Academic Freedom

The United States Supreme Court ruled that a public employee does not receive First Amendment protection when speech is made pursuant to his or her official duties. The AAUP and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression submitted a brief that opposed the official duties standard, but also made a separate claim cautioning the troubling implications for academic speech at public institutions. Fortunately, the Court refrained from applying their analysis to academic speech, noting that “there is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom...

This case involves a challenge by faculty and students at the University of Illinois-Champaign to the administration's policy prohibiting them from communicating with prospective student athletes.

Christina Axson-Flynn, a former student at the University of Utah, sued her university theater department professors for violating her First Amendment rights by requiring students perform in-class plays that Axson-Flynn found religiously objectionable.