Law Commons^™

Individual Academic Freedom: An Ordinary Concern Of The First Amendment, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us, and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.

There is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court's customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same …

Justifying Academic Freedom, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

While academic freedom can only be described in relation to academic norms, its justification can and should depend on its contribution to the common good. Academics contribute to the common good by producing scholarship. But scholarship is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Academic freedom is justified not only because enables academics to produce more and better scholarship, but also because it enables academics to challenge academic norms that diminish the quantity or quality of scholarship they produce.