Bully for you? Free speech on campus.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings

LAST January, New Jersey's Council on Local Mandates ruled that the state's Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, enacted in 2010, unconstitutionally requires new expenditures by local governments without providing funding for them. Now that the law will have to be revised, the legislature has a chance to fix its First Amendment defects as well.

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"This 'anti-bullying' law, as it is currently written, makes opening one's mouth on a college campus in the state of New Jersey a serious risk," says Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).The law, which requires colleges to ban "harassment, intimidation and bullying," defines harassment to include "a single incident" that "substantially disrupts or interferes with the orderly operation of the institution or the rights of other students" and "has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of students" or "will have the effect of physically or emotionally harming a student."

That definition of student-on-student harassment, FIRE notes, is substantially broader than the one the Supreme Court has said...