A Right to Talk Dirty: Academic Freedom Values and Sexual Harassment in the University Classroom
![handle is hein.journals/ucroun4 and id is 91 raw text is: COMMENTS
A Right to Talk Dirty?: Academic
Freedom Values and Sexual Harassment in
the University Classroom
AMY H. CANDIDOt
For many, [the university's] principal distinguishing characteristic is
unfettered expressive freedom... the one place that embraces, heart and
soul, John Stuart Mill's wide-open marketplace. For others, however, . . .
'a community of scholarship' seems more apt, with emphasis on the word
'community.' The university [embodies] equality, civility, tolerance, and
respect for human dignity; a place where the contemplative and rational
faculties of man should triumph over blind passion and prejudice. These
two images live side by side on campus.'
Public universities today are becoming increasingly diverse while remaining
committed both to academic freedom and equality. In theory at least, academic
freedom and equality are compatible values that support a vision of the uni-
versity as a community of scholars committed to the pursuit of truth, the
ideals of democracy, and autonomous self-fulfillment. In practice, however,
academic freedom and equality often appear to conflict when universities seek
to limit classroom speech in order to create a hospitable learning environment
for women. Attempts to prohibit hostile environment sexual harassment
perpetrated in the university classroom highlight the educational and societal
need to accommodate both academic freedom and equality. We should neither
allow professors to invoke academic freedom to avoid the consequences of
discrimination against women in the classroom, nor allow highly constrictive
regulation of classroom speech in the name of nondiscrimination to destroy the
important goals of academic freedom. So far, an effective compromise has been
elusive.
t. Amy H. Candido received her A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1994 and her J.D.
'from The University of Chicago in 1997.
1. Rodney A. Smolla, Academic Freedom, Hate Speech, and the Idea of a University,
53 L & Contemp Probs 195, 216-17 (Summer 1990).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ucroun4&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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A Right to Talk Dirty: Academic Freedom Values and Sexual Harassment in the University Classroom
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