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The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

Richard Arneson

Abstract

In their essay on “Wrongful Student Speech and Rightful Private University Responses to It,” Professors Heidi Hurd and Michael Moore (hereafter, Hurd & Moore) deepen the discussion by situating it in a general account of moral limits on freedom of expression and by noting connections to some of their own views on moral theory. The result is an excellent primer on freedom of speech, and more than just a primer. Their general views are shown to have plausible implications for tangled questions about what private university administrators ought to do in response to problematic examples of campus protest. That this is so provides some support for their general views.

Hurd & Moore ask all of the right questions as they proceed, and offer many plausible answers. This comment for the most part ignores areas of agreement and focuses on some of their answers that are controversial, and indeed implausible, calling for rejection. These concern matters of general moral theory and basic freedom of expression doctrine. At the end of this comment I offer an illustration of how these disagreements will show up in the analysis and assessment of how private university officials should respond to disruptive, unruly, and wrongful student speech.

This paper is part of a Symposium on “Free Speech Beyond The Constitution” published in 27 Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues (2025).

Volume

27

Issue

1

Start Page

107

Faculty Editor

Maimon Schwarzschild & Larry Alexander

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