The 1st Amendment protects people and corporations from government censorship. But private entities are under no responsibility to ensure free speech. For example, a Christian private school is free to ban science teachers from teaching the theory of evolution.
You have 1st amendment rights everywhere, but a private institution is allowed to ask you to leave if they don't like what you say in public or in private. The only exception to this is discrimination laws: If you can show that they asked you to leave because you are a member of a protected class, then they are in trouble.
Public school students don't have full first amendment rights. If the speech interferes with the school's ability to conduct classes, the administration can stop it. I don't know the case name, but this was established in a case with a high school principal censoring the school newspaper.
The 1st Amendment is a protection against the government censoring speech. Any private or public company has the right to set its policies as it sees fit, as long as no other laws are violated, such anti-discrimination laws (which do not protect political alignments).
The 1st amendment does not apply to private entities. The first amendment is a law restricting only Congress.
'Freedom of speech', however, is not the 1st amendment. It is an ethical precept, not a law. It's like how 'don't cheat on your wife' doesn't mean you get thrown in jail, but you'll generally be seen as a 'bad guy'.
Just like a private company can have speech codes without running afoul of the first amendment, so can the US Government for its employees. That's all it is - not some law, but an employer mandate.
The first amendment applies to law governing speech.
The first amendment doesn't apply to my employer as I work for a private company, so you are right there. But is that true for cops who work for the government? I'm honestly not sure.
You have no first amendment rights against a private company (well, not in this case anyway).
>> Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the Congress. However, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the First Amendment to each state, including any local government.
Only colleges run by state and local governments, to which the Bill of Rights applies (due to the 14th Amendment), are bound by the First Amendment. Private colleges are not.
To answer your last point, the constitution only protects from government restrictions on free speech, it says nothing about what private parties may require from their employees at work.
The 1st amendment protects speech from being suppressed by the state. Private entities may ban whatever they see fit, basically; you know they do if you ever read a end-user license.
Since the First Amendment only restricts the actions of the federal (and by extension the state and local) government, it only applies to universities run by the government (e.g., state universities). Private universities like Emory are not bound by the First Amendment any more than a shopping mall is. However, there are other ways to pressure universities to allow freedom of speech: exposing their actions in the press, alumni cutting off financial support, etc.
I don't think the 1st Amendment requires you to open your school up to speakers that students don't like, nor does it require students to sit and listen or to not actively heckle. In fact, as far as I know, the only thing the first amendmendment does is prevent the government itself from silencing your speech. Are these kids or the school the government itself? Then the first amendment doesn't apply.
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