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The debate over Academic Freedom has been ongoing since Universities have existed, but it has been boiling over for the past fifteen years. The Supreme Court has weighed in on this debate, and it's instructive to look at the issue from the Court's perspective, and also in the context of the ideological campaign that has fueled the fire.

The Supreme Court has declared the campus to be a "marketplace of ideas," and the speech that is funded, both by Student Activity Fees (a "self-tax" by the student body) and by the salaries of professors, is to be respected regardless of viewpoint (a principle called "viewpoint neutrality"). In other words, far from being "fair and balanced," speech should be respected and funded for meeting certain basic criteria of organization and competence, regardless of the slant which this respect engenders.

So, at Brigham Young University, the Mormon educational institution, or at Liberty University, the right-wing Christian college, you could reasonably expect to find more conservative professors and students, because they self-select to go there. Meanwhile, at UC Berkeley or at the New School, an alternative-model college, you could expect to find many more liberal students and faculty. The speech you will hear will be either decidedly liberal or decidedly conservative, and it is ALL CONSTITUTIONAL and fair, as long as basic principles are respected regarding in what context the speech is made. (For example, student club x inviting speakers to campus must raise a certain amount of money per year and keep accurate records of its membership and meetings, and professors universally are prohibited from discussing politics or ideology not germane to the subject of their course. And, of course, the rights of minority student clubs and professors to express their opinions must be equally respected.)

This is the marketplace of ideas. No one is without opinions, including educators and student organizations, and they are free to express them at will, within certain ethical constraints. However, the institutions regulating them must remain BLIND to the ideology expressed. In other words, a faculty member cannot be fired for being conservative, nor can a speaker be denied for being too liberal (unfortunately, both have happened; the latter was illustrated painfully by the number of administrators and professors who lost their jobs when a University of Colorado professor named Ward Churchill toured the country and spoke about the September 11th attacks

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