IOWA CITY — Iowa State University’s unconstitutional crackdown on a pro-marijuana student group’s T-shirts will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs, according to a partial settlement approved Tuesday.
The State Appeal Board voted to pay $150,000 in damages to two leaders of the university chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws whose free-speech rights were violated by campus administrators. The board also approved a $193,000 payment to two law firms that represented the group for their efforts to defend against the university’s unsuccessful appeals, and additional legal fees for their trial work in an amount to be decided by a judge.
The costs stem from what federal judges found were the university’s politically motivated, illegal attempts to ban T-shirt designs that featured the Iowa State mascot and a small cannabis leaf — and its yearslong, unsuccessful defense of those efforts in court. The payouts will come from the state’s general budget.
“It is an unambiguous win for our clients and for the First Amendment and for an understanding that violating people’s rights isn’t free,” said the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Robert Corn-Revere. “One reason we urge universities to settle early is to avoid these kinds of expenses.”
He said he expects to request a fee award that is “substantially more” for trial work than the $193,000 awarded for the appeals, based on the amount of time spent. The deal requires the state to increase the amount awarded by $15,000 to compensate lawyers for their time spent on the fee application.
The costs do not include work by the taxpayer-funded Iowa Attorney General’s office, which represented former ISU President Steven Leath and three other administrators who were found responsible for the constitutional violations.
