On Sept. 4, Wake Forest University welcomed David M. Rabban, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, to campus to lead a lecture titled “Differentiating Academic Freedom from Free Speech.”
The Department of Politics and International Affairs, the Wake Forest School of Law and the Delta of North Carolina Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa co-sponsored the event. It was held in the Law School Auditorium at the Worrell Professional Center and was open to students, faculty and the general public.
Rabban serves as the Dahr Jamail, Randall Hage Jamail, and Robert Lee Jamail Regents Chair in Law and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas School of Law. The talk drew from his recent book, “Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right.”
Rabban began the discussion by specifying that First Amendment academic freedom applies to executive and legislative actions that affect public universities, but does not apply to private universities.
“A professor at a private university can invoke the First Amendment right of academic freedom to challenge legislation, but not to challenge college administrators or trustees,” Rabban said. “It’s something people often lose sight of, but as you can see, it’s very important.”
Rabban focused largely on a discussion of how hundreds of court cases in the past 60 years have identified academic freedom as a “special concern” of the First Amendment, but have not elaborated on the relationship between academic freedom and free speech as a First Amendment right.
“In my opinion, a convincing theory of academic freedom as a First Amendment right must differentiate academic freedom from free speech, while at the same time explaining why academic freedom fits within the First Amendment,” he said. “It’s complicated, but it’s necessary.”
Rabban then explained multiple factors he believes complicate the analysis of academic freedom as a First Amendment right of professors, before also considering the First Amendment rights of universities themselves.
The end of the lecture discussed recent laws related to academic freedom that Rabban believes to be unconstitutional, such as Florida’s “Stop Woke Act,” which he discussed briefly.
“This legislation, even the title, indicates the extent of interference with what’s going on in universities. Anything perceived as ‘woke’ would be illegal,” he said. “This legislation is way beyond asking what you’re teaching, it’s saying ‘You can’t teach this,’ so it’s much more intrusive and to me, based on [previous court decisions], it is clearly unconstitutional.”
The event concluded with a period of questions and comments from the audience.
Freshman Henry Holt attended the event due to an interest in the current presidential administration’s actions regarding educational curriculum.
“I was interested in the lecture because my mom is a professor and she has recently had to change her curriculum because of the current presidential administration, and I was wondering about the legal implications in that situation,” Holt said.
Wake Forest senior Sarah McMeekin attended the lecture for her American Constitutional Law class and was inspired by Rabban’s knowledge and enthusiasm.
“A large takeaway for me was how passionate he was about what he was talking about and his sincere love for the law,” McMeekin said. “I think the role of academic freedom is so interesting and how undeveloped it is. It will be interesting to see in his book what he predicts will happen with the role of academic freedom in the First Amendment.”
