Case: 19-50529 Document: 00515619368 Page: 1 Date Filed: 10/28/2020 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED No. 19-50529 October 28, 2020 Lyle W. Cayce SPEECH FIRST, INCORPORATED, Clerk Plaintiff - Appellant v. GREGORY L. FENVES, In His Official Capacity as President of the University of Texas at Austin, Defendant - Appellee Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas Before KING, JONES, and COSTA, Circuit Judges. 1 EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge: On behalf of a group of students, Speech First, Inc., appeals the dismissal of its First and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to several policies that intend to regulate speech at the University of Texas at Austin. After Speech First sought a preliminary injunction against enforcement of these policies, and the University responded, the district court dismissed the case on the basis that Speech First lacked standing. This conclusion was mistaken. The chilling effect of allegedly vague regulations, coupled with a range of potential penalties for violating the regulations, was, as other courts have held, 2 1Judge Costa concurs in the judgment. 2See, e.g., Dambrot v. Central Mich. Univ., 55 F.3d 1177, 1182 (6th Cir. 1995) (affirming that campus discriminatory harassment speech policy is, on its face, Case: 19-50529 Document: 00515619368 Page: 2 Date Filed: 10/28/2020 No. 19-50529 sufficient “injury” to ensure that Speech First “has a ‘personal stake in the outcome of the controversy.’” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149, 158, 134 S. Ct. 2334, 2341 (2014) (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S. Ct. 2197, 2205 (1975)). BACKGROUND Speech First, Inc., (“Speech First”) is an organization of free-speech advocates that includes students at the University of Texas at Austin (“the University”). Speech First sued the Defendant-Appellee, Gregory L. Fenves, in his official capacity as president of the University, in December 2018. At that time, the University had promulgated four policies governing students’ speech: (1) the 2018-2019 General Information Catalog, Appendix C, Institutional Rules on Students Services and Activities; (2) the Acceptable Use Policy for University Students (last revised in 2015); (3) the 2018-2019 Residence Hall Manual; and (4) the Handbook of Operating Procedures (revised no later than March 2017). Here are the pertinent portions of the regulations. 1. The Institutional Rules Fenves describes the Institutional Rules as “bedrock standards to which all University community members must adhere.” The Rules’ Chapter 13 is titled “Speech, Expression, and Assembly,” and begins generally, declaring the “freedoms of speech, expression, and assembly” to be “fundamental rights of all persons.” Section 13-101. This section pronounces students’ (and others’) freedom to “express their views . . . on any topic . . . subject only to rules necessary to preserve the equal rights of others and the other functions of the unconstitutionally overbroad and vague, after district court found that students had standing to sue despite lack of enforcement against them). 2 Case: 19-50529 Document: 00515619368 Page: 3 Date Filed: 10/28/2020 ...
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