Michelle, Nathan, and Isaac were arrested and put in jail.

You are probably wondering what crime they committed to land them behind bars.

Well, the three volunteers for the organization Young Americans for Liberty were arrested for distribution. But they were not distributing anything illegal.

In fact, what these three volunteers were handing out to students at Kellogg Community College (KCC), a public university in Battle Creek, Michigan, was a public document. And not just any public document – but the very document that protects their freedom to speak freely: the U.S. Constitution.

While they were handing out Constitutions, a campus administrator, Drew Hutchinson, approached Michelle, Nathan, and Isaac and told them that they needed to stop what they were doing right away. Confused, they asked Mr. Hutchinson, “Why?”

They were not doing anything wrong. They were not obstructing anyone’s path or interfering with nearby events. They weren’t staging the type of disruptive or violent protest which is regrettably becoming all too common on college campuses.

They were simply offering pocket Constitutions to students walking by.

“There was no screaming, there was no rioting, there was no mob, and there certainly were no casualties,” said Michelle.

Mr. Hutchinson explained that the three volunteers were in violation of the school’s speech policies, which prohibited anyone from engaging in expressive activity anywhere on campus (including distributing written material) without obtaining permission.

But the only “permission” Michelle, Nathan, and Isaac needed to speak on the campus of a public college can be found in the very document they were handing out—the First Amendment.

When the three continued to pass out the Constitutions, Mr. Hutchinson called the chief of campus police who arrested them and put them in jail for over seven hours.

The school eventually came around and changed their policy. So fortunately, others in the future will be spared a similar ordeal. But unfortunately, restrictive speech policies like the one at KCC are not uncommon at public universities across the nation. What is worse is that many students do not even realize that their right to free speech is being violated by their school because they have never gotten a chance to study the Constitution.

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