Texas has banned talking on college campuses at night. Seriously | Hacker News Reader

Texas has banned talking on college campuses at night. Seriously

houstonchronicle.com

38 pointshn_acker25 comments

UT summer school students and faculty should walk over the capitol and conduct expressive activities.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/1HEN47En9vnYLuV66

The bits of the bill in question which are applicable:

---

"Expressive activities" means any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or by Section 8, Article I, Texas Constitution, and includes assemblies, protests, speeches, the distribution of written material, the carrying of signs, and the circulation of petitions.

...

Each institution of higher education shall adopt a policy detailing rights and responsibilities regarding expressive activities at the institution. The policy must:

...

Prohibit:

...

engaging in expressive activities on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.

---

That's pretty clear cut, to be honest. Like the article says, the intent is probably much more limited, but it literally says "any speech or conduct which is protected under the first amendment is banned". That's just really poor drafting indeed.

Even if more limited, the intent is clearly anti-democratic.

> on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m

The intent may be also seen as pro-education: "they're free to protest elsewhere without annoying other students"

That's what noise ordinances are for, and noise ordinances still allow you to engage in free speech. You just have to keep it reasonably quiet during the night.

This you? What made your stance on this subject change?

  fuzzbazz 10 months ago | parent | context | prev | next  [–] | on: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

  How can you even have democracy without freedom of speech?
  How can you freely choose who to vote without free exchange of information?

OP did not at all imply they felt that way, rather was implying an argument on behalf of the drafters.

God, this forum is becoming more like reddit every day with folks ignoring commenting rules and assuming bad faith. (of which ,I am doing myself right now.)

this post doesn't even belong here.

why do you think it's poor drafting? there's a clear cross-country campaign by the American right that's seized control of many states and the federal government to end free speech as a concept by creating laws and regulations and policies like this, so that favoured groups can do whatever, and anyone who finds themselves disfavoured will be in violation of stuff like this.

I think the article answers this pretty well. The bill has text about not being construed as restricting any first amendment rights while simultaneously banning all 1A activity within certain hours. That just seems like a really stupid contradiction, and one that's likely to rile people up, compared to a drafting which just says "here are a list of protest activities which are allowed in the day and banned at night", which I feel was the intent of the bill.

I want to upvote, but the story doesn't match the headline. "Has banned".. "Seriously" vs "If signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, Senate Bill 2972 would ban".

The article is old. The bill was signed and will take effect Sept. 1.

He has signed it. Look at the update on the top of the article:

>Update: This article was published on June 5. Since then, Gov. Greg Abbott has signed Senate Bill 2972 into law. It will take effect Sept. 1.

https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/SB2972/2025

Missed that, thanks.

A law banning "any speech or expressive activity" between certain hours? That seems blatantly unconstitutional...

Yes, but do you want to bet that the Republican SCOTUS won’t find that the founders clearly intended to allow this to happen to brown people, or simply sit on it until 2030?

The people affected are not all brown people, so even if I held that low a view of the Supreme Court, no I would not bet on that.

Sitting on it until 2030? Well... it won't be the Supreme Court sitting on it until 2030. It will be:

- You can't go to court (usually) on a hypothetical. You usually need someone who has been actually affected. That can't happen until the law actually takes effect (September).

- Then you need a court case, in federal court (probably, since it's a first amendment argument). That has to reach completion, which can take a year or three.

- Then you need an appeal to the district court, and for that appeal to be accepted, and for that court case to run to completion. I have less of a feel for how long that takes, but I would guess at least half a year, maybe longer.

- Then you need an appeal to the Supreme Court, and for it to be accepted, and for the Supreme Court to hear the case and decide. That can take a year.

So, yeah, you're not going to see a final resolution until 2030 or so. That's not because the Supreme Court is sitting on it, though - at least, not most of it.

> You can't go to court (usually) on a hypothetical. You usually need someone who has been actually affected. That can't happen until the law actually takes effect (September).

I think a Texas college or a student of one could bring a facial challenge to this law before it goes into effect. The following two excerpts of S.B. 2972 [1] (the second one consisting of spliced fragments) should be enough to demonstrate that the law would inevitably, not hypothetically, restrict a student's freedom of speech:

> "Expressive activities" means any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or by Section 8, Article I, Texas Constitution

`Each institution of higher education shall adopt a policy detailing... rights and responsibilities regarding expressive activities at the institution. The policy must... prohibit... engaging in expressive activities on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.`

[1] https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB2972/2025

Oh, I agree that it's blatantly unconstitutional. I'm just not sure that a court will accept a facial challenge. Once someone's been arrested, though, a court is going to have a hard time turning it away.

In the ideal world, there would be a facial challenge and a temporary restraining order on implementation of the law, pending the challenge being finally decided. I'm just not sure that it will happen that way (or that quickly).

tldr: They want to clamp down of Palestinian protests, according to the article.

They want to tell us what we're allowed to protest

Because Palestinian protests only happen at night? If that's what they're after, this seems unlikely to be effective.

Classes and homework take up a massive chunk of daytime hours, and nighttime hours for some students. Swap protest and homework hours? Be unable to work with other students on homework at night. Additionally, on the day of a protest, if I were a leader of any large gathering of people I would prefer to start talking to the other planners before 8 AM.

It is a bit insane to ban students working together on their homework at night though.

That'll teach students not to enter STEM with those hazing ritual, weeder courses like p-chem, o-chem, and abstract mathematics!

> They want to clamp down of Palestinian protests, according to the article.

…between the hours of 10pm and 8am (you left that part out of your tldr)

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