{"id":13726,"date":"2015-07-23T22:09:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T02:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=13726"},"modified":"2015-07-24T10:15:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T14:15:44","slug":"hayden-barnes-wins-900000-settlement-for-being-expelled-from-vsu-for-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/hayden-barnes-wins-900000-settlement-for-being-expelled-from-vsu-for-free-speech.html","title":{"rendered":"Hayden Barnes wins $900,000 settlement for being expelled from VSU for free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update 2015-07-24:<\/strong> Hayden adds detail in comments on this article: Andy Thomas, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 July 2015, Valdosta State U. Will Pay $900,000 to Settle Student’s Free-Speech Lawsuit<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nFinally!\r\nExpelled for protesting a parking garage,\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nafter VSU then-president Zaccari claimed a facebook collage was “threatening”.\r\nIf the powers that be around here want to be a metropolitan area,\r\nmaybe VSU should act like an institution of higher learning.\r\nThen it wouldn’t have to pay settlements like this.\r\n

\r\nKatie Barrows, FIRE, 23 July 2015,\r\n\r\nEight Years After Student’s Unjust Expulsion from Valdosta State U., $900K Settlement Ends ‘Barnes v. Zaccari’<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Today, more than eight years after his\r\nunjust expulsion, student Hayden Barnes’ federal civil rights\r\nlawsuit against Georgia’s Valdosta State University (VSU) and former\r\nVSU president Ronald Zaccari concluded with the announcement of a\r\n$900,000 settlement.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn the spring of 2007, Barnes was expelled from VSU by Zaccari for a\r\nsatirical environmentalist collage he posted on his personal\r\nFacebook page. With the help of the Foundation for Individual Rights\r\nin Education (FIRE), Barnes fought back by filing a civil rights\r\nlawsuit in 2008 against the university, Zaccari, other VSU\r\nadministrators, and the Board of Regents of the University System of\r\nGeorgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“After eight years, and one of the worst abuses of student\r\nrights FIRE has ever seen, Hayden Barnes has finally received\r\njustice,” said FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff.\r\n“Thanks to Hayden’s courageous stand, would-be censors at\r\npublic universities nationwide have 900,000 new reasons to respect\r\nthe free speech and due process rights of their students.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I am pleased to have finally reached a resolution. It has\r\nbeen an epic journey,” said Barnes. “However, it was a\r\nworthwhile endeavor because I know as a result of this case other\r\nstudents will have their constitutional rights respected. I\r\nsincerely appreciate the work of my counsel and of FIRE, both of\r\nwhom were instrumental in achieving justice.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Update 2015-07-24: Hayden adds detail in comments on this article: Andy Thomas, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 July 2015, Valdosta State U. Will Pay $900,000 to Settle Student’s Free-Speech Lawsuit. Finally! Expelled for protesting a parking garage, after VSU then-president Zaccari claimed a facebook collage was “threatening”. If the powers that be around here […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15,19,20,3,134],"tags":[1872,8705,8701,5159,8709,8702,8710,12,7,8585,8700,6,1175,8743],"class_list":["post-13726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-history","category-law","category-transparency","category-vsu","tag-civil-rights","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-hayden-barnes","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-ronald-zaccari","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-state-university","tag-vsu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3zo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13726"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13730,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726\/revisions\/13730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}