Free Speech and Campus Civility: Promoting Challenging but Constructive Dialog in Higher Education

Jeffrey L. Buller · Robert E. Cipriano

jun 2021 · Rowman & Littlefield

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Many colleges and universities are struggling to strike a balance between protecting free speech as a way of supporting their goal of academic freedom and promoting civility as a way of creating an environment where students can learn and faculty members can teach and conduct research. There have been numerous recent incidents of audiences shouting down speakers, burning books, and demanding that specific students be expelled or faculty members be terminated. In this highly fractious environment, schools are wondering “What works?” when seeking to attain the twin goals of permitting unrestricted speech but insisting on rules of decorum for debate and the exchange of perspectives. This book explores what schools have actually attempted, in some cases successfully and in some cases not successfully, to address these issues. It concludes that there are three primary strategies that tend to be effective: treating challenges to free speech and campus civility as “teachable moments”; exploring hypothetical scenarios with students, faculty members, and administrators before there is a serious incident; and approaching free speech and campus civility across the curriculum. The book also surveys United States case law on the topics of free speech, academic freedom, the right to protest, and similar subjects so as to provide faculty members and administrators with a concise resource filled with practical and accurate information.

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Jeffrey L. Buller is a senior partner in ATLAS: Academic Training, Leadership, and Assessment Services. He has served in administrative positions ranging from department chair to vice president for academic affairs at four very different institutions: Loras College, Georgia Southern University, Mary Baldwin College, and Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of twenty-one other books on education leadership, a textbook for first year college students, and a book of essays on the music dramas of Richard Wagner.

Robert E. Cipriano is former chair and professor emeritus of the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Southern Connecticut State University. He has a doctorate in therapeutic recreation, with an area of concentration in college teaching. He is the author of five books, one on collegiality in higher education, one on the Special Olympics, and three books on academic leadership in higher education.