USC Lawsuit

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by AZTheta

Pretty certain this is a First Amendment issue. Although technically no, legally yes - that's my thinking.

Where's Kevin?

USC is a private university. I don't think this is a First Amendment issue because the Bill of Rights is a proscription on government activity. I don't think that's necessarily the end of the analysis and I'd love to read the complaint. The media organization obviously has a copy which they took a picture of... sideways... but didn't post a pdf to their site.

I can only guess that the complaint might state that USC hods themselves out as a bastion of free speech and there might even be aspects of the Student Code of Conduct which are relevant to a student's First Amendment rights. That might be more of a breach of contract situation... or at least there are a lot of right wing legal groups which have been talking about filing suit against a school on those grounds. I'm unaware as to whether anyone's prevailed on that sort of complaint. The case was filed in state court, so I can infer non-federal questions may be part of the content of the complaint, but there's no way of knowing because of the incomplete reporting.