In a recent Justia blog post, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar wrote about the overlap and interconnectedness of the principles of freedom of speech and academic freedom. 

"It distresses me to see episodes these days in which speakers who are controversial for their conservative or ultra-conservative views are prevented from delivering invited remarks at universities (including public universities) because protestors choose to violate laws designed to protect public safety. It also distresses me to see so few liberal analysts decry how illiberal these episodes of group-imposed censorship are.

"As I have written at length elsewhere, no matter how repressive or otherwise abhorrent a speaker’s message, the appropriate response under our Constitution is counter speech, not shouting down or physically obstructing or threatening the speaker or the speaker’s audience. To be sure, protesting a speaker’s presence—registering profound objection to a speaker’s viewpoint—is perfectly appropriate and has a rich tradition dating from even before the 1960s free speech revolution through the Occupy movement. But what we have seen over the past several months is a transition from protesting against bad speakers to preventing them from being able to speak, and that is not acceptable."

Read the full post at verdict.justia.com.