Illinois Colleges Have Much to Learn about Free Speech

There is never a shortage of stories about attacks on free speech on the American college campus.  Here is one which hits close to home at the College of DuPage (COD), a community college in the western suburbs of Chicago.

On an October school day outside one of the school’s entrances, COD student Joe Enders and another student were handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution and talking to fellow students about starting a Turning Point USA student group. Turning Point USA is a non-partisan student organization dedicated to promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government. The students were soon confronted by a police officer who told them they could not solicit without a permit from the school. The students were not selling anything and asked how that could be considered soliciting to which the officer responded that they were “soliciting opinions.” The officer told the students to go see the COD’s Student Life Services and threatened to arrest them if they refused to leave.