Law Commons^™

Get Out: Structural Racism And Academic Terror, Renee Nicole Allen

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Released in 2017, Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed film Get Out explores the horrors of racism. The film’s plot involves the murder and appropriation of Black bodies for the benefit of wealthy, white people. After luring Black people to their country home, a white family uses hypnosis to paralyze victims and send them to the Sunken Place where screams go unheard. Black bodies are auctioned off to the highest bidder; the winner’s brain is transplanted into the prized Black body. Black victims are rendered passengers in their own bodies so that white inhabitants can obtain physical advantages and immortality.

Like Get …

The Value Of The Marketplace Of Ideas: Academic Freedom In The American Academy, Daniel J. Perrone

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation surveys several landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases of academic freedom in the 20th and 21st century to argue for the value of a tolerant and liberal interpretation of unrestricted academic freedom. Central to its argument is a defense of Oliver Wendell Holmes 1919 ruling in Abrams that society is best served where all expressions are tested in a “marketplace of ideas,” a term first used by John Stuart Mill in his 1859 essay, “On Liberty.” In an era of increasing casualization of academic labor (the adjunct labor force) and political paranoia about terror, I conclude that the continual …

Expert Testimony By Public University Faculty: Exposing Doctrinal Deficiencies Of Academic Freedom As A Legal Right And Proposing A Solution Within The Public-Employee Speech Doctrine, Clay Calvert

University of Miami Law Review

When the University of Florida (“UF”) prohibited three professors in 2021 from serving as expert witnesses in a lawsuit filed against the State of Florida, the decision sparked a national debate about academic freedom and free speech at public universities. The professors also sued UF in federal court in Austin v. University of Florida Board of Trustees alleging a violation of their First Amendment rights. This Article asserts that the constitutional doctrine of academic freedom is sadly deficient for resolving such lawsuits. The Article explains, instead, that the public-employee speech doctrine provides the appropriate framework for analyzing cases filed by …

In The Name Of Diversity: Why Mandatory Diversity Statements Violate The First Amendment And Reduce Intellectual Diversity In Academia, Daniel M. Ortner

Catholic University Law Review

In the 1950s and 1960s in many parts of the country, a professor could be fired or never hired if he refused to denounce communism or declare loyalty to the United States Constitution. The University of California system took the lead in enforcing these loyalty oaths. These loyalty oaths were challenged all the way up to the United States Supreme Court and were soundly rejected, establishing the centrality of academic freedom and open inquiry on the university campus. So why are loyalty oaths making their resurgence in the form of mandatory diversity statements? Universities have begun requiring faculty members to …

Judges As Superheroes: The Danger Of Confusing Constitutional Decisions With Cosmic Battles, H. Jefferson Powell

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

“A Kind Of Continuing Dialogue”: Reexamining The Audience’S Role In Exempting Academic Freedom From Garcetti’S Employee Speech Doctrine, Michael A. Sloman

Georgia Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos
put further restraints on public employee speech by exempting
from First Amendment protection speech made pursuant to the
“official duties” of public employees. This limitation, if applied
to the speech of college professors, would constrain their
academic freedom of instruction and scholarship by permitting
overbearing institutional oversight. This constraint would be
detrimental not only to the employed professors, but also to
their students and the post-secondary educational system as a
whole. Courts should not apply Garcetti to academic freedom
in the post-secondary education context, and they should avoid
further limitations on …

Losing Liberty: A Biblical Defense For The Freedom Of Speech On Campus, Joseph J. Martins

Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the following scenario, two student groups face a philosophical dilemma at a major state university. The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) has invited Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to campus to lecture on the advantages of adopting socialism as America’s central financial policy. However, for the following week, Young America’s Foundation (YAF) has invited Donald Trump, Jr. to discuss how capitalism has made America a great nation. YDSA and YAF vigorously oppose the views that will be presented by the other organization’s speaker. YDSA believes that capitalism leads to gross income inequality and consolidation of power in the top 1%,2 …

The Thinness Of Catholic Legal Education, A Review Of Robert J. Kaczorowski, Fordham University Law School: A History, John M. Breen, Lee J. Strang

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

When Academic Freedom Collides With Religious Liberty Of Religious Universities, Tanner Bean, Robin Fretwell Wilson

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Sad Spiritual State Of American Colleges And Universities, Carol M. Swain

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mary And Martha: Putting First Things First In A College Education, Michael A. Scaperlanda

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Catholic University Approach To Campus Speech: Using Constitutional Academic Freedom To Hold The Tension Of Free Speech, Inclusive Diversity, And University Identity, Sara E. Gross Methner

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Religious Beliefs, Practices, And Experiences Of Law Professors, James Lindgren

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Catholic Perspective On Law School Diversity Requirements, Teresa Stanton Collett

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom And The Catholic University: An Historical Review, A Conceptual Analysis, And A Prescriptive Proposal, John M. Breen, Lee J. Strang

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Speech Across Borders, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As both governments and tech companies seek to regulate speech online, these efforts raise critical, and contested, questions about how far those regulations can and should extend. Is it enough to take down or delink material in a geographically segmented way? Or can and should tech companies be ordered to takedown or delink unsavory content across their entire platforms—no matter who is posting the material or where the unwanted content is viewed? How do we deal with conflicting speech norms across borders? And how do we protect against the most censor-prone nation effectively setting global speech rules? These questions were …

Silencing Discipline In Legal Education, Lucille Jewel

UTK Law Faculty Publications

In current times, the production of critical legal knowledge has become constrained by a neoliberal education mindset that emphasizes economic performance and measured outcomes over critical thought. In this essay, I argue that academic freedom, in the sense of being free to speak, write, and teach critical knowledge, both in the intellectual sense and in the law practice sense, is being eroded. And, I urge my critically minded colleagues that are traditional law scholars (tenure-track or tenured) to consider the circumstances of law teachers who currently do not have the protections of tenure but who generate valuable knowledge, particularly in …

