DeKALB — NIU received a red light rating for Non-Discrimination/Harassment Policy and Complaint Procedures for employees and students from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

NIU has received an overall red light rating for free speech policies from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, according to each year’s annual report since 2007.

Laura Beltz, a FIRE senior program officer for policy reform, said FIRE rates schools’ freedom of expression policies with a green, yellow or red light. She said FIRE evaluates policies that regulate expression and reviews them to the extent they restrict free speech. All it takes is for one university policy to deviate from Supreme Court standards for a school to receive a red light rating.

Beltz said NIU received FIRE’s red light rating for the Non-Discrimination/Harassment Policy and Complaint Procedures for employees and students because the university does not abide by the Supreme Court’s definition of harassment.

NIU’s Non-Discrimination/Harassment Policy prohibits individuals from making employment or academic decisions “unrelated to performance, qualifications, academic achievement and/or conduct,” or based on a person’s age, race and political affiliation, among other things, according to the policy.

“NIU is legally and morally required to protect their students from unlawful harassment,” Beltz said. “But this policy does not quite conform with the Supreme Court’s standard for peer harassment in the educational setting and could be applied to restrict protected speech, so it earns a red light rating.”

Beltz said red-light rated policies that clearly restrict constitutionally-protected expression are determined by the Supreme Court and its interpretation of the First Amendment through court cases. She said yellow light ratings are given to policies consisting of vague terms that do not apply to the entire campus, while green light rating means all of the institution’s free speech policies fall within the Supreme Court’s standard.

Beltz said one green light rating given to NIU is on a sexual misconduct harassment policy that does abide by the Supreme Court standards. She said if NIU used the sexual misconduct harassment policy definition collectively, all harassment policies would receive a green light rating.

Beltz said NIU’s policies that regulate expression have received one red light rating , four yellow light ratings and three green light ratings in the 2018 report. She said NIU’s four yellow light ratings include two residence hall policies, the FAQ on hate speech and the harassment policy in the Student Code of Conduct.

Out of 461 schools surveyed in the 2018 Spotlight Report, about 32 percent received red light ratings, according to FIRE’s webpage.

Beltz said most institutions receive a yellow light rating from FIRE. She said FIRE sees institutions restricting free speech zone policies and harassment policies often.

Mike Hiestand, senior legal consultant at Student Press Law Center, said for public schools like NIU it is made clear in courts that vague or broad language is not permissible. He said words considered inappropriate and offensive don’t have any particular legal meaning.

“It is not fair to either side really, to the students that are being charged with offensive speech or school officials who are charged with enforcing the rules,” Hiestand said.

He said verbally discussing the policies is not as comprehensive as having the specificity of vague terms defined.

“If [NIU] is going to have a policy in the books that people are supposed to abide by, it’s only fair that everyone understands what it means,” Hiestand said.

Chief Diversity Officer Vernese Edghill-Walden said her office worked with the Office of Student Affairs, General Counsel and the campus police to look for ways to ensure freedom of speech and expression when she first arrived at NIU in 2015. She said it was important for the university to have policies that reflect the value of free speech.

Beltz said NIU’s free speech zone policy, which informs students where they can conduct protests, demonstrations or events on campus, was revised two years ago. She said NIU students can now hold expressive activities anywhere that’s publicly available on campus.

“I know since I have been here, students have been able to utilize policy to demonstrate on campus in the areas that they typically could not have done so in the past,” Edghill-Walden said. “Now students have more than just two locations.”