The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled June 20 that the University of Minnesota did not violate a mortuary student’s free speech rights by punishing her for Facebook posts about the school cadaver she was working on, which included “satirical commentary and violent fantasy.”
But the court, in what might be the nation’s first state high court decision addressing college students’ online free speech rights, said the sanctions imposed by the university on Amanda Tatro were justified by “narrowly tailored” rules directly related to “established professional conduct standards.”
Although Tatro lost her case, some free speech advocates said they were relieved by the ruling’s limits, which they said applied only to the online conduct of a student in a professional program.…Read More