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Roberts v. Haragan

From June 2003, to September 2004
Texas Tech University Law School

Jason Roberts—a student at Texas Tech University Law School (“TTU”)—requested permission to give a speech and hand out literature on campus detailing his religious and political views on homosexuality. Roberts declined to use the “free speech area” at the school, instead requesting a specific location on a street corner on campus. Although the school ultimately granted his request—albeit at a location across the street from his desired location—Roberts filed suit against TTU in the Northern District of Texas alleging that the school’s speech policy violated his First Amendment Rights. Even though TTU amended their speech policy after Roberts filed suit, the court held that the amended speech policy still violated the First Amendment due to its overbreadth and due to TTU’s failure to show a sufficient interest in controlling student speech to justify the speech policy’s intrusion on students’ First Amendment rights. Thus, the court struck down several provisions of TTU’s amended student speech policy as unconstitutional, granting declaratory and injunctive relief to Roberts.