Students Lay Groundwork for Free-Expression Fights on Campuses

University students have been laying the groundwork over summer vacation for a fight for freedom of expression that they hope to take to student governments and administrations across the country.

A group named Students for Free Expression has representatives from 20 schools, including one in Mexico, that have committed to bringing resolutions in defense of free speech before their peers at the start of the fall semester.

Matthew Foldi, the University of Chicago student who founded the initiative, said the students plan to begin with DePaul University in Illinois and Ohio's Oberlin College, which he described as "awful" on freedom of expression. If the resolutions can pass through those student governments, Foldi said it would prove that "anywhere is possible."

"It's a win-win for us. Even if the attempts don't work out, we would show that students are advocating for this," said Foldi. "If students could go and say, ‘We want this and it failed,' it shows that the student government is not listening to its constituents."

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