http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/10/01/the-cuny-petraeus-imbroglio-even-uncivilized-students-have-their-rights/
Harvey Silverglate, Contributor
I write about injustices in the justice system.
LAW | 10/01/2013 @ 8:00AM |1,059 views
The CUNY-Petraeus Imbroglio: Even Uncivilized Students Have Their Rights
One does not hear much these days about university faculty members coming out loudly and publicly in support of academic freedom. So I was startled when I read that on September 13th the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee at the City University of New York (“CUNY”) issued a statement criticizing CUNY student protests against the school’s appointment of former CIA director and Army general David Petraeus as “Macaulay Honors College Visiting Professor” as an attack on academic freedom. But then I realized that this statement furthered the cause of faculty freedom, a right professors too often consider far more sacrosanct than the freedom of students to speak. (After all, faculty rarely challenge – and often support – the speech codes plaguing most campuses today.) The CUNY Faculty Senate Executive Committee has seemingly sought to protect what it views as faculty academic freedom by seeking an arguable restriction of student academic freedom to criticize both a faculty member and the university’s decision to offer him a visiting lectureship.
<>
The kerfuffle over Petraeus’ presence at CUNY reminded me of one of my earliest college disciplinary cases dealing with the line between protected speech (that is, speech protected by academic freedom) and prohibited true harassment. In the early 1970s I represented a group of Harvard undergraduates who were exceedingly unhappy that a Harvard faculty member and administrator, Professor of History and Dean of Harvard College Ernest May (recently deceased), had a side gig as advisor to the United States Department of Defense. The students, firmly in the anti-war camp, sought to protest what they viewed as Harvard’s unseemly contribution to the war effort.
The Harvard undergraduates shadowed Dean May everywhere he went. In the morning, when he left his home to walk to the campus, a student contingent was waiting to follow him, shouting, rhythmically and without interruption, “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!” The group waited while May performed his assigned duties, then the students continued to follow May with their chant. This continued 24 hours a day, since several groups of students switched off in performing their protest.
Dean May complained to the Administrative Board, Harvard College’s student disciplinary body, which charged the students with harassment for following May “closely” while shouting “murderer.” At the Administrative Board hearing, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz and I represented the students. We argued that their actions toward Dean May constituted an exercise of their right to free speech that was not just permissible but protected by principles of academic freedom. Were Harvard a public university, we pointed out, the protections of the First Amendment would likewise kick in. (Private institutions, in contrast to a public university like CUNY, are not bound by the Bill of Rights.)
The Administrative Board absolved the students of the charges, although it warned them to keep a respectable distance from Dean May at all times so as not to interfere with his mobility, nor his physical comfort (that is to say, they could not shout directly into his ear). As for Dean May’s psychological comfort, he would simply have to live with the criticism that came with his position with the Department of Defense while a Harvard faculty member and administrator. (Harvard College later changed its rules to prohibit the presence of lawyers, or even law school professors, at student disciplinary hearings, but that’s another story.)
<>
= new reply since forum marked as read
