Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas chastised his SCOTUS colleagues over their refusal to intervene in a free speech case against bias response teams on college campuses, saying that current laws leave students with a "patchwork of rights."

Thomas noted that over 450 college campuses have bias response teams where students can report incidents they think involve bias against them or someone else.

“Given the number of schools with bias response teams, this Court eventually will need to resolve the split over a student’s right to challenge such programs,” Thomas wrote. “The Court’s refusal to intervene now leaves students subject to a ‘patchwork of First Amendment rights,’ with a student’s ability to challenge his university’s bias response policies varying depending on accidents of geography.”

Speech First, Inc. challenged the group on Indiana University's campus, asking the courts to prevent the response team from enforcing its policy on students with unpopular views about gender identity, immigration, and Israel.

"No surprise"

A District and Appeals court both rejected the challenge on the grounds that there was no real enforcement against students and that participation in meetings with the group was optional.

In the writ of certiorari submitted to the Supreme Court, Speech First wrote, “This Court hasn’t addressed the free-speech rights of college students since at least 2010. Over that time, those rights have not fared well.”

“Bias-response teams are designed to get as close to the constitutional line as possible, so it’s no surprise that they ‘have divided’ the lower courts,” the petition stated.

Even if the teams don't have any real power to give consequences, their presence and ability to make referrals could have a chilling effect on speech, opponents have argued.

Badgered

The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case allows this patchwork of rights to continue. In some states, students can challenge the teams, while in others they cannot.

The fact that it's conservative students bucking the majority liberal view on college campuses has made liberal Circuit Courts want to leave these cases be, but now even the conservative-majority Supreme Court seems to want to allow these students to be badgered relentlessly by their peers.

Thomas and Alito are undoubtedly the strongest conservatives on the court, but it's disappointing that their colleagues won't at least entertain the case and consider the issue of free speech rights on college campuses when things have moved in such a radical direction since they were last considered.

Never before have students been so strongly pressured to accept concepts like dozens of gender identities, hate toward Israel, and microaggressions.

Next campuses will have thought police trying to read people's minds and punish their wayward thoughts.

Wonder what the Supreme Court will do then?