Lesson 58 - Free Speech 19:

MORE ON GOVERNMENT AS EDUCATOR, INCLUDING UNIVERSITIES

University (and college) students get more protection than K-12 students: The government gets no extra authority from its role as university educator.

In public spaces on campus -- sidewalks, quads, and the like -- the government is as constrained as it is any traditional public fora. On its computers, it's limited to what it can do acting as proprietor. It generally has no power to restrict speech because of its perceived "disruptiveness" or because of its rudeness (or at least so it seems; the cases are not completely clear).

On the other hand, in some contexts in *any* educational institution where free speech guarantees don't apply or apply only in the most limited way:

A. In the CLASSROOM: A professor can refuse to call on students based on their viewpoints (for instance, if their viewpoints seem wrong or irrelevant to this particular class or otherwise pedagogically useless). A university can punish students for being rude to other students in class.

Free speech principles don't apply much in the classroom. The only exception is that the university might not be allowed to punish students for expressing certain *viewpoints* in class, but a professor would still be able to shut these students up by not calling on them or by cutting them off.

B. In ASSIGNMENTS: A professor can and must judge students' written assignments (and oral class performance, where that's an issue) by their content, and often by their viewpoint. The viewpoint that the earth is flat will get you a zero in geography class. There might conceivably be some constitutional constraints in really extreme cases, but it's highly unlikely, so long as the teacher can give even a remotely plausible explanation of his reasons for the grade.

C. In SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS: K-12 schools can control whatever is written in their newspapers. A K-12 school newspaper is seen as the expression of the school (i.e., the government as speaker) *and* as a class project (i.e., speech as a school assignment). For both these reasons, the school is entitled to constrain it in more or less any way it pleases.

The same is probably true for school-funded newspapers, even if they don't give one class credit, but that's a closer call. It probably is not true for most college newspapers, even if they're subsidized by the school, since such newspapers are usually not seen as the school's voice.

authors:

Larry Lessig David Post Eugene Volokh

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	B.	In ASSIGNMENTS: A professor can and must judge students' written assignments (and oral class performance, where that's an issue) by their content, and often by their viewpoint. The viewpoint that the earth is flat will get you a zero in geography class. There might conceivably be some constitutional constraints in really extreme cases, but it's highly unlikely, so long as the teacher can give even a remotely plausible explanation of his reasons for the grade.
	C.	In SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS: K-12 schools can control whatever is written in their newspapers. A K-12 school newspaper is seen as the expression of the school (i.e., the government as speaker) and as a class project (i.e., speech as a school assignment). For both these reasons, the school is entitled to constrain it in more or less any way it pleases.