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UCLA and many other college campuses could be violating freedom of speech laws, according to a recent study by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a Philadelphia-based civil liberties group.

According to its findings published in December, 68 percent of universities restrict speech protected by the First Amendment.

UCLA was one of the schools noted as having at least one policy which “clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech” and “unambiguously infringes on protected expression.”

The group’s report, “Spotlight on Speech Codes 2006: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses” surveyed the policies of 330 universities nationwide between September 2005 and September 2006.

The report ranked universities’ speech codes with green, yellow or red lights.

Universities with red lights had at least one policy that FIRE said unambiguously restricts “important categories of campus expression.”

Of the universities found to be restricting speech, 76 percent received “red light” grades, including UCLA, USC and all the other University of California campuses except Berkeley.

According to FIRE, these universities maintain free speech policies which violate the First Amendment by regulating the literal content of speech.

“Codes that would be laughably unconstitutional in the public sphere dominate at colleges,” Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE, said in a statement.

But university officials were skeptical of the report’s findings.

Robert Naples, assistant vice chancellor for UCLA Student and Campus Life, said FIRE has often taken a “zealous” interpretation of the First Amendment.

“Only a court determines that we have crossed the line,” he said.

He added that UCLA regularly looks at these policies and tries to balance a respect for the First Amendment with the desire to maintain a harmonious student environment.

“We think we’ve probably struck the right balance,” he said.

Undergraduate Students Association Council President Marwa Kaisey said that while UCLA’s policies are often necessary to protect individuals from feeling discriminated against, anytime they limit a person’s ability to voice their opinion on a general subject, they are actually harmful to college education.

“The college experience would not be as rich without exposure to those who think differently from us,” she said.

But she added that discriminatory speech can “stunt our intellectual development” by creating an environment in which students are afraid to express themselves.

FIRE has launched legal challenges against many universities and colleges on their speech codes and has defeated similar policies at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, Texas Tech University, Citrus College and the State University of New York at Brockport.

These cases challenged disciplinary actions taken by schools against students for breaching speech codes.

Derek Langhauser, general counsel for the Maine Community College System, remarked in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that students who are prosecuted because of these codes will lose the opportunity to get an education.

To date, UCLA has not prosecuted students because of speech codes, according to Naples.

But FIRE has claimed that it will continue to oppose any unconstitutional free speech policies in universities and colleges.

“Speech codes have lost in the courts whenever they have been challenged, and they are a failure with the public who rightfully believe that colleges and universities rely on free speech in order to function,” Lukianoff said in a statement.