteboards. public posting bulletin boards are considered traditional public fora because they
are open spaces for free expression, regardless
of affiliation with the university. this means
anyone can post on the board and there are no
limits as to what may be posted on it (other than
non-protected speech discussed above). these
types of bulletin boards fall within freedom of
expression protection and housing staff should
not regulate based on their content, although
content-neutral restrictions are permissible.
examples of content-neutral restrictions the
university could use include the removal of
out-of-date flyers or removing all flyers when it
becomes impossible to add new ones.

T h e J o u r n a l o f C o l l e g e a n d U n i v e r s i t y St u d e n t H o u s i n g
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3
