ACTA is urging Northern Kentucky University to prove its stated commitment to free speech--not to mention to make good on its legal obligation to same--by repealing its speech code. Meanwhile, NKU students are arguing that professors who teach courses on race and gender should have to pass an ideological litmus test:

Students at Northern Kentucky University have expressed feelings that the race and gender classes that most students take at one point or another may not be up to par.

Senior sociology major Akosua Favors believes the race and gender courses are inconsistent. She does not think the faculty who teach the classes have enough anti-racist training or credentials.

"We are asking that an effort is made to require qualifications and experience in the area of race and gender along with proof of anti-racist community empowerment/organizing," Favors said. "We are asking that the university is consistent with some form of anti-racist anti-discriminating trainings at least twice a year."

She said in many race and gender courses, students do not engage in class conversation because they feel they must speak for their entire racial group or gender.

If Favors' position is at all representative of NKU students generally, then NKU has a lot of work to do to educate its students in both the rights and responsibilities of public universities to protect free inquiry and in the principle of academic freedom. NKU could begin that process of educating by rolling back its speech code.