May 2025

Face to Face: Academic Freedom and Free Speech

May 1, 2025   |   Alex Likowski

“If any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country, and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country…The professors are the enemy.”

Those were the words of then senate candidate J.D. Vance in 2021 at the National Conservatism Conference. In that speech Vance was arguing that universities play an outsized and biased role in shaping American thought and perceptions of reality.

Just a few years later, the struggle of ideas regarding universities and academic freedom has reached a full boil.

But fights over academic freedom aren’t new. Stepping back a bit, the birth of our modern idea of academic freedom can be traced back to the 1890’s and The Ross Affair at the Leland Stanford Jr. University. Young economics professor Edward Ross’ writings about the Free Silver movement put him at odds with university co-founder Jane Stanford. She wanted him fired, but the university’s president held back. When Ross’ writings eventually veered into overtly racist complaints about Japanese immigration, Ross was finally let go.

Colleagues like English professor William Henry Hudson were outraged. “The dismissal of Dr. Ross for the high misdemeanor of honestly expressing his opinion about important questions to which he has given careful and constant study is the most terrible blow which has ever befallen this university," he wrote.

Several other professors left Stanford at the same time, creating a national story and providing the impetus for the creation of the American Association of University Professors to provide legal and financial support for universities and their faculties.

Over the next several decades with the help of groups like the AAUP academic freedom became generally understood as freedom in the classroom to teach and outside the classroom to pursue knowledge and release findings without unreasonable institutional or government interference.

There are limits, of course. Speaking outside of one’s area of expertise may not be covered. Neither is speech that defies professional ethics or legal boundaries, such as libelous or threatening speech.

Academic freedom is not law and is not synonymous with freedom of speech, but the two are closely related. Adding to any confusion, the First Amendment bars the government from regulating speech, and public universities are arms of the government. But private universities are not, so they may regulate speech on campus, such as promoting religious or political teachings and restricting contrary views.

Over the last few years, universities have been greatly tested in the clash of views on campuses and what schools do to promote the exchange of ideas while protecting students and their rights.

A great example of that occurred right here at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) in March. A conservative student group at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law invited Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to a fireside chat with Carey Law Professor Mark Graber, PhD, JD. Roberts is often called the architect Project 2025, a conservative plan to break down and remake the federal government. Many urged the school to cancel the event, but Dean Renée Hutchins Laurent, JD, told students, “The vigorous defense of free expression serves as a bedrock of our republic, even when that speech is odious and even when the speaker is immovably set in their position. Tempting as it is in these times to abandon core commitments to fundamental values, now more than ever we must do all we can to maintain the guardrails of democracy, including free expression.”

Of course, our recent incident pales in comparison to what’s been happening on college campuses all over the country since Hamas’ invasion of Israel in 2023. Mostly pro-Palestinian groups have staged hundreds of protests on campuses, speaking out against Israeli military actions in Gaza and demanding university disinvestment from Israeli institutions. Some pro-Palestinian protestors argued they were mistreated and falsely arrested. Some Jewish students complained their universities largely dismissed concerns about harassment and the intimidation imposed by tent encampments and threatening speech.

In December of that year, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn appeared before a house committee. New York congresswoman and Harvard alumna Elise Stefanik created a viral moment with this question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?”

“It can be, depending on the context,” responded then Harvard president Claudine Gay. The other two presidents answered in similar fashion: maybe. One viral video month later, Gay and Penn President Liz Magill were out, but the debate about the limits of free speech and the responsibilities of universities to maintain safe and harassment-free environments continued, along with the protests.

After just nine days in office, President Trump signed an executive order outlining measures to combat antisemitism on campuses, which was quickly followed by a Department of Education announcement that its Office of Civil Rights would investigate protest-related Title VI complaints at five universities, including Columbia University. “This administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses, nor will it stand by idly if universities fail to combat Jew hatred and the unlawful harassment and violence it animates,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. Although the First Amendment does protect symbolic speech, like encampments and sit-ins, there are tools available to universities if they want to use them, such as time, place, and manner restrictions.

After $400 million of Columbia’s federal grants were frozen in March, that university agreed to overhaul its disciplinary process, hire more police with arrest powers, and even to make some faculty changes – although they have not yet agreed to enter into a consent decree.

The breakwater – at least for now – appears to be the nation’s first university and one of the largest recipients of federal grants – Harvard. In an April 11 letter, the Department of Education and HHS issued Harvard ten demands ostensibly aimed at curbing antisemitism including instituting viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring, changes to a dozen programs and schools, and shuttering all DEI activities “under any name.”

Harvard’s refusal to comply triggered a strong rebuke from the administration and a freeze of over $2 billion in grants. A few days later Harvard asked a federal judge to declare that freeze unconstitutional on several grounds, including violating the First Amendment.

"All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions," the complaint said.

By the next morning, the school was joined by 150 other institutions – including UMB - under the umbrella of the American Association of Colleges and Universities in a letter speaking out against what the letter calls “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” The letter indicates acceptance of legitimate government oversight while asserting “the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom.”

In other words, academic freedom.

Academic freedom and freedom of speech on college campuses was the subject of Virtual Face to Face on April 29. Host UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, was joined by Carey Law Dean and Professor Renée Hutchins Laurent, JD, and University System of Maryland Regents Professor Mark Graber, JD. Following a discussion of the issues, the panel answered questions from the audience.