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The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

Abstract

Private colleges and universities are generally free to depart from First Amendment standards regarding their own regulation of speech on campus and among campus community members. They may adopt more restrictive speech regimes that would sharply separate them from their public university counterparts which are bound by First Amendment requirements. In the modern era, private universities have nonetheless generally chosen to voluntarily embrace something like First Amendment principles to guide their own internal governance. Some would prefer that they shed those commitments and adopt some alternative speech regime. In this Article, I argue that private universities generally should adopt free expression policies that mirror the First Amendment, indicate the scope and limits of that approach, identify the core principles that such a commitment would require, and consider the rationale for a First Amendment regime and its primary alternatives.

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

169

Faculty Editor

Maimon Schwarzschild & Larry Alexander

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