Two months after filing a First Amendment lawsuit against George Mason University, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have reached a favorable settlement agreement with school officials on behalf of two female students at GMU’s Antonin Scalia Law School who criticized putting tampons in men’s bathrooms. The university censored two students, Selene Cerankosky and Maria Arcara, ordering them not to talk to a peer who wanted “feminine hygiene products” available in men’s bathrooms.
Cerankosky and Arcara had responded to a question about a proposal to let biological women use men’s bathrooms, by pointing out that it could also lead to biological males using women’s bathrooms. “Their classmate, who had claimed to be their representative to the student government and initially promised to ‘advocate for all’ students and viewpoints, responded by mocking their concerns and labeling their views as bigoted for questioning others’ gender identity,” in a September 2024 text message.
Soon afterwards, the campus DEI office placed no-contact orders on the two students, forbidding them to talk to the student who had asked for their opinions in a group text message:
Two weeks after third-year law students Selene Cerankosky and Maria Arcara expressed concerns about men in women’s restrooms in a private student group chat regarding another student’s proposal to add feminine hygiene products to male restrooms, GMU, without any explanation or warning, issued no-contact orders that prohibited them from having any contact with the other student. After ADF attorneys sued GMU for unlawfully enforcing its Title IX and Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion sexual harassment policy against the students for merely expressing their views, the university agreed to rescind the no-contact orders. GMU also agreed to change its policy to ensure that no-contact orders cannot be used to suppress, coerce, or punish the exercise of First Amendment rights and to pay Selene and Maria $15,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees.
“Universities—especially law schools—should be places of debate and discussion, and GMU has shown its commitment to this ideal with the settlement it reached with Selene and Maria,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “We applaud Mason for engaging in a dialogue about how no-contact orders are used on campus and for working with ADF to improve its procedures. ADF hopes these new measures will allow the university to continue to support students, maintain a safe environment, and foster the robust exchange of ideas that is the cornerstone of a college experience. Selene, Maria, and their fellow law students can now feel more confident that their fundamental freedoms of speech and religion will be respected on campus.”
In light of the settlement in Cerankosky v. Washington, ADF attorneys filed a notice of dismissal of the case Friday. In a similar case, ADF attorneys successfully defended a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville after the school punished her with no-contact orders for sharing her religious beliefs with other students on social media.
This is not the only case where no-contact orders were used to chill constitutionally protected speech. In 2022, Christian law students and a professor sued the University of Idaho after the university served them with no-contact orders for expressing their support of Biblical marriage between a man and woman. The lawsuit was settled with the university for $90,000 after the court issued a preliminary injunction against the university. ADF also represented the students in that case.
In addition to violating the First Amendment, imposing a no-contact order without any prior notice could also violate constitutional due-process protections, if it impacts the ability to get an education. In Tyree v. Evans, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that due-process rights entitled a man to not only to the opportunity to defend himself against domestic violence charges before a year-long no-contact order could be granted to his accuser, but also the ability to cross-examine her, before the court could impose the order against him.
Off campus, no-contact orders can sometimes violate the First Amendment rule against prior restraints, as a federal appeals court ruled in Alberti v. Cruise (1967).
