Penn State reached a settlement in the lawsuit filed in February on behalf of Penn State student A.J. Fluehr, who alleged that Penn State's speech policies violated students' constitutional rights.

In the settlement, signed by Fluehr and Penn State President Graham Spanier, Penn State agreed to solidify revisions to its speech polices and award $15,000 in attorneys fees to the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which represented Fluehr in the suit.

Spanier did not return a phone call seeking comment by press time yesterday.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said he was not prepared to comment on the settlement.

Fluehr said he was motivated to file the suit because he felt it would be the most effective way to change Penn State's speech policies.

"It wasn't like I had a goal since I came to Penn State to sue the university," he said. "We felt that they weren't going to change it themselves so this was an appropriate course of action."

Penn State policies revised in the months after the lawsuit was filed include those on intolerance, nondiscrimination and harassment.

These policies were referred to in the original complaint as "Orwellian" and "overbroad."

David French, the attorney from ADF who represented Fluehr, said Penn State Policy AD-29, "Statement on Intolerance," was changed so that only students who were "motivated by discriminatory bias" when they violated a Penn State policy could be sanctioned for intolerance.

French said the prior policy allowed students to be sanctioned just for saying or doing something that offended someone else.

"You cannot be convicted of plain old intolerance," French said of the policy revision.

Fluehr said the old policy could have had a chilling effect on speech at Penn State.

"Obviously anything that anyone does could be offensive to anyone," he said.

The university has also agreed to modify its "Report Hate" Web site, www.equity.psu.edu/reporthate, to reflect the policy changes, French said.

Penn State Policy AD-42, "Statement on Nondiscrimination and Harassment," was modified to say, "To constitute prohibited harassment, the conduct must be such that it detrimentally affects the individual in question and would also detrimentally affect a reasonable person under the same circumstances."

"There were students who felt there was an atmosphere of oppression not for everyone, but for those students whose point of view was disfavored," French said.

Penn State Policy AD-51, "Use of Outdoor Areas for Expressive Activities," has also been modified, French said.

It used to list a number of campus locations "designated as areas suitable for expressive activity," including the front of Old Main and the Allen Street Gates.

At the bottom of the list, the policy used to read "Other areas on University property are reserved solely for their intended purposes."

French said removing the sentence opened up the other public areas on campus to speech.

"Deleting that sentence, in our view, changed the meaning of the policy a great deal," he said. "Now it says you can use these specific areas, but you can also use everywhere else," he added.

In the settlement, Fluehr agreed to drop complaints about regulations regarding what the student activity fee could be used to pay for.

Fluehr said he felt the settlement accomplished the goals of the suit.

"I am happy. Penn State was much more agreeable than I originally thought they would be," he said.