Matters Of Public Concern And The Public University Professor., Chris Hoofnagle

Chris Jay Hoofnagle

Seeks to answer whether a professor's expression is a matter of public concern in order to qualify for constitutional protection; discusses public concern cases involving faculty expression. Suggests that the professor bears a difficult burden in passing this threshold test and that the scope of professors' protected speech has consequently been limited. (EV)

Silencing Discipline In Legal Education.Pdf, Lucille Jewel

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

In current times, the production of critical legal knowledge has become constrained by a neoliberal education mindset that emphasizes economic performance and measured outcomes over critical thought. In this essay, I argue that academic freedom, in the sense of being free to speak, write, and teach critical knowledge, both in the intellectual sense and in the law practice sense, is being eroded. And, I urge my critically minded colleagues that are traditional law scholars (tenure-track or tenured) to consider the circumstances of law teachers who currently do not have the protections of tenure but who generate valuable knowledge, particularly in …

Freedom Of Expression, Academic Freedom, And Equality: Seven Institutional Responsibilities, Emma Cunliffe

All Faculty Publications

This paper considers the institutional responsibilities that arise from the separate but related values of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and equality rights at Canadian public universities.

It introduces some applicable Canadian legal principles and considers whether freedom of expression can properly be limited. It also addresses the importance of institutional support for those who face threats or unfair criticism as a result of activities performed in the course of their university role.

The paper argues that universities should actively foster a robust and inclusive institutional culture that advances substantive equality while ensuring that policies and procedures do not place …

The One Fixed Star In Higher Education: What Standard Of Judicial Scrutiny Should Courts Apply To Compelled Curricular Speech In The Public University Classroom, Joseph J. Martins

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Virtually three-quarters of a century ago, the Supreme Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette recognized that the First Amendment protects citizens from being forced to speak. Often, new legal doctrines are announced cautiously and narrowly in anticipation of future judicial development. Not so with Barnette. The Court boldly proclaimed that the right to be free from state-compelled affirmation is so fundamental that it stands as the one “fixed star in our constitutional constellation” that cannot be moved. State assertions of power that seek to coerce citizens to affirm government-approved ideas will inevitably fail, except when narrowly …

Aba Standard 405(C): Two Steps Forward And One Step Back For Legal Education, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

There has long been opposition to guaranteeing that all full-time law faculty have security of position and participation in faculty governance the same as or substantially similar to tenure. ABA Accreditation Standard 405(c), was meant to provide such security of position and faculty governance for clinical faculty, though this standard has not been consistently interpreted to do so. The situation for legal writing faculty is even more precarious, because the standards only require a law school to provide legal writing faculty with the security of position and other rights necessary to attract and retain well-qualified faculty. As a result, most …

Finding A Path To Reconciliation: Mandatory Indigenous Law, Anishinaabe Pedagogy, And Academic Freedom, Karen Drake

Articles & Book Chapters

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called on law schools in Canada to make Indigenous law a mandatory component of legal education. In its final report, the Commission provides the outline of a rationale in support of this call to action. This paper builds on that outline by grounding the Commission’s rationale in the jurisprudence on section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Articulating a comprehensive rationale is useful for at least three reasons. First, such a rationale can underpin a response to the claim that a required Indigenous law course lacks value for those students who do not intend …

Church-Related Law Schools: Academic Values And Deference To Religion, Sanford Kadish

Sanford Kadish

Issues in the question of the Association of American Law Schools' acceptance or exclusion of church-related law schools that discriminate on the basis of religion are discussed. Basic principles of academic freedom, other forms of discrimination, and privacy are included, and this kind of religious discrimination is found to be unlike other discrimination issues. (MSE)

Just Between Yoo And He: Two Justice Department Lawyers' Imaginary Torturous Email, Stephen A. Rosenbaum

Publications

On December 9, 2014, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its long-awaited Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, which The New York Times described as “a portrait of depravity that is hard to comprehend and even harder to stomach.” The Times had reported four years earlier that a number of Department of Justice (DoJ) emails were determined to be missing during the Office of Professional Responsibility's investigation of the Bush Administration memoranda providing legal justification for “enhanced interrogations,” the so-called torture memos. What follows is an imaginary exchange of emails between two young …

A Contract Theory Of Academic Freedom, Philip Lee

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Professor As Whistleblower: The Tangled World Of Constitutional And Statutory Protections, Jennifer Bard

Jennifer Bard

Like Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the Duck Dynasty family, to Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, many professors at U.S. colleges and universities are surprised to find how little protection they have from the adverse consequences of their speech. The First Amendment is says nothing about either academic freedom or whistleblowing and it has been left to the Supreme Court to develop a doctrine as to when and if a professor’s speech is entitled to Constitutional Protection. This article considers the broad topic of protection for speech by professors other than that directly related to the views they express on …

Affirmative Action And Academic Freedom: Why The Supreme Court Should Continue Deferring To Faculty Judgments About The Value Of Educational Diversity, Steve Sanders

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

On The Need To Balance Endowments And Academic Integrity, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

As universities face revenues shortfalls due to national and global economic trends, administrators are forced to look for alternative funding streams. Some of the attractive options consist of creating satellite campuses in rich countries and accepting donors from individuals, corporations, and governments. What is the price of such new partnerships and what is the function of endowments for donors and the universities?

Smoking Out Big Tobacco: Some Lessons About Academic Freedom, The World Wide Web, Media Conglomeration, And Public Service Pedagogy From The Battle Over The Brown & Williamson Documents, Clay Calvert

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.