Editor’s note: This article was updated shortly after publication to include comment from a University spokesperson.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan group focusing on college campus free speech, sent a letter to Chancellor Charles Lee Isbell Jr. Wednesday urging the University to “cease any further review or investigation of the Illini Republicans’ post.”
The University said Monday that its Title VI Office was reviewing reports regarding a controversial graphic posted by the registered student organization. The graphic, which the Illini Republicans posted Jan. 30 and subsequently removed, depicts a federal agent pointing a gun at a man kneeling on the ground with the caption “ONLY TRAITORS HELP INVADERS.” The post also included a statement in support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In an email statement to The Daily Illini, FIRE wrote that the Illini Republicans’ graphic is permitted speech under the First Amendment and should not be investigated.
“As a public university, the University of Illinois may not investigate a student group merely because administrators or other students object to the views expressed by the group on social media,” wrote FIRE Program Counsel Jessie Appleby.
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In a written statement, Patrick Wade, the University’s director of executive communications and issues management, stated that the University received the letter and plans to respond.
“We have also received a high volume of Title VI reports related to the Illini Republicans posting and are required by federal law to review and process those reports,” Wade wrote. “In doing so, we will continue to follow our normal protocols, which include First Amendment considerations.”
The Illini Republicans told The DI Sunday that the post was made extreme to mirror how much the group stands with ICE. It comes less than a month after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two U.S. citizens, in Minneapolis.
Wade told The DI in an earlier statement Monday that the University can’t discipline RSOs for the viewpoint or content of protected speech.
“We condemn rhetoric or imagery that appears to glorify violence or demean individuals or groups based on identity or beliefs,” Wade wrote. “Such rhetoric does not reflect the values of dignity, respect, and care that we expect from members of our community.”
According to University free speech policies, hate speech is defined as “offensive speech that demeans, vilifies or incites hatred against a person or group of people based on identity or attributes such as race, religion, national origin or gender.”
Policies like the University’s cite hate speech as generally being protected by the First Amendment, which restricts the University’s ability to regulate it. Illini Republicans have said their speech is protected, but some University students NPR interviewed say the post incited violence.
One post on X called the Illini Republicans’ statement unhinged, garnering roughly 14,000 likes. On the r/UIUC subreddit, a post providing reasons for why the group “violated student code of conduct” drew more than 300 upvotes.
Unprotected speech, according to the University, includes speech “directed to inciting or producing immediate and imminent illegal action and likely to incite or produce such action.” Speech that “a reasonable person would perceive as a serious intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals” is also not protected.
The Illini Democrats, a separate campus political RSO, denounced the graphic Wednesday in a statement to The DI. Rylee Graves, communications director for the Illini Democrats and sophomore in LAS, said that the Illini Republicans’ post was made less than six hours before a campus protest against ICE, arguing the group’s intent was to instill fear in protesters.
For its most recent post Wednesday, Finn McIntosh, president of Illini Republicans and sophomore in LAS, wrote that the group “greatly appreciate (FIRE’s) support and commitment to the constitution.”
“The university’s public announcement that the Title VI Office is reviewing the Instagram post unconstitutionally chills student expression, regardless of whether the announced ‘review’ results in formal discipline,” FIRE wrote in its letter.
