Southern Union State Community College finds the following:
- A primary function of Southern Union State Community College is the discovery, improvement, transmission, and dissemination of knowledge by means of research, teaching, discussion, and debate, and that to fulfill that function, Southern Union State Community College will strive to ensure the fullest degree possible of intellectual freedom and free expression.
- It is not the proper role of Southern Union State Community College to shield individuals from speech protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, including without limitation, ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagree able, or offensive.
- Students, administrators, faculty, and staff are free to take positions on public controversies and to engage in protected expressive activity in outdoor areas of the campus, and to spontaneously and contemporaneously assemble, speak, and distribute literature.
- Southern Union State Community College supports free association and will not deny a student organization any benefit or privilege available to any other organization based on the expression of the organization, including any requirement of the organization that the leaders or members of the organization affirm and adhere to an organization’s sincerely held beliefs or statement of principles, comply with the organization’s standard of conduct, or further the organization’s mission or purpose, as defined by the student organization.
- Southern Union State Community College will strive to remain neutral, as an institution, on the public policy controversies of the day, except for administrative decisions that are essential to the day-to-day functioning of the institution, and Southern Union State Community College will not require students, faculty, or staff to publicly express a given view of a public controversy.
- Southern Union State Community College prohibits all forms of harassment as defined in Act 2019-396, which includes expression so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies access to an educational opportunity or benefit provided by the College.