![handle is hein.journals/firsamtu55 and id is 1 raw text is: FIRST AMENDMENT STUDIES
2021, VOL. 55, NO. 1, 1-21 cMUNCAON Routiedge
https://doi.org/10.1080/21689725.2021.1886966 SOCI'^ ' Taylor&FrancisGroup
ARTICLE
Opting in: Free expression statements at private universities
and colleges in the US
Erica R. Salkin and Colin Messke
Communication Studies, Whitworth University, Spokane, WA, USA
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY
While all colleges and universities are challenged by questions Received 11 August 2020
about free expression in the current environment, private higher Accepted 1 February 2021
educational institutions do so without the constitutional mandate KEYWORDS
of their public counterparts. Some private colleges and universities Free speech; private colleges;
have sought to independently affirm their commitment to free policies; expression;
speech through statements of principle or purpose. This study censorship
explores those statements in an attempt to understand if - and
how - free expression is presented as worth protecting in private
higher education.
In May 1974, the faculty at Yale University asked then-president Kingman Brewster, Jr. to
appoint a commission to explore the state of free expression at the university. The result
of that commission was a vigorous statement affirming free speech at a private institution
of higher education, as [t]o curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom,
for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also
deprives others of the right to listen to those views.i' Forty years later, the President of
the University of Chicago, another private institution, commissioned an exploration of
the same question at its campus. The result declared it is not the proper role of the
University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome,
disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.2
While conversations about free speech in higher education have often focused on
public colleges and universities, private institutions are no less relevant to the question or
susceptible to allegations of speech suppression. Those who teach at these institutions are
deeply impacted by their schools' attitudes toward free expression for instructors and
students alike. Without the guarantee of the First Amendment, private higher education
is left to freely affirm (or not) the right to speak or publish freely on campus. This article
seeks to explore if and how private colleges and universities describe the role of free
expression at their institutions. While most, if not all, institutions have policies about the
types of speech that may draw campus consequences - for example, threats, harassment
or copyright infringement - this article chooses to focus its content analysis on state-
ments like those of Yale and Chicago, which affirm a place for freedom of expression even
when it is not constitutionally mandated. Analysis sought common themes among these
CONTACT Erica R. Salkin ® esalkin@whitworth.edu O Department of Communication Studies, Whitworth University,
300 W. Hawthorne Rd, Spokane, WA 99251, USA
0 2021 National Communication Association](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/firsamtu55&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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