University settles with college senior in free speech dispute

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    PHOENIX, AZ (KTVK/KPHO) — What started as a tweet turned into a controversial lawsuit about free speech between a student and Arizona State University.

“Arizona State University and Rae’Lee Klein have agreed to settle a dispute that led her to sue the Arizona Board of Regents, ASU, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and interim Dean Kristin Gilger,” ASU announced in a statement this week.

Rae’Lee Klein, the student station manager at ASU’s Blaze Radio, is being pressured to resign after posting a tweet Saturday morning referencing a New York Post article about the sexual assault allegation against Jacob Blake.

“I mean, there’s (sic) a lot of students with the university that know me and know my name and aren’t happy with what I did and the decision that I made,” said Klein, a senior at ASU.

She’s in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“I was the station manager of the student-run radio station, Blaze radio, and I’d sent out a tweet from my personal account,” said Klein. “It was an article from The New York Post that outlined the sexual assault allegations against Jacob Blake.”

In that tweet, Klein said, “Always more to the story, folks. Please read this article to get background of Jacob Blake’s warrant. You’ll be quite disgusted.”

Blake is a black man who was shot by police in Wisconsin.

“People were very upset and off putting of my wording of the tweet, and it eventually evolved to asking me to resign from my position,” said Klein.

She got in trouble with her fellow over this tweet.

“We were unanimous as a board,” said interim station manager for The Blaze, Jordan Spurgeon. “We all voted that we basically had no confidence in her and that we asked her to resign.”

Klein sued.

ASU says the courts denied a request that would have prohibited her removal as station manager.

In January, the college said Klein asked to settle for $500,000.

“It was never trying to get a monetary gain,” said Klein. “It was more a principle and setting an example that this type of cancel culture and thought policing running on college campuses is eventually going to lead to these lawsuits.”

Now, she’s agreed to settle for about $7,000. Klein says that reimburses her for school fees.

ASU declined an interview, but sent a statement saying in part, “ASU is committed to the pursuit of journalistic excellence that Walter Cronkite personified and the protection of free speech rights under the First Amendment, which are core tenets of the Cronkite School.”

“I think we did what we set out to do, which is to set an example, a precedent that students being a victim of this cancel culture are getting tired of it,” said Klein.

Klein agreed to settle for about $7,000 which reimburses her for school fees.

She plans to go to law school after graduating from ASU this spring.

“Hindsight, I would still send it out because I think it sparked a really important discussion and a really important event that needed to happen within America and within ASU,” said Klein.

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