A Wisconsin student is suing her college after being labeled “disruptive” and stopped from handing out “Jesus Loves You” Valentine’s Day cards in memory of her mother who passed away.
The Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC) student, Polly Olsen, claims in her lawsuit that the school enforces an “unconstitutional” Public Assembly Policy.
“NWTC restricts what it deems as ‘disruptive’ free expression and free speech, as protected by the First Amendment, to a tiny box on campus that makes up less than one percent of the campus. Olsen described the school’s ‘free speech zone’ as ‘about the size of two buses next to each other,’ highlighting the fact that no one “congregates there, they just walk through,” something she suggested prohibited her from having meaningful conversations with others,” reports Campus Reform, who first obtained the lawsuit.
Olsen’s mother, who passed away a few years ago, used to hand out the cards to provide people with hope. The college student, who has been homeless, continued the tradition in her memory. According to Campus Reform, the simple heart-shaped cards featured phrases such as “Jesus loves you,” “you are special!” and “you have a purpose,” along with the relevant books and line numbers.
On Valentine’s Day this year while Olsen was handing out the cards, a campus security officer confronted her and claimed she was being a “disruptive student” and violating the school’s policy barring solicitation.
The complaint states that “NWTC’s Public Assembly Policy “is an unconstitutional abridgment of the rights of Plaintiff and other students’ freedom of speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”
