Eugene's Hypos Come to Life

[Bill Funk]

Elizabeth Dale wrote:

> At 08:36 PM 9/26/01 -0700, Bill Funk wrote:
>
>>  In other words, can a public university prohibit
>> teachers from teaching their students that violent, illegal conduct is
>> worthy of praise?
>
> Surely even this prohibition is dangerously broad.

This is in response to both Professor Dale's and Shubha Ghosh's comments
on my question.
As indicated in my original message, I have no doubt that praise of
violent, illegal conduct is protected speech under the First Amendment,
and government cannot generally prohibit it or punish it.  I am not
trying to distinguish between some dangerous speech and other speech.
 My question goes to what limits there are on what a public university
can choose to teach and not teach.  Obviously, I think, a public
university can decide that it does not want to teach Victorian
Literature -- for whatever reason: not enough students enroll, it
demeans women, it's too eurocentric, whatever.  The reasons may be good
ones or bad ones, but I don't think there is a constitutional violation
if the university decides not to offer Victorian Literature for a bad
reason.  If that is so, it implies a power in the university to
determine the content of the courses it offers, or else the person
assigned to teach African-American Literature could instead teach
Victorian Literature.  We know that at some point the university's power
to dictate class content runs into "academic freedom," but academic
freedom is not the same as First Amendment protection.  After all, even
private university professors are protected by "academic freedom," at
least at any nationally accredited university.  Whether there is an
identity between "academic freedom" enjoyed by public university
professors and the First Amendment is an interesting question.  I had
always thought that academic freedom was probably more protective than
the First Amendment for public university professors, but maybe it
provides the content for the particular public employee First Amendment
rights of university professors.  I don't know, but I tend towards the
idea that the university can define the content of its courses in some
detail (meaning it can significantly limit the freedom of the teacher)
without violating the constitution.  Whether such action is a good idea
from a university's institutional perspective is, I think, an entirely
different question.  I too would have greater problems with limiting the
historian's comments on historical events than I would on limiting the
chemistry professor's work to develop nerve gas using household
chemicals, but I'm sure that a private university could prohibit a
teacher from praising violent, illegal conduct in class without
violating the constitution, and I'm not sure that a public university
couldn't do the same.

Bill Funk