I'll never forget Ruth Malhotra and Orit Sklar's battle against Georgia Tech. After enduring years of censorship on campus, including campus police disruptions of their events and a personal admonition from the university president to be silent, these two brave young women—one Christian, one Jewish—launched a legal challenge to a series of unconstitutional policies at the university. The school imposed a "speech code" on its students, threatening to punish any actions it found "intolerant," it confined free speech to a small "speech zone" on campus, and—incredibly—even published a "Safe Space" manual that purported to evaluate and endorse specific religions, explicitly preferring Buddhists over Baptists.
The legal battle was fierce, but liberty triumphed. The school changed its unconstitutional policies, the judge struck down its Safe Space manual as violating the Establishment Clause, and Ruth and Orit were awarded their attorneys' fees and costs.
But sometimes it didn't feel like a triumph. At the height of the case, Ruth was threatened with rape, disfigurement, and death. She moved out of her sorority house for fear of endangering her sorority sisters, and she had police protection on campus. Orit was subject to an avalanche of vitriol and slander.
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