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There's an important distinction to be made here between public and private colleges. Can't private colleges, being private entities, restrict speech however t
by karzeem 17y ago
There's an important distinction to be made here between public and private colleges. Can't private colleges, being private entities, restrict speech however they see fit, in the same way that your company can?
- mhb 17y agoYes. And the article addresses that distinction. Public institutions are legally obligated and private colleges are morally obligated as well as presumably also motivated by a desire to not appear hypocritical.
- tokenadult 17y agoHaving just done a word search in the article after reading the article, I don't think the article claims that there is any such distinction. The author of the article, of course, advocates that students generally enjoy broad free speech rights on campus, and gives examples from many different colleges and universities (state-operated and privately operated) where those rights have been severely restricted. I don't think the article gives any comfort on a LEGAL basis that private universities can be substantially more restrictive than public universities in this regard. "And of the 13 legal challenges launched since 2003 against codes that FIRE has deemed unconstitutional, each and every one has been successful. Given the vast differences across judges and jurisdictions, a 13-0 winning streak is, to say the least, an accomplishment."
- mhb 17y agoYet FIRE has determined that 71 percent of the 375 top colleges still have policies that severely restrict speech. And the problem isn’t limited to campuses that are constitutionally bound to respect free expression. The overwhelming majority of universities, public and private, promise incoming students and professors academic freedom and free speech. When such schools turn around and attempt to limit those students’ and instructors’ speech, they reveal themselves as hypocrites, susceptible not only to rightful public ridicule but also to lawsuits based on their violations of contractual promises.
- tokenadult 17y ago"Constitutionally bound" is not the only form of "legally required." To give the example of race discrimination in admission, the Supreme Court has HELD certain public university practices to be illegal under the fourteenth amendment, but it has also opined that the same practices are illegal for private universities under the federal statutes related to nondiscrimination by entities that receive federal funding. Just about all universities in the United States receive federal funding through channels that trigger federal statutory regulation. And, as the submitted article itself pointed out, any state legislature can regulate a private university in its territory (and the example of California regulating Stanford, a private university, was prominent in the article).
- mhb 17y agoThe OP (karzeem) inquired whether there is a distinction between public and private colleges with regard to their obligations not to inhibit free speech. The article addressed that. You might argue that the acceptance of strings-attached public money bears on whether a private college is truly private, but this does not change the fact that a truly private college and a public one operate under different legal regimes regarding free speech.
- karzeem 17y agoI agree that they're morally obligated, but there's more than one step between "they're morally obligated" and "courts should enforce that moral obligation". If colleges can be regulated in that way, then why not regulate corporations the same way? A company like Lockheed Martin probably gets a bigger percentage of its revenue from the U.S. government than any college.
- gyardley 17y agoSince most private colleges receive large amounts of public funding, this distinction is blurred considerably.