| The U.S. Supreme Court has discussed academic freedom in a variety of circumstances, leading to an assortment of judicial declarations regarding its importance in our democratic society. But the Court's pronouncements have been vague and unstructured, offering little guidance to lower courts and litigants. Additionally, the Court has suggested, albeit inconclusively, that academic freedom may be entitled to some degree of constitutional protection. As a result of these inconclusive pronouncements, some lower courts have been hesitant to afford academic freedom the constitutional protection alluded to by the Supreme Court.; More recent academic freedom cases have pitted faculty members against their universities qua institutions, leading to competing claims of academic freedom---that of the individual and that of the institution. This specific conflict was not envisioned by the Supreme Court as it proffered broad, open statements in support of a more universal concept of academic freedom Thus, the Court's amorphous pronouncements offer little guidance to lower courts attempting to balance the academic freedom rights of individuals against academic freedom rights of institutions. While the Court has discussed the issue of academic freedom in various settings, it has yet to directly evaluate competing individual and institutional claims to academic freedom. As a result, lower courts---and litigants, potential litigants, and policymakers---are left without a framework or structure in which to evaluate competing claims to academic freedom in the constitutional context.; Moreover, recent court decisions have misread or misinterpreted early Supreme Court decisions. These mis-readings have led to a conflation of the concepts of institutional academic freedom and institutional autonomy (or academic abstention). This conflation has starkly limited the protections afforded to individual academic freedom.; This dissertation examines and details the misunderstandings embodied in recent court decisions and tracks the impact of these erroneous decisions. Additionally, this dissertation concludes by detailing policy and litigation implications for individuals and institutions. |
