Alumni groups ask Supreme Court to take up case challenging bias response teams


By Jennifer Kabanny

The College Fix

September 25, 2023


Free speech alumni groups have asked the Supreme Court to take up a case that seeks to render campus bias response teams unconstitutional.

Several members of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance recently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on behalf of Speech First, which sued Virginia Tech over its bias response team but lost the case at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in May.


Attorneys for the Alumni Free Speech Alliance argued the case is too important to let the Fourth’s ruling stand — especially given that other circuits have ruled against bias response teams, creating the need to resolve the splits and “set one common standard for First Amendment rights across the country.”


“The situation at Virginia Tech is not unique. Over the past decade, under a variety of names, bias response systems have exploded onto campuses across the country,” the petition states. “This is neither a passing fad nor an example of a single, outlier university. Thus, whether bias response systems chill constitutionally protected speech is of significant national importance and justifies a claim on the Court’s time.”


The petition cites reporting done by The College Fix in the spring regarding Maxient, a company that manages more than 1,300 higher education institutions’ student behavior records, including bias reports.


“When it comes to bias response systems, it does not matter that the people administering such systems cannot directly sanction students; the process is the punishment,” the petition states. “This is particularly true where, as in many cases, bias response systems create secret or semi-secret records that students reasonably fear could impact their ability to obtain letters of recommendation, get jobs or promotions at their university, or get them labeled as troublemakers.”


“…Students may reasonably fear that bias response reports may have an adverse impact on all manner of future university activities, from obtaining letters of recommendation or jobs to increasing the risk and severity of collateral disciplinary proceedings.”


In the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, the majority argued that because Virginia Tech’s bias response system does not directly punish students, who are only asked to participate in the re-education process, they are not unconstitutional.


But the petition frequently cites the dissent in the Fourth Circuit’s 2-1 ruling by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who pointed out that when “the stated goal of the bias response team is to ‘eliminate’ bias, we are faced not with a gentle effort to convince students to be unbiased but with a systemic effort to coercively drive out views that strike administrators the wrong way.”


The petition argues the case “presents important and urgent questions that should be addressed now. Bias response systems serve as de facto speech codes that permit administrators to chill free speech based on their own biases and subjective interpretations of what constitutes ‘bias.'”


The members of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance that have petitioned the Supreme Court are: the University of California Free Speech Alliance, the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse, the Generals Redoubt, Harvard Alumni for Free Speech, the Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia, the MIT Free Speech Alliance, Princetonians for Free Speech, and the UNC Alumni Free Speech Alliance.


Alumni groups ask Supreme Court to take up case challenging bias response teams | The College Fix



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The Daily Signal By Hannah Fay October 07, 2025 "On Sept. 5, we filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Education and the Department of Justice against our alma mater, Davidson College. We did not make this decision out of anger towards Davidson but from our hope that Davidson can become an institution of free expression that encourages students to pursue truth. We had chosen Davidson as student athletes and recall being high school seniors, eager to attend a college where we could simultaneously pursue a high level of athletics and academics and be challenged to become better competitors, students and, most importantly, people. We believed that Davidson would be the perfect place for our personal growth, where we would be encouraged to encounter new ideas while contributing our own. Little did we know that Davidson does not welcome students with our convictions . During our senior year, we decided to restart the Davidson chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a national conservative student organization, which had been disbanded. With this decision, we knew that we would receive backlash from peers. Before the school semester even started, we received hateful online comments such as “Who let y’all out of the basement?” We saw how other universities treated conservatives and had even experienced hostility firsthand at Davidson, being called “homophobic” or “uninclusive” for our involvement in Fellowship of Christian Athletes, whose statement of faith declares that marriage is between a man and a woman. We realized that, although we were friends with progressive individuals for the past few years, fully aware and accepting of their political beliefs, they would likely distance themselves from us once they learned of ours. While we were prepared for this reaction from our peers, we did not expect to receive such opposition from Davidson administrators. We naively believed that despite the college’s leftist indoctrination efforts (requiring cultural diversity courses, mandating student athletics to watch a documentary arguing that all white people were inherently racist, having a DEI office, designating secluded spaces for LGBTQ+ students, etc.), they would still surely encourage free speech. After all, a liberal arts institution should cultivate a space where students can freely inquire, peacefully debate, and form decisions for themselves. Before the semester even began, we faced resistance from the administration as we could not get approval to restart the club from the Director of Student Activities Emily Eisenstadt for three weeks after a follow-up email and a faculty advisor request. Other conservative organizations also faced irresponsiveness from the Director of Student Activities. However, when leftist groups wanted to bring Gavin Newsom to campus, they had no problem getting a swift response. Despite continued administrative opposition, we hosted speakers, including pro-life activist Abby Johnson and President Ronald Reagan’s economic advisor Arthur Laffer; organized events such as the 9/11 “Never Forget”; and attempted to engage in civil conversations about abortion. Our efforts even led to us being awarded “Chapter Rookie of the Year” by Young America’s Foundation. Our most notable event, and the reason for our complaint, was our “Stand with Israel” project, in which we placed 1,195 Israeli flags into the ground to memorialize the innocent victims of the Oct. 7 Massacre by Hamas. We also laid out pamphlets on tables in the library and student union titled, “The Five Myths About Israel Perpetrated by the Pro-Hamas Left,” provided to us by Young America’s Foundation. This event led to two significant outcomes. First, our flags were stolen overnight. When we brought this to the attention of Davidson administrators and the Honor Council, they dismissed the case and chose not to investigate, despite their so-called commitment to the Honor Code. Second, on Feb. 26, 2025, over four months after the event, we received an email from Director of Rights and Responsibilities Mak Thompkins informing us that we faced charges of “violating” the Code of Responsibility. We had allegedly made students feel “threatened and unsafe” due to our distribution of pamphlets that allegedly promoted “Islamophobia.” This was ironic to us, given that we did not even know who our accusers were, let alone not ever having interacted with them. What’s more, we knew of Jewish students who genuinely felt targeted because of the rampant antisemitism on our campus. 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