Should-Read: Robert Post: There is no 1st Amendment right to speak on a college campus: "Members of the university... enjoy special freedoms... academic freedom, not First Amendment freedom of speech...
...Academic freedom is defined in terms of the twin missions of the university; it encompasses freedom of research and freedom of teaching. Academic freedom does not entail the equality of ideas. To the contrary, it is defined as the freedom to engage in professionally competent teaching and research.
By contrast, because First Amendment rights protect the right of each and every person to participate in the magnificent process of self-governance, it forbids the state from evaluating the competence of opinions. Citizens are not students under the tutelage of the state; the state is rather the servant of the people. Students are, however, under the tutelage of the university, which is an arena of education, not of political self-governance.
The situation becomes somewhat more complex when speakers from outside the university, with only tenuous connections to the community, are invited to talk. Sometime such invitations raise questions of academic freedom...
