YAL State Chair Naomi Mathew had earned herself a reputation on her home campus of Truman State University for being a watchdog for free speech. In 2019, Mathew, a committed vegan, attempted to start a PETA club on campus and was denied for unconstitutional reasons. Mathew worked with FIRE to change the school’s club recognition policies.

Mathew wasn’t done there, however. By 2020 Mathew was also the chapter president of the strongest YAL chapter in Missouri and went to work reforming a school policy that required students to get permission from the Student Life office before speaking distributing literature in the schools open and public Campus Mall. Mathew and her chapter members delivered a letter from FIRE in early Spring of 2020 outlining the unconstitutionality of the code. The school initially acknowledged the policies as flawed, but did nothing to change them. Very soon after the school shut down over the pandemic panic.

Mathew and her squad would not let the administration off the hook and continued to follow up with their demands while the bureaucrats tried to say they had other issues to deal with, despite having time before the shutdown they could have used. The Truman State YAL chapter stuck to their guns all through the year and by Spring of 2021, FIRE had confirmed that the school had removed the troublesome policies, earning Mathew yet another Free Speech Victory.