A little while ago, Brian Tamanaha on Balkinization raised the question of what is the right response where professors insult in class; his post began as follows [with some added links]:

The November issue of National Jurist has an article about a recent spate of law professors getting into trouble for comments inside or outside of the classroom that apparently offended students. According to the article, a Wisconsin professor made comments about Hmong men [IHT] in the context of discussing cultural practices that might be invoked as a defense against criminal charges. A Quinnipiac professor sent an email to students on his distribution list that “derided� them “for their concepts of how poor people and ethnic minorities are represented within the American legal system� [Quinnipiac Chronicle]. A John Marshall professor was reprimanded for asking a Jewish student “whether his religious training contributed to Jews passing the bar at higher rates than African Americans� [De Paul]. The article did not mention the most recent example of such controversy, involving a professor at Connecticut who showed a film in class, pausing at a scene that offended a few of the students [Law.com].

I was reminded of this as I listened last night to Dean Rod Smolla‘s Inaugural Lecture at WLU (poster above) on

Freedom of Expression and Religion on the Modern Campus: Academic Freedom at Public and private Universities

His basic theme was that First Amendment doctrine is capable of explaining and guiding the development of the principles of academic freedom in the modern American university.…

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