Illinois University Forced to Undergo Free Speech Training, Pay Fine to Settle Discrimination Lawsuit

Ms. DeJong, a Christian conservative, studied art therapy counseling at SIUE, where she openly expressed viewpoints on social media and in class discussions on contentious issues facing America, like abortion, critical race theory, COVID-19 regulations, and censorship...

A woman stomps on a free speech sign at the University of California–Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., on Sept. 24, 2017. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by a graduate student Maggie DeJong, who accused the school of discrimination when it issued “no-contact orders” against her and told her peers to report her “harmful rhetoric.”

In order to settle the lawsuit, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) will revise some of its policies, pay $80,000, and three professors at the school will take training on the First Amendment and its protections of free speech, according to the legal nonprofit Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF).