Students, organizations and their sponsored guests will no longer be required to obtain a permit or a reservation in order to conduct non-commercial solicitation on NC State’s campus as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed against the university charging that the policy was unconstitutional. 

In addition to amending its solicitation policy, NC State paid $72,500 in legal fees to the plaintiff in the case, Grace Christian Life (GCL), according to Executive Director of University Relations Fred Hartman. 

The policy change will go into effect on July 22. 

GCL, an evangelical Christian student group, sued NC State in April, following a September 2015 incident between GCL members and NC State faculty in which members were told they could not engage in religious discussions with students and hand out materials without a permit. 

GCL felt that the policy was being selectively enforced based on the content of its message, citing numerous other groups handing out materials without permits. GCL’s legal team, the Arizona-based firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, charged in a letter to NC State’s general counsel that the permit policy was too broad and allowed “unfettered discretion” to the university when deciding whether to grant permission to speak. 

The university defines non-commercial solicitation as “hand distribution of leaflets, brochures or other written materials designed for informational and not commercial purposes.”

Laura Stott, interim director of Student Involvement, said that restrictions on “time, place and manner” of solicitation are still in place to ensure safety and normal university operations. Reservations are only required for non-student groups, according to Stott. 

Prior to the revision, the solicitation policy required written permission of Student Involvement in advance of conducting any form of solicitation on campus and that permission to solicit “may be limited to solicitation that is consistent with the University’s mission and purpose of the location” for which there was no objective standard. 

The lead attorney for GCL, Tyson Langhofer, described the policy as “inconsistent with [NC State’s] calling as a marketplace of ideas.” 

“Students of any religious political or ideological persuasion should be able to freely and peacefully speak with their fellow students about their views without interference from university officials who may prefer one view over another,” Langhofer said. “NC State did the right thing in revising its policy to reflect this instead of continuing to defend its previous policy which really was not constitutionally defensible.”

NC State still contends that it never violated GCL’s rights, according to Hartman. Hartman said in an email that the settlement was largely motivated by a desire to keep legal fees down and, in order to do that, the university revised its solicitation policy to “better align with our intent and application of the procedure.”

“NC State remains an environment that fosters and enables the healthy and free exchange of ideas and viewpoints by our students and community,” Hartman said. 

The permit application, now optional for student groups, only required an explanation of purpose by the group in question, which was the only limiting factor regarding the content of the speech, aside from the time and place limitations depending on availability.  

GCL made numerous uses of the campus to solicit in the past without any issue and had future reservations planned at the time the lawsuit was filed, totaling 198 reservations under the previous policy between Aug. 16, 2015 and Dec. 16, 2016, according to Student Involvement records submitted to the court and obtained by the Technician. 

“Obviously, individuals can engage others in conversation about their faith on campus,” Hartman said.  

Hartman said in June that even though the court ordered the university to suspend its policy, “the implication that an organization has been treated differently because they are a religious group is simply not true.” 

During the past three years, NC State issued 2,280 permits to student and non-university groups to either speak or distribute information on campus. Of those, close to 500 were issued to faith-based groups or individuals, according to a statement made by Chancellor Randy Woodson in April in response to the lawsuit.  

“None of these individuals or groups have ever been denied the right to speak or distribute materials based upon their message content or beliefs,” Woodson wrote in a Chancellor’s Letter in April. 

In fact, within the last 10 years, no student or student group has been disciplined under NC State’s solicitation policy, according to court documents.

GCL did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. 

Avi Aggarwal, a senior studying chemical engineering, has been involved with several student groups, including Hindu Students Association, the NC State chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Student Government and Mental Health Ambassadors where she often dealt with Student Involvement to plan events. 

Aggarwal said in a Facebook message that these groups would request permits to hold events, solicit to raise awareness for various issues, request signatures on pledges to support a cause and to increase membership. While she said it can be confusing at first, the university staff was always there to help. 

“For [holding events in] Talley lobby, you have to go through Rave! Services, which can be confusing if it’s your first time or if you are not familiar with the process, but asking a few people here and there usually points you in the right direction,” Aggarwal said. “The Rave!, Student Centers and Student Involvement staff have all been incredibly helpful in my experience.”