Ep. 23 Rob Corry, ‘speech code slayer’

In 1994, law student Rob Corry joined with eight other students
to file a legal challenge to a Stanford University speech code.
It was the first-ever lawsuit filed under California’s
recently-enacted “Leonard Law,” which applies First Amendment
protections to private, non-sectarian colleges in the state of
California (like Stanford), and which the students argued made
Stanford’s restrictions on free speech unlawful.


Winning wasn’t going to be easy: Corry would be representing
himself and his co-plaintiffs against one of America’s richest
and most powerful research universities.


On Feb. 27, 1995—22 years ago this month—a California state court
judge sided with Corry and struck down Stanford’s speech code as
an impermissible content-based restriction on expression. The
victory earned Corry the title of “speech code slayer" in a
campus newspaper.


Today, on “So to Speak,” we talk with Corry of Corry v. Stanford
about the seminal lawsuit, how he overcame the challenges of
representing himself in court, and why other students should feel
emboldened by his victory to challenge their colleges’ speech
codes.


www.sotospeakpodcast.com


Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk


Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast


Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org


Call in a question: 215-315-0100