Free Speech and Inclusion on College Campuses: A discussion with Professor Robert Post

Freedom of speech is most often cashed out in the language of rights, and in particular First Amendment rights. These rights were created in order to achieve important social purposes having to do with democratic self-governance. Professor Post will discuss the difficulties of applying these purposes directly to the context of college campuses. He will then offer an alternative framework within which to understand freedom of speech on college campuses, which is that of academic freedom. Academic freedom theorizes freedom of speech as flowing from the educational mission of higher education, and it leads to a fundamentally different conception of freedom of speech.