Gov. Greg Abbott called for a student to be expelled for celebrating Kirk’s death. Legal experts say the student’s speech is likely constitutionally protected.

In 2017, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent, a Texas man put out a press release: “TODAY CHARLOTTESVILLE TOMORROW TEXAS A&M.” Alt-right speaker Richard Spencer signed on to speak at the rally in College Station, before the university cancelled it, citing safety concerns.

This decision came at a time when universities, in Texas and nationally, were facing significant blowback for restricting or cancelling appearances by conservative speakers, fueling a narrative that right-leaning voices were being unfairly silenced.

This outrage made its way to the Texas Legislature, which in 2019 passed a bill requiring that all outdoor spaces on university campuses be designated as open forums for public speech, and prohibiting universities from considering anticipated controversy when deciding whether to allow a speaker on campus.

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When protests broke out on college campuses nationwide over the war in Gaza in 2024, the president of the University of Texas at Austin called in the state police to quell the largest protests, drawing praise from Republican state leaders.

In response, lawmakers rolled back some of the protections enshrined in 2019. A new law, approved by the Legislature and signed by Abbott in June, restricts who can protest on campus and when, barring the use of amplification devices during class hours or expressive activity at night or at the end of the semester.

FIRE sued over the new law earlier this month, saying it’s overly broad and would have unintended consequences. It could be used to punish students for doing things like playing music, worshipping, wearing a Make America Great Again Hat or writing an op-ed during the nighttime hours, FIRE said in statements.

“It’s human nature to say, I don’t like this speech, let’s find a way to stop it,” Steinbaugh said. “That is why the First Amendment is such an important limitation on government power, because it recognizes … if each of us gets to say, ‘you don’t get to speak,’ then pretty much no speech will be saved.”