A number of other universities have also abandoned similar policies. The biggest step is probably the state of Virginia passing legislation designating all outdoor areas of public colleges as public forums: http://www.thefire.org/virginia-bans-unconstitutional-campus....
An organization called FIRE has a great tool that lists speech-restrictive policies at various universities: http://www.thefire.org/spotlight/
How free speech zones are constitutional for any organization that deals with federal money (which in usa is everyone if we see tax breaks as government hangouts)?
The Bill of Rights only applies to state actors, and receiving money from the government does not, by itself, enough. Essentially, you have to be working as an agent of the government. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_actor.
Now, public universities are clearly state actors, and the First Amendment applies. For such organizations, free speech zones are based on the principle that certain "time, place, and manner" restrictions on speech in public areas are Constitutional: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/timepla.... It probably wouldn't have been considered a violation of the First Amendment, even in the founder's day, to charge someone with disturbing the peace for protesting in a residential area in the dead of night, even if they were standing on a public sidewalk.
[1] On the flip side there are other people who argue that university grounds are not public forums per se, but are rather private property that happens to be owned by the government. They argue that university campuses are more like a government office building than a public street in that regard. See: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar....
As it notes, people have tried stretching the notion that time, place & manner restrictions are okay into all sorts of impermissible things, like placing unequal burdens on disapproved speech, requiring preapproval to protest, or using the restrictions to stifle speech rather than justifying them as the least restrictive means to fulfill a legitimate purpose.
The short answer is that the Supreme Court has held that restricting protests to particular places on campus is a reasonable "time, place, and manner" restriction, so long as the regulation leaves open some reasonable place for protests and does not discriminate on the basis of the protesters' message. (This is based on the dubious, but now legally established, principle that "protesting" is a mode of speech and not also a message. Some on the court would have held -- right, I think -- that a law that discriminates against protestors inherently discriminates between speakers' viewpoints.) The wikipedia page is reasonably informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone#Notable_incide...
(Though is leaves out Frisby v. Schultz, the case that held that laws regulating protests can be content neutral, among many other things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisby_v._Schultz)
Note also that it is not particularly relevant that an organization receives public funds. On the one hand, any school (or other organization) operated by a state is also subject to the federal constitution including the First Amendment (of course, this does not cover private schools). And on the other hand, I think your logic stretches too far: I reserve the right to kick you out of my dinner party because I don't like what you're saying. I receive "federal funds" in the form of various tax breaks. If I do actually kick you out, have I violated the First Amendment? I hope not.
The usual rule is that only the government itself (at any level -- or its agents, under certain circumstances) can violate the First Amendment (and almost all of the other amendments, with the notable exception of the 13th). I think it's probably better this way.
Time, place, and manner restrictions are there to prevent people from doing things in the name of free speech that you can't do anyway, like staying in a campus building after it would normally be closed or protesting in the middle of the street.
Restrictions on political speech in a place and time you can gather with other students to talk about the newest boy band or the unappealing nature of the cafeteria food don't pass constitutional muster for a public institution.
I think anyone who pays tuition at the university should have free speech anywhere, but people who are just random(crazy religious people and abortion activists) should be restricted.
I agree that abortion activists can be zealoted at times, but your statement illustrates precisely why restrictions on the first amendment are exempt from value judgements.
Stifling the speech of someone you categorize as 'crazy' is exactly why the first amendment exists. If everybody wanted to waste their free speech on how cute puppies were, we wouldn't need it.
A number of other universities have also abandoned similar policies. The biggest step is probably the state of Virginia passing legislation designating all outdoor areas of public colleges as public forums: http://www.thefire.org/virginia-bans-unconstitutional-campus....
An organization called FIRE has a great tool that lists speech-restrictive policies at various universities: http://www.thefire.org/spotlight/