Trustee Responsibility Free Speech

Liam Knox
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Selective colleges began unveiling demographic data for the Class of 2028, the first admitted after the 2023 affirmative action ban, just a few weeks ago, and already legal threats are flying.

Students for Fair Admissions, whose lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina led the Supreme Court to strike down race-conscious admissions last June, wrote letters on Tuesday to the general counsels of Yale, Princeton and Duke Universities asking for details about their admissions processes, accusing them of noncompliance with the ruling. In the letters, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, SFFA president Ed Blum said he was “deeply concerned” that the institutions had violated the affirmative action ban.

Laura Spitalniak
Higher Ed Dive

Excerpt: In August, regional AAUP conferences surveyed 2,924 faculty members from twelve Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Roughly 60% of survey participants hold tenure.

Over half of faculty cited salary concerns and their state’s political climate as factors pushing them to pursue other employment, at 56.5% and 53.3% respectively. And 49.6% cited concerns over academic freedom.

Aaron Ross Powell
The Unpopullist, Substack

Excerpt: Today we’re diving into one of the most pressing issues of our time: free speech. Our host Aaron Ross Powell is joined by a special guest, Ken White—better known online as Popehat—a First Amendment expert, seasoned criminal defense attorney, civil litigator, and cohost of the Serious Trouble podcast.

Together, they’ll explore some of the most pressing questions in free speech discourse today: Have we become too quick to label some speech as offensive? Are we idealizing a past where free expression was supposedly more open? And, most importantly, how can we foster richer, more nuanced conversations in an increasingly polarized world?

Bill Frezza
Heterodox STEM, Substack

Excerpt: I recently had the pleasure of serving as one of the judges for a high school debate program called Incubate Debate held at the New College of Florida. It also included an evening speaking to and with the students involved, who ranged in age from 12 to 18. They had spent an entire week in this residential program training for the big event, learning how to research and debate complex and controversial issues with vigor, clarity, and civility.

I was shocked by how outspoken, courageous, courteous, studious, poised, well-informed, attentive, and totally uninfected by the Woke Mind Virus these kids were. It gives me fresh hope for the next generation.

Cass Sunstein
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine

Excerpt: Public colleges and universities are bound by the First Amendment. Their private counterparts are not (though a state might choose to apply the requirements of the First Amendment to them, as California has largely done). But if private universities choose to follow the First Amendment, they will make life a lot easier, and also a lot better, for faculty, administrators, and students alike.

One reason is that First Amendment principles make most cases easy. Still, there are plenty of hard cases. Many of the hardest arise when a college or university claims that restrictions are justified by its educational mission. In some cases, such restrictions really can be so justified. A university can direct a history professor to teach history, not physics, in a history class. That's a form of content discrimination, and it's okay.

Michele Exner
Law & Liberty

Excerpt: Higher education is an important part of our society, so the question then becomes, how do we work to restore trust in these institutions? How can we work to truly make them neutral learning grounds where students can come to discuss ideas without having to fear retribution for their political beliefs?

In You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms, Keith Whittington, a professor and scholar who has spent decades writing on the cross-section of academic freedom and the US Constitution, provides a well-researched and resourced analysis of the current issues facing colleges and universities, specifically public institutions.