North Georgia Chapter President Chad Clements had only just become an excited new member of YAL when he held his first event on campus. With the help of Georgia State Chair Cody Collyer the students rolled a free speech ball in the square of the school’s quad. After a few minutes of engaging students with the ideas of liberty, a school staff member said they must take the activity to the “free speech zone” on campus–on the far side of the campus away from most student traffic.

The students were taken to the staffers office where they pleaded their case for freedom of assembly, but were told they had to shut down their event for the day. Chad got connected with FIRE who soon contacted the school to address the situation. University leadership quickly responded to FIRE saying that there were no free speech zones on campus and that the administrator that stopped the YAL activist was in the wrong. Furthermore, the school promised to add “Free Speech Training” to their faculty training in the summer. Students at UNG are now much less likely to have their rights abused because of faculty misunderstanding.