Free speech and football: FIRE’s NCAA matchup of the week is UGA v. Alabama

It’s a matchup of SEC football powerhouses. Georgia versus Alabama. Between them they’ve won 5 of the past 10 national championships, and both schools are contenders this year. 

Before leading Georgia to back-to-back national championships, Coach Kirby Smart was former Alabama Coach Nick Saban’s assistant for eight years. Saban, who has won seven national championships in his career, was considered by many college football analysts to be the best coach in the country. But now that he’s retired, Smart is seeking to fill the void. 

But the similarities between Georgia and Alabama don’t end there. In FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings, the schools mirror each other in a number of ways. 

Both schools have an “Average” speech climate and a “yellow light” speech code rating from FIRE, which means they have at least one policy that restricts protected expression or, by virtue of vague wording, can too easily be used to restrict protected expression. According to FIRE’s most recent survey of their respective student populations, roughly 3 in 5 students on both campuses identified abortion — not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — as the topic that was most difficult to have an open and honest conversation about. Both schools rank highly when it comes to tolerance for conservative speakers, as well as how much students perceive the administration will support speech rights on campus. However, neither school scored well in the College Free Speech Rankings student surveys when it comes to openness or tolerance for liberal speakers. And, at both schools the student body is made up of roughly an equal number of liberals and conservatives.

Want to see how your alma mater compares against their rivals? Check out FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings.

Despite all of these similarities, Alabama ranks 69 in FIRE’s survey and Georgia ranks 141.

Why? What’s the difference?

Earlier this year, Turning Point USA at UGA invited Rep. Mike Collins to campus. Collins had recently authored the Laken Riley Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives and would require ICE to detain unlawfully present aliens charged with theft or burglary. Unfortunately, just as Collins began to speak, he was repeatedly disrupted by protesters shouting that he is a “bitch,” that “you’re dead right now, asshole,” and that he “voted for genocide.” This continued for about 20-30 minutes. Other protesters shouted at Collins about his support for Israel and his views on abortion and immigration. The disruptors were eventually removed and Collins finished his remarks, and he was then reportedly escorted off-campus by the campus police.

Georgia was penalized for this incident because the “heckler’s veto” — the shouting down of a speaker — is not protected speech. Student protesters do not have the right to shout down a speaker and prevent others from hearing a speaker’s remarks. The university has an obligation to make campus safe for all speakers who are following reasonable time-place-manner restrictions, as well as an obligation to prevent or punish the violation of such rules. 

FIRE has not documented any similar disruptive incidents like this happening at Alabama over the past five years.

Georgia also had a campus encampment this spring and 16 students were arrested. Alabama did not have an encampment. Schools were not directly penalized for how they handled the encampments in the rankings because encampments are subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. Still, the results from this year’s rankings survey — and from our accompanying encampments survey — show that campuses with encampments and student arrests have significantly lower scores when it comes to comfort expressing ideas. Alabama ranks 31 on this component, whereas Georgia ranks 114.

Want to see how your alma mater compares against their rivals? Check out FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings.