Back to the BYU Cougars Newsfeed

Noah Feldman: Trump’s plan to protect free speech on campus is a bad idea

Free speech on campus is crucially important in a free society, and in some ways under significant threat. But President Donald Trump's proposal over the weekend to impose free speech on universities isn't the answer.

Rather, any effort from the White House to control campus speech would become part of the problem.

Public universities are already bound by the First Amendment. And private ones have their own free speech and free association rights, which presidential intervention would potentially violate.

It's essential to understand that freedom of speech on a university campus isn't the same as speech in a pure public forum, like on a street corner.