According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), the legislation would not have a significant fiscal implication for the State of Texas. Institutions of higher education are expected to be able to comply with the requirements of the bill, such as updating expressive activity policies, enforcing new restrictions, and implementing disciplinary and grievance procedures, within their existing budgets and resources. The bill does not mandate the creation of new agencies, personnel, or large-scale infrastructure, which helps limit its fiscal impact.

Although SB 2972 requires each public college or university to adopt and publish detailed policies regarding expressive activities and enforce specific restrictions (e.g., on noise, masks, or time-of-day usage), the LBB assumes these administrative tasks fall within the institutions’ current operational capacities. Texas public higher education systems are generally equipped with legal and student affairs offices that already manage free speech guidelines and student conduct, and can therefore integrate the bill’s provisions without significant additional expense.

At the local level, no significant fiscal impact is anticipated for community colleges or other locally governed higher education institutions. These entities similarly maintain administrative structures to handle policy enforcement and public safety on campus, which could absorb any added responsibilities.

In summary, while SB 2972 may require procedural and policy adjustments at public institutions of higher education, the fiscal note indicates that these changes are expected to be manageable within existing administrative and financial frameworks, resulting in no major fiscal burden for the state or local governments.

SB 2972 proposes substantial revisions to state law governing expressive activities at public institutions of higher education. While its stated purpose is to protect constitutionally guaranteed speech while preserving public order, the bill's approach narrows the scope of expressive rights in ways that raise multiple concerns about liberty, institutional discretion, and constitutional alignment.

One major change is the narrowing of expressive activity rights to only include students and employees, removing protections for members of the general public. This shift potentially undermines the open nature of campus spaces, which have historically functioned as traditional public forums for public discourse. Additionally, the bill authorizes institutions to designate which areas are public forums and removes long-standing First Amendment standards such as the requirement for content neutrality, viewpoint neutrality, and “narrow tailoring” in regulating time, place, and manner restrictions. These omissions raise concerns about the risk of arbitrary or ideologically biased restrictions on speech.

The bill also imposes a range of prohibitions, such as banning expressive activities during the last two weeks of a semester, between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., and forbidding encampments, masks, amplified sound, or flag alterations. While intended to prevent disruption, these provisions risk being overly broad and may restrict peaceful protest, symbolic speech, and public assembly beyond what is necessary to maintain campus order. This could have a chilling effect on student activism and dissent, particularly during high-visibility academic periods.

Another concern lies in the requirement for students and employees to present proof of identity to law enforcement upon request while engaging in expressive activities. While this may be intended to maintain accountability, it introduces a surveillance dynamic that could deter individuals from exercising their rights, especially in sensitive political contexts.

Finally, while the bill affirms the importance of free expression in higher education, its specific restrictions and removal of key constitutional safeguards tip the balance too far toward institutional control. In doing so, it may erode the very expressive freedoms it seeks to uphold, while creating ambiguity about what forms of protest are permitted or prohibited.

For these reasons, the bill in its current form is not sufficiently protective of liberty principles such as individual freedom of expression, limited government, and viewpoint neutrality. Therefore, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on SB 2972.

• Individual Liberty: The bill significantly restricts individual liberty in the context of free expression on public college campuses. While it claims to affirm the First Amendment rights of students and employees, it imposes sweeping limitations on when, where, and how expression may occur. By excluding expressive rights for members of the public and narrowing protections to only students and employees, the bill removes longstanding access to campus as a public forum for broader civic engagement. Moreover, it bans expressive activities during critical periods (e.g., finals), prohibits the use of certain symbolic tools like sound amplification or flags, and limits speech based on time (10 p.m. to 8 a.m.). These broad constraints could suppress peaceful protest and symbolic expression, undermining the core freedoms of speech, assembly, and petition.
• Personal Responsibility: The bill promotes a limited version of personal responsibility by mandating that institutions set clear behavioral expectations for students and employees engaging in expression. It creates disciplinary consequences for interfering with others' speech or violating expressive activity policies. However, these provisions are undercut by vague language and subjective enforcement risks, which could blur the line between enforcing responsibility and suppressing dissent. Furthermore, the requirement that individuals present identification to peace officers on request while protesting, without clarifying under what conditions, shifts the burden away from state restraint and toward institutional policing of expression, which may penalize responsible protest rather than protect it.
• Free Enterprise: Though not directly targeting economic activity, the bill could indirectly affect free enterprise by chilling the types of discourse that foster open debate, entrepreneurship, and civic innovation on campuses. Colleges and universities are critical incubators for new ideas, and this bill introduces constraints that may limit open dialogue, particularly on controversial or emerging topics. Restrictions on speakers, amplified speech, and evening activities could deter campus events, student-led initiatives, and third-party partnerships that rely on dynamic, expressive environments. The curtailing of expressive diversity on campus risks stagnating the intellectual exchange that underpins a healthy free-enterprise culture.
• Private Property Rights: Because this bill applies only to public institutions of higher education, it does not directly infringe on private property rights. However, the policy implications may erode the concept of quasi-public spaces—publicly funded areas that are traditionally open to a wide range of expressive activity. By empowering institutions to reclassify or restrict these areas as limited-access zones, the bill reduces public accountability in managing taxpayer-funded spaces, thus indirectly diluting the public’s stake in how shared property is governed.
• Limited Government: While the bill aims to give institutions tools to manage campus disruptions, it actually expands the scope of government control over expressive conduct. The removal of viewpoint-neutrality and content-neutrality requirements allows for broader, less restrained administrative discretion, inviting potential abuse or inconsistent enforcement based on ideological preferences. The bill further weakens checks on government authority by eliminating the requirement that restrictions be “narrowly tailored” to serve significant interests. In place of precision and restraint, it introduces broad prohibitions and grants institutions expansive regulatory authority. This marks a shift away from limited government, toward increased bureaucratic oversight of fundamental rights.