On August 1, Texas A&M system campuses implement state required "expressive activity", or student free speech rules.

That follows board of regents approval at this month's meeting.

The system's general counsel, Ray Bonilla, says campuses were already following most of the guidelines of the law that was passed last year by the legislature.

Bonilla said the system had to revise the grievance procedure for students who believe their free speech rights have been infringed.

From the Texas A&M system:

On June 10, 2019, the Governor signed SB 18, which added Section 51.9315, Protected Expression
on Campus, to the Texas Education Code. This new law requires public institutions of higher
education to adopt a “policy” (in system nomenclature, SB 18 requires members to adopt a rule)
detailing students’ rights and responsibilities regarding expressive activity on campus. Each
institution’s policy must be approved by the Board of Regents.

The law is intended to insure that all persons may peaceably assemble on campuses of institutions
of higher education for expressive activities. September 1, 2019 was the effective date of this new
law with a deadline of August 1, 2020 to implement the expressive activity policy required by the
law.

Member academic institution chief executive officers (CEO) consulted with their provosts, deans
of faculties, vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student conduct offices, directors
of student activities, compliance offices, university police departments, and others as deemed
necessary to prepare a rule for CEO approval and submission to the Office of General Counsel for
legal sufficiency review.

The key features of the new law can be summarized as follows: (a) institutions are required to
designate outdoor areas on campus as traditional public forums, (b) institutions may continue to
impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions (e.g., no events with loudspeakers outside
academic buildings during classroom hours) for the common outdoor areas, (c) institutions must
adopt expressive activity rules, including a grievance procedure that allows students who believe
their free speech rights have been improperly infringed to seek recourse, (d) the institutional rules
require board approval, (e) institutions must make the rules available to students and train key
employees responsible for implementation; and (f) institutions must submit a report to the
Governor and Legislature describing our implementation of the new law.