Free speech organization demands that the punishment be lifted against students.
After requesting the school to withdraw a person’s punishment for social media posts telling President Donald Trump backers to “unfollow,” a regional free speech organization confirmed with The College Fix on April 9 that it is still waiting to hear again from Lincoln Memorial University, College of Veterinary Medicine.
The student was ordered to compose a two-page papers as abuse after LMU accused her of breaking its Ethics and Honor Code of Conduct.
On February 25, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote to the university to request that all sanctions be lifted against scholar Erin Lintag.
It is prohibited from punishing protected political representation because LMU-CVM’s devotion to completely speech. LMU-CVM must immediately remove any information regarding Lintag’s sanction from her file in order to keep its commitment to respect student evocative rights, according to FIRE in its letter.
The Fix has even emailed the institution several times asking whether it will follow the group’s demands.
Lintag reacted in frustration with the latest national administration in January and instructed his supporters to stay away.
She wrote on Instagram,” Follow me if you are my student and you voted for Trump or help his principles. We will still be polite because we must be, but” I don’t want you as a friend, and I don’t require you,” according to the email from FIRE.
Another warning: Trump, Musk, RFK, &, etc followers will get the cool head, but if we have to fake it for our class then we will,” Lintag wrote in a different article. But otherwise, DO NOT JOIN ME. QUICKLYYYYYYYY [. ]”
Lintag’s social media account was unavailable for Lintag to reach her about the situation.
According to the letter from FIRE, the university’s Student Affairs Office charged the student with “posting Instagram posts that were targeted at her [colleges]” and gave her two days to accept or reject responsibility.
A school official warned Lintag during a “hostile” meeting that accepting responsibility would result in an Administrative Decision, which required Lintag to write a two-page paper on the dangers of social media, with particular attention to its risks of cyberbullying, privacy concerns, and other people’s mental health effects, according to the letter.
Lintag reluctantly accepted responsibility on February 4 despite believing she had not violated college policy with only 48 hours to make this high-stakes decision. The Administrative Decision is now included in Lintag’s file as a result, it states.
According to the school’s policy on Academic Freedom,” Students should enjoy the same freedom of speech that other citizens with the University mission enjoy.”
FIRE claimed that despite the fact that the school is a private institution and not directly related to the First Amendment, students could reasonably expect to believe they have the same expressive rights as other citizens, particularly those that the First Amendment protects.
The Free Speech Coalition also claimed that the incident is related to a larger problem.
According to Senior Program Counsel Haley Gluhanich, Senior Program Counsel Haley Gluhanich said via email, “FIRE has frequently seen universities attempting to politically monitor students ‘ political opinions online.
We like to remind universities that the First Amendment protects students from posting their political opinions and opinions on social media, she said.
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Aerial photo of the Lincoln Memorial University campus, IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT
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