by Mia Gradick • 3 minutes
This week, First Liberty sent a letter to the Georgia State University President and Dean on behalf of Stephen Atkerson after a university representative forced his conversation with a GSU student about faith to cease. We’re asking GSU to ensure that Steven will not be banned from speaking about his faith with students on campus.
Stephen frequently visits the Clarkston Campus of GSU’s Perimeter College to share his sincerely held Christian beliefs with interested students in the free speech area on campus. He does not preach or force his views on anyone. Instead, he has friendly, personal conversations with willing students.
On several occasions, Stephen met with a particular student to discuss the Bible and his Christian faith. On one of those occasions, on April 9, it was raining outside. So, the student invited Stephen to sit at a table outside the dining area where they could talk. But a university employee and three armed police officers had other ideas. They abruptly ended the conversation and demanded that Stephen and the student return to the Free Speech Zone immediately because of the religious substance of their discussion.
Stephen complied with the demand but asked why he could not have a conversation when a student invited him to do so. The school employee not only explained that school policy required him to stay in the Free Speech Zone to have his religious conversations but that he also must not approach students even within the Free Speech Zone.
First Liberty Senior Counsel Nate Kellum explains that “[n]o one needs the government’s permission to carry on a consensual conversation in public. The First Amendment ensures the free exchange of ideas, even if those ideas happen to be religious. The university’s action was threatening, overbearing, and infringed on Stephen’s constitutional rights.”
In our letter, our attorneys demand that GSU cease prohibiting Stephen from engaging in consensual religious conversations on campus and approaching students in the Free Speech Zone.
We explain what U.S. Supreme Court precedent has made clear: religious speech and conversational speech are constitutionally safeguarded. Religious and conversational speech have a place in the marketplace of ideas, and it is not up to university officials to take that away. What’s more, in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the nation’s highest court found that religious instruction, prayer, discussion, and recitation of the Bible are protected speech.
As Justice Gorsuch puts it, “the Constitution’s commitment to the freedom of speech means all of us will encounter ideas we consider ‘unattractive’ . . . But tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish.” GSU would do well to remember these words. Stephen’s right to engage in consensual conversations about his faith should not be restricted, and we’ll continue to fight to protect his right to live out his convictions.
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