Free Speech on the Firing Line: the Legal Controversy Continues

Abstract

First Amendment speech rights are increasingly becoming a source of controversy on college and university campuses. As the Supreme Court struggles to establish a balance between the teacher, as citizen, and the university, as employer, the line between protected and unprotected speech has been bent but not broken. An examination of recent court decisions reveals some answers and provides educators with guidelines for determining the nature and extent of the protections offered within the purview of academic free speech rights. Indicators of the more typical issues raised about the conflict between free speech and academia are suggested. The free exercise of First Amendment rights is coming under greater scrutiny within the educational community. Increasingly, constitutionally protected interests-especially involving the freedom of speech-are being challenged by teachers and other educators. Due to recent developments, they could face discipline up to and including termination for classroom utterances. The problem, as enunciated by the Supreme Court, has been to establish a balance between “the interests of the teacher, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern” and the “the interests of the state, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public service it performs” [ I , pp. 1734-17351. In this leading case, the right of faculty to speak out on public matters was settled in part but questions still remain unanswered. The Supreme Court, in Pickring, refrained from establishing a general standard for judging statements by public employees [l]. Where, then, is the line between protected and unprotected speech to be