Michael Norton, an attorney in Ames and University Counsel, spoke to the Student Government where he addressed questions and presented about the First Amendment on a public university campus.

Norton spoke about allowing the expression of ideas and welcoming diverse viewpoints including its history and the challenges it faces today.

“I think that the First Amendment is a core value of the university, it’s a core value of the state, not only because we are state actors and it applies to us but because it is consistent with the ideas of an academic institution to allow the free exchange of ideas,” Norton said.

Student Governments are not allowed to discriminate against those who have different ideologies. They are also not allowed to discriminate information, such as club flyers, based on personal or majority opinion.

The Iowa legislature passed a law prohibiting the student government from funding any organization that would violate someone’s First Amendment rights. They would also not be able to fund an organization that supports one ideology while declining funding to the other.

“If you have a majority system of government and they’re the ones deciding what speech is allowed or not allowed, then majority speech is always going to be protected and minority speech is always going to be not protected,” Norton said.

Norton said the First Amendment played an important role throughout history. He specifically spoke of the civil rights movement, McCarthyism and the Vietnam anti-war movement, addressing the importance of the First Amendment in protecting the rights of these individuals.

“The real issue when you think about, talk about, the First Amendment is do you want government to make valued decisions on what speech is good or bad,” said Norton.

The Student Government had addressed upcoming events including an access walk organized by the Student Initiatives Committee at 6 p.m. next Tuesday at Parks Library as well as the multicultural town hall on Monday at 5 p.m. in the Memorial Union.

The senate confirmed Savannah Kallaus, a sophomore majoring in biology, to the Student Initiatives committee as well as senator Khushi Patel, a freshman majoring in pre-business to the Finance Committee.

The Student Government meets at 6 p.m. every Wednesday in the campanile room of the Memorial Union.