Speech Codes: The Biggest Scandal On College Campuses Today
Greg Lukianoff, president of campus free speech-defending theFIRE.org writes at Forbes.com about speech codes -- alive and squashing rights on college campuses across America...to an alarming degree:

An appalling 62 percent of institutions surveyed maintain policies that restrict a substantial amount of speech protected under the First Amendment--what we call "red light" speech codes. Such schools include Harvard, Columbia, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

...Speech codes come in many forms. The University of North Dakota bans student speech that "feels offensive" or "demeaning." The University of Missouri at St. Louis boasts a policy restricting speech that will "discredit the student body"...

...At public colleges, speech codes are unconstitutional. And as I demonstrate in my book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, administrators are unafraid to use them. But even when they aren't enforced, speech codes chill student speech and send the wrong messages about the values that should govern a free society--let alone our universities, which are supposed to be our most bustling marketplaces of ideas.

...There are four major factors that explain the tenacity of speech codes. First is the misguided belief that campuses must protect students, faculty, and administrators from offense of all kinds. Second is the dramatic expansion in the administrative class at universities over the past few decades. Third is ignorance among these armies of administrators of both First Amendment law and, perhaps more importantly, the moral principles and philosophy upon which that law is based.

Yet the fourth factor--fear of liability--may be most determinative. College lawyers incorrectly believe that speech codes can be a prophylactic measure against lawsuits for harassment or discrimination. This is wrong. Maintaining broad and vague speech codes won't stave off lawsuits, and universities may easily prohibit true harassment while protecting free expression by adopting policies that track existing legal definitions. Yet speech codes persist in large part because university general counsels, often far more worried about the expense and bad press of a harassment lawsuit than the comparatively rare and inexpensive free speech lawsuit, have deemed it rational from a cost-benefit standpoint to censor.

See FIRE's annual study of free speech codes here.