The First Amendment and the University Seminar (Fall 2025)

This 3-credit seminar is open to law students and advanced graduate students.

AB 201, Mondays, 4:00 - 5:52 pm

Description

The modern university has long faced political, ideological, and cultural pressures on its mission, purpose, and identity. In recent years, these pressures have intensified through debates over the boundaries of protest, diversity, civil discourse, and tolerance. These debates, in turn, implicate longstanding issues at the core of First Amendment theory and doctrine that reflect not only tensions within the university but those arising from the political, legal, and cultural frameworks in our larger society. What are the boundaries of disagreement? What are the acceptable modes of discourse? What should the university be amidst these debates, and are these aspirations even attainable?

This seminar explores these questions through close engagement with scholarship across a variety of disciplines. Grading will be based on three papers and class participation.

Objectives

Methodological  

  • Understand, appreciate, and craft arguments from different perspectives

  • Make principled distinctions and defend them

  • Learn how to ask good questions

  • Recognize the value of interdisciplinary approaches to law

  • Write clearly, cogently, and provocatively

  • Provide lucid and helpful feedback to one another

Substantive

  • Gain familiarity with some of the leading voices writing at the intersection of law, pluralism, and higher education

  • Integrate interdisciplinary critiques of institutions of higher education and their speech and discourse norms

Texts

Students should acquire the following books:

  • Sigal R. Ben-Porath, Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 2023)

  • Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time (Oxford University Press, 2012)

  • Evan Mandery, Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us (New Press, 2022)

  • David Rabban, Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right (Harvard University Press, 2024)

Assignments and Course Grade

Your grade in this course will be based on: (1) three short papers; and (2) class participation.

1) Papers

You will write three reaction papers in this course. Each paper should be between 7-9 pages and submitted in Microsoft Word.

You can choose which week to write your first two papers within the following constraints: (1) you must write one before fall break; (2) you must write one after fall break; and (3) you may not write one of your first two papers for our first or last classes. Each of your first two papers should explore the week’s readings, draw connections to other readings in the course, and convey whatever other thoughts come to mind. These papers should be clearly written with some sort of internal theme or focus rather than a disconnected list of observations.

Your third paper should be submitted by December 2. It should provide your overall assessment of the current and future possibilities of higher education in light of the course materials and class discussions and your sense of whether higher education is helping or hindering the aspirations of the First Amendment.

To receive credit for your first two papers, you must upload them to this box link by 10 am on the day of class. Your third paper should be uploaded by 5 pm on December 2.

Additionally, each of you should write a 1-2 page reflection on the session you attend for the conference I am hosting on September 11. (This reflection will be due by 5pm on September 12. It will not factor into your course grade but will be marked for completion.)

I expect you to follow my writing guidelines for all written submissions for this course.

I will provide feedback on your papers during the semester, making comments using Microsoft Word’s tracked changes and comments features. I will not assign letter grades to these papers. I will provide more feedback on your first two papers.

2) Class Participation

Do the readings, come with questions, and participate. If you are someone who tends to talk a lot, try to listen more. If you are someone who doesn’t talk much in class, this is a class in which you should talk.

For each class other than the first class, I will assign some of you to be on call to answer questions from me about the basic contours of the assigned readings. My focus on particular students will only apply at the beginning of class to help us lay the groundwork for each session. I expect all of you to participate in the balance of the class discussion each week.

Attendance and Classroom Policies

Your attendance and contribution to the discussion are crucial to making this class successful and a necessary part of engaging with the complex ideas that we’ll encounter. I recognize that many of you will have occasional foreseen and unforeseen conflicts, and I will accommodate those at the margins. But you should not take this course if you think you’ll miss a significant number of classes.

Laptop computers, phones, and other gadgets are not permitted in class. Students who violate the computer or phone use policy may have their semester grades lowered.

This class is a discussion-based seminar. It will not be recorded, and you are not permitted to make your own recordings of the class.

Communication

I do not have set office hours, but I am available to meet throughout the semester. Please schedule appointments through this site. If you are unable to find a time online that works with your schedule, you can email me to set up a time.

 I will make every effort to respond to your emails within one day of your having sent them, with the exception of emails sent over the weekend or holidays, which I will answer by the following business day.

You should feel free to use office hours not only to discuss our substantive readings but also to obtain help on your writing, to ask questions about graduate school or law school, or to talk about other academic or career interests.

Course schedule

Aug 25: What is a University?

  • Alasdair MacInytre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Chapter 10)

  • John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths (Chapter 5)

  • Report of the Harvard Committee, General Education in a Free Society (Chapter 2)

Sep 1: NO CLASS (Labor Day)

Sep 8: What is Education?

Sep 11: SPECIAL CLASS: “Educating for Citizenship: Universities and Democracy in a Pluralistic Society”

  • Required: attend one of the four principal sessions

  • Optional: private reception from 5:30 - 7:00pm

  • Optional: public dialogue with David French, Roosevelt Montás, and Mary-Rose Papandera (moderated by me) from 7:00 - 8:30pm

Sep 15: The University as First Amendment Institution

Sep 22: NO CLASS

Sep 29: Academic Freedom

  • David Rabban, Academic Freedom (Chapters 1-8)

Oct 6: NO CLASS (Fall Break)

Oct 13: Classroom Limits

Oct 20: Student Rights

Oct 27: Campus Protests

Nov 3: Inclusion Amidst Diversity: The Challenge of Belonging

  • Sigal Ben-Porath, Cancel Wars (Chapters 1-3)

Nov 10: Is the University Worth Saving?

  • Evan Mandery; Poison Ivy

  • Sigal Ben-Porath, Cancel Wars (Chapter 5)

Nov 17: My Views (and Your Critiques)

Nov 24: NO CLASS (finish final papers)

Additional readings (optional and background) [LIST IN PROGRESS]

  • Herb Childress, The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission (2019)

  • Andrew Delbanco, College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (2012)

  • Charles Dorn, For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America (2017)

  • Anthony Kronman, Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life (2008)

  • Stanley Hauerwas, The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God (2007)

  • Alasdair MacInytre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990)

  • Roosevelt Montás, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation (2021)

  • John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (1852)

  • Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (1998)

  • PEN America, Chasm in the Classroom: Campus Free Speech in a Divided America (2019)

  • Robert Post, Democracy, Expertise, and Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (2013)

  • Brian Rosenberg, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”: Resistance to Change in Higher Education (2024)

  • Joan Wallach Scott, Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom (2019)

  • Brian Z. Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools (2012)

  • Chad Wellmon, After the University (forthcoming 2025)

  • Keith E. Whittington, Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (2019)