The Georgetown Speech and Expression Committee is establishing the final details of a memorandum of understanding on free speech policies that was submitted to the committee by outgoing GUSA President Nate Tisa (SFS ‘14) following January’s Free Speech Forum. According to Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson, administrators are on track to release the document before the end of the semester.
In a briefing to the GUSA Senate on Sunday, Tisa said original points in the memorandum that had been agreed upon by both administrators and students of the SEC will be part of the forthcoming document, which will comprise both new and modified policies.
For example, groups like H*yas for Choice, for instance, that currently have to submit requests to the Center for Student Engagement and the registrar’s office to obtain a classroom for a meeting would now be able to send their requests directly to the registrar’s office, according to Tisa. “It’ll save you about five days on approving a request,” he said. The new policy will require only a thirty-minute training exercise by such groups.
Policies still under consideration by the SEC regard regulations on tabling and protest zones. Although the entire University is technically a free speech zone, the MOU focuses on areas reserved exclusively for speech and expression, which are not available to reserve by any one group. Tisa hopes to expand them from Red Square to include the Healey Family Student Center lobby, the lobby of the Leavey Center, and Regents Lawn.
“For groups like fraternities, the free speech and expression policy has been used to push them into the shadows,” said Matt Hamblin (COL ’15), a member of the SEC. “They are the ones that are affected by the policy, and we hope it will become a resource for them and other groups.”
The document also serves to clarify issues relating to campus media that may have, according to Tisa, caused confusion in the past. WGTB DJs, for example, are free to talk about contraception on air, as long as they do not advertise for it. Common practice at WGTB, however, is to not discuss contraception.
“There are no content restriction on student media, only some guidelines and limits on the type of advertising the media accepts,” Olson said. “So this will not be a policy change, but a clarification and an effort to make students aware of the policy.”
