Do bias-response teams objectively chill students' free speech?

QUESTION PRESENTED Hundreds of universities have a “bias-response team”—an official entity that solicits reports of bias, tracks them, investigates them, asks to meet with the perpetrators, and threatens to refer students for formal discipline. Universities formally define “bias” to cover wide swaths of protected speech. Bias-response teams are staffed by administrators, disciplinarians, and even police officers—a literal speech police. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits hold that bias-response teams objectively chill students’ speech; but the Fourth and Seventh Circuits hold that they don’t. Compare Speech First, Inc. v. Schlissel, 939 F.3d 756 (6th Cir. 2019); Speech First, Inc. v. Fenves, 979 F.3d 319 (5th Cir. 2020); Speech First, Inc. v. Cartwright, 32 F.4th 1110 (11th Cir. 2022), with Speech First, Inc. v. Sands, 69 F.4th 184 (4th Cir. 2028); Speech First, Inc. v. Killeen, 968 F.3d 628 (7th Cir. 2020). All five cases in this 3-2 split involve the same plaintiff, the same procedural posture, and the same basic facts. To quote Judge Wilkinson’s dissent below: “This circuit split creates a patchwork of First Amendment jurisprudence for schools across the country” on “the vitally important issue of free speech.